“A painter who has the feel of breasts and buttocks is saved.”
– Auguste Renoir
“It’s not easy drawing women with only straight lines!”
– Bob Kessel
The nude in art—like all genres—has its fair share of tropes and clichés. The best pictures are ones that take the foundation of the genre and expand upon it or put a new spin on the material.
Bob Kessel has created a new art series titled, “THE NUDE” based on the works of famous artists throughout art history.
The pictures are available as limited edition fine art prints, signed and numbered by the artist. Contact Bob Kessel for prices and availability.
If there is one genre of art that seems to have played a greater role than any other, it is the nude.
For at least 30,000 years, humans have represented the naked form in a variety of ways.
From the ideal to the real, the Romantic to the Surrealist, there has been almost no end of works devoted to the unclothed human body.
The English language, with its elaborate generosity, distinguishes between the naked and the nude. To be naked is to be deprived of our clothes, and the word implies some of the embarrassment most of us feel in that condition. The word ‘nude’ on the other hand, carries, in educated usage, no uncomfortable overtone. … In fact, the word was forced into our vocabulary by critics of the early 18th century to persuade the artless islanders that, in countries where painting and sculpture were practiced and valued … the naked human body was the central subject of art.
Rubens did for the female nude what Michelangelo had done for the male. He realised so fully its expressive possibilities that, for the next century, all those that were not slaves of academism, inherited his vision of the body as pearly and plump. Round the Venuses or Dianas of the Fontainebleau School hangs a smell of stylish erotism, impossible, like all smells, to describe, but strong as ambergris or musk. One reason is that a trace of Gothicism, with all that it implies of seductive guesswork, persists in their proportions. Up to the time of le Moyne or even Houdon, the bodies of French goddesses retain the small breasts, long tapering limbs, and slightly accented stomachs of the sixteenth century. To this tradition of quasi-Gothic elegance certain painters of the dix-huitieme, Watteau above all, added Rubens’ feeling for the colour and texture of skin. No other painter has had a more sensitive eye for texture than Watteau, and the rarity of his nudes may even reflect a kind of shyness born of too tremulous desire which the spectacle of the living surface aroused in him. Perhaps the very unfrigid statues in his parks are telling us that he could only contain his excitement when the body was supposed to be of stone.
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THE NUDE: RUBENS VENUS by Bob Kessel
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THE NUDE: NU COUCHE by Bob Kessel
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THE NUDE: AKT MIT KATZE by Bob Kessel
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THE NUDE: WATER SNAKES by Bob Kessel
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THE NUDE: BATH GIRL by Bob Kessel
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THE NUDE: ZWEI FRAUEN by Bob Kessel
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THE NUDE: STRIPED SHEETS by Bob Kessel
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THE NUDE: AVEC MODELE by Bob Kessel
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THE NUDE: FEMME PENCHEE by Bob Kessel
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THE NUDE: SUNSPOTS by Bob Kessel
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THE NUDE: SILVER STARLET by Bob Kessel
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THE NUDE: TAN LINES by Bob Kessel
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THE NUDE: AWABI by Bob Kessel
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THE NUDE: BLACK HAIR by Bob Kessel
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THE NUDE: PINK ODALISQUE by Bob Kessel
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THE NUDE: IN ARTIST STUDIO by Bob Kessel
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THE NUDE: WITH IPAD by Bob Kessel
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THE NUDE: DOORWAY GIRL by Bob Kessel
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THE NUDE: LE REPOS DU MODELE by Bob Kessel
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THE NUDE: IN REPOSE by Bob Kessel
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THE NUDE: FRAUEN AKT by Bob Kessel
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THE NUDE: BRUCKE NACKTE by Bob Kessel
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THE NUDE: LESS IS MOORE by Bob Kessel
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THE NUDE: MOORE IS LESS by Bob Kessel
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THE NUDE: CHEVELURE by Bob Kessel
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THE NUDE: ALA PUVIS by Bob Kessel
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THE NUDE: BACK AND BLUE by Bob Kessel
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THE NUDE: TURBAN by Bob Kessel
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THE NUDE: BARE BACK by Bob Kessel
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THE NUDE: 2 NUDES by Bob Kessel
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THE NUDE: AM STRAND by Bob Kessel
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THE NUDE: TO MY CRITICS by Bob Kessel
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THE NUDE: PAINTING OF NUDE IN STUDIO by Bob Kessel
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THE NUDE: SHOULDER by Bob Kessel
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THE NUDE: PINK by Bob Kessel
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THE NUDE: JEANS by Bob Kessel
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THE NUDE: BATHER ORANGE by Bob Kessel
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THE NUDE: BATHER BACK by Bob Kessel
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THE NUDE: BATHER SOAP by Bob Kessel
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THE NUDE: LONG HAIR by Bob Kessel
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THE NUDE: IN DOORWAY by Bob Kessel
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THE NUDE: DRAPED by Bob Kessel
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THE NUDE: HINDOUE by Bob Kessel
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THE NUDE: MODELING by Bob Kessel
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THE NUDE: REFLECTION by Bob Kessel
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THE NUDE: WOMAN AT REST by Bob Kessel
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THE NUDE: BODY OF A GIRL by Bob Kessel
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THE NUDE: IN THE TUB by Bob Kessel
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THE NUDE: DEGAS GIRL by Bob Kessel
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THE NUDE: TORSO by Bob Kessel
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THE NUDE: ROY’S GIRL by Bob Kessel
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THE NUDE: TOMGIRL TORSO by Bob Kessel
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THE NUDE: MEL’S GIRL by Bob Kessel
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THE NUDE: WITH IMAC by Bob Kessel
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THE NUDE: BATHERS by Bob Kessel
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THE NUDE: BAIGNEUSES by Bob Kessel
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THE NUDE: ZWEI NACKTES by Bob Kessel
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THE NUDE: ETUDE DE NU by Bob Kessel
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THE NUDE: AT REST by Bob Kessel
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THE NUDE: SKETCH by Bob Kessel
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THE NUDE: THINKING by Bob Kessel
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THE NUDE: DIAMOND TORSO by Bob Kessel
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THE NUDE: PANTIES by Bob Kessel
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