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 »
Who says that fictions only and false hair Become a verse? Is there in truth no beauty?... Is all good structure in a winding stair? May no lines pass, except they do their duty Not to a true, but painted chair?LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
I ascend from darkness And depart on the winds of space for I know not where;... My watch is wound, a key is in my pocket, And the sky is darkened as I descend the stair.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Life seems to be an experience in ascending and descending. You think you're beginning to live for a single aim--for self-developm...ent, or the discovery of cosmic truths--when all you're really doing is to move from place to place as if devoted primarily to real estate.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
A bather whose clothing was strewed By winds that left her quite nude... Saw a man come along And, unless I am wrong, You expected this line to be rude.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Said the Duchess of Alba to Ga, "Paint a picture to hang in my foyer!"... So he painted her twice: In the nude, to look nice, And then in her clothes, to annoy her.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The catastrophe Buried in the stair carpet stayed there... And never corrupted anybody. And one day he grew up, and the horizon Stammered politely. The sky was like muslin. And still in the old house no one ever answered the bell.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Nakedness reveals itself. Nudity is placed on display.... The nude is condemned to never being naked. Nudity is a form of dress.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »