Musings on the Human Form

By Jiang Xun

Since the times of Ancient Greece, the human figure has been a never-ending theme in the artistic creations of the Western world. Two nude sculptures, Apollo and Venus, which are collected in the Vatican Museum and the Louvre respectively, have laid the foundation for the creative works of western fine art academies dating back more than two thousand years.

Is the unclothed human body truly beautiful? It seems that the question has been talked about and debated incessantly throughout the long history of Western art.

But why is it that the topic has never been discussed or even raised in Confucian-centric Eastern art?

[法] 歐仁·德拉克羅瓦　《自由領導人民》Liberty Leading the People by Eugène Delacroix [France]

In the beginning of the nineteenth century, around the time of Napoleon, the Imperial College of France often used nude figures—particularly female ones—in their artwork to symbolize abstract philosophical concepts, like freedom, liberation and democracy.

In 1830s, Eugène Delacroix, a French Romantic artist, painted his famous masterwork,Liberty Leading the People, that featured a half-naked, bare-breasted woman waving the flag of the French Republic, symbolizing the people’s pursuit, longing and striving for freedom and democracy.

Freedom is totally abstract,yet the female body is concrete.Apparently, Western artists tried to inspire the public by virtue of implanting this abstract ideology into the concrete female form.

This famous painting so oftadmired by visitors to the Louvre has shaped the whole of French society. And I couldn’t help but wonder, did the public truly value the abstract concept of “freedom”that the painting intended to convey, or were they simply affected by the nude female figure,or both? The answer could be rather ambiguous. However, such an ambiguity between abstract thought and the concrete human form is not likely to exist in Confucianism.

明 戴進 《踏雪尋梅圖》Savoring the Plum Blossom on a Snowy Day by Dai Jin, Ming Dynasty

從希臘開始，西方文明一直以人的裸體作為美術的創作主題。收藏在盧浮宮等博物館的阿波羅、維納斯的裸體雕像，長達兩千年，一直是西方藝術學院美術創作的基礎。

身體，沒有衣服遮蓋的肉體本身，可以是美的嗎？西方漫長的美術史，似乎一直在探索這一問題。

為什么在東方儒家文化主導的美術里，從來沒有提出和面對同樣的議題？

19世紀初，在拿破侖執政前后，法國宮廷學院的美術，常常以裸體（特別是女性裸體）來象征抽象的哲學概念，像“自由”，像“解放”，像“民主”。

19世紀30年代，浪漫主義的德拉克洛瓦，畫過一幅著名的《自由領導人民》。畫面中央就是一位半裸體、露出胸部的女性，手拿法蘭西共和國旗幟，象征民眾對自由民主的追求、向往與奮斗。

“自由”是很抽象的一個概念，但是，女性身體非常具象，好像西方文明要把抽象思維轉換成具象的肉體，才能煽動起大眾的熱烈情緒。

看著盧浮宮里這幅影響整個法國社會的名畫，我在想，民眾從畫里得到的究竟是對“自由”抽象概念的信仰，還是對女性裸體的感動，中間界限好像并不十分清楚。這種抽象思維與具象肉體的曖昧性，在儒家文化中，幾乎不會發生。

儒家的道德精神信仰訴諸文字，明明白白用漢字書寫成“自由”“民主”“解放”，不會假托一個女性裸體的肉身來表現。裸體，尤其是女性裸體，在儒家文化里，幾乎等同淫穢罪惡。

我們對肉體如此陌生，又對肉體充滿好奇，充滿“偷窺”的欲望。主流文化里看不到“肉身”的描述，“肉身”淪落在被主流文化視為敗德、罪惡的角落。

兩岸故宮的繪畫，看不到太多的“人”，更看不到赤裸的“肉身”，沒有肉身的繪畫，也沒有肉身的雕刻。一個數千年的文明，“人”的價值，只是抽象的思維，不曾在視覺上具體存在過，也無法在肉身的細節上被議論或思考。

[法] 弗朗索瓦·布歇 《女神埃拉托》　The Muse Erato by Fran?ois Boucher [France]

The Confucianists conveyed their moral and spiritual beliefs through the use of Chinese characters. For example, they would write down the words like“freedom”, “democracy” and“liberation” plainly to denote the meaning, rather than through the vehicle of a nude female figure. In Confucian culture, a nude figure,especially a nude female figure, is almost analogous to obscenity and sin.

The female body is both a novelty and a curiosity to the Chinese, who often have an unspeakable desire to see it “with their own eyes.” Yet such images are rarely found in mainstream Chinese culture, as they have been relegated to the dark and seedy corners on account of the fact that they are deemed immoral and evil in mainstream society.

In the National Palace Museums located in Beijing and Taiwan, you won’t find many figure paintings, let alone nude paintings or carvings. In the thousands of years of Chinese civilization, the human body has never had tangibility, let alone visibility, but has only existed in the collective mind’s eye of the Chinese people as an abstract concept, and thus, cannot be further discussed or contemplated in detail.

After the Song and Yuan Dynasties, landscapes began to edge out figures, and “human forms” in those paintings have gradually diminished into something insignificant, muted,faceless, and unidentifiable; a mere decoration whose existence nearly fades away among the mountains and rivers.

明 仇英 《江樓遠眺圖》A View of the Tower on the River Bank by Qiu Ying, Ming Dynasty

宋元以后，山水繪畫取代“人物”的描述，“人”只是千山萬水的大自然里，一個渺小蒼涼、沒有五官、沒有愛恨、不容易發現的存在。

山水畫里的“人”，只是一種升華的意境，意境很高，并不是真正實存的“肉身”。

西方到了19世紀，美術上，人的身體，如驚濤駭浪，風起云涌。一代一代的畫家，推陳出新，不斷顛覆舊有的身體造型，不斷創造思考新的身體存在的可能，造就每一個創作者，以全新的方式觀看身體、記錄身體、思考身體的各種可能。

人的生命價值，通過具象的真實肉身的描述，在充滿艱難、掙扎、狂喜、劇痛、高貴或卑微——形形色色的肉體的處境中，得到毫不遮掩、毫不隱諱的探索。◆

（摘自《肉身供養》現代出版社）

The figures in a landscape don’t represent any specific human form, but are merely the sublime conception of the high-minded artist.

However, in 1800s, wave after wave of artistic works depicting the human body sprang up all over the Western world.Generation after generation of Western painters, intent on both blazing new creative trails and leaving their indelible mark on the medium, overturned the existing art styles and brought forth novel ideas with which to explore new forms of expression of the human body. Since then, Western artists have begun to see, record and think about all the possibilities of the human body from new perspectives.

Therefore, the meaning of life, expressed via different kinds of depictions of the human body, exists in an environment intermingled with hardship,struggle, ecstasy, agony,nobility and humility, and has been explored in a direct and straightforward manner.◆