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. Th...e word "nude," on the other hand, carries, in educated usage, no uncomfortable overtone. The vague image it projects into the mind is not of a huddled and defenseless body, but of a balanced, prosperous, and confident body: the body re-formed. In fact, the word was forced into our vocabulary by critics of the early eighteenth century to persuade artless islanders that, in countries where painting and sculpture were practiced and valued as they should be, the naked human body was the central subject of art.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Those who were skillful in Anatomy among the Ancients, concluded from the outward and inward Make of an Human Body, that it was th...e Work of a Being transcendently Wise and Powerful. As the World grew more enlightened in this Art, their Discoveries gave them fresh Opportunities of admiring the Conduct of Providence in the Formation of an Human Body.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
To endow the writer publicly with a good fleshly body, to reveal that he likes dry white wine and underdone steak, is to make even... more miraculous for me, and of a more divine essence, the products of his art. Far from the details of his daily life bringing nearer to me the nature of his inspiration and making it clearer, it is the whole mystical singularity of his condition which the writer emphasizes by such confidences. For I cannot but ascribe to some superhumanity the existence of beings vast enough to wear blue pajamas at the very moment when they manifest themselves as universal conscience.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Each body has its art, its precious prescribed Pose, that even in passion's droll contortions, waltzes,... Or push of pain or when a grief has stabbed, Or hatred hacked is its, and nothing else's.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
I wish thee peace in all thy ways, Nor lazy nor contentious days;... And when thy soul and body part, As innocent as now thou art.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
I had, as I told you, a great passion while still almost a child. When it was over, I divided myself in two, placing on one side t...he soul I kept for Art, and on the other, my body, which would have to fend for itself.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
That man, I think, has had a liberal education who has been so trained in youth that his body is the ready servant of his will, an...d does with ease and pleasure all the work that, as a mechanism, it is capable of; whose intellect is a clear, cold logic engine, with all its parts of equal strength and in smooth working order; ready, like a steam engine, to be turned to any kind of work, and spin the gossamers as well as forge the anchors of the mind; whose mind is stored with a knowledge of the great and fundamental truths of Nature and of the laws of her operations; one who, no stunted ascetic, is full of life and fire, but whose passions are trained to come to heel by a vigorous will, the servant of a tender conscience; who has learned to love all beauty, whether of Nature or of art, to hate all vileness, and to respect others as himself.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »