NUDITY IN ART

By Arnel Mirasol

Shown in above photo from left, Boy Yap, Tony Tejado's friend, Tony Tejado, myself, Rene Ricanor, and Albino Dancel. Not in photo is Jun Diaz who took the picture.

There were six of us, UST Fine Arts classmates, who went to Cubao for our first ever nude sketching session - me, Arsenio Isidro Yap, Antonio Tejado, Rene Ricanor, Albino Dancel, and Jun Diaz. The venue was a cozy bungalow in Cubao, whose foreigner owner was momentarily out of the house. The guy who ushered us in was Tony Tejado's friend. He worked as a boy in the house. I forgot his name, but he was the one who took care of getting the girls who would pose nude for us. The girls, aged 14 and 20, were dancers in a nearby cocktail lounge. I don't remember the exact year, but this could be in early 1974, when we were but a bunch of Fine Arts freshmen out to see for ourselves how it was to be face to face with girls willing to pose naked for us. Life sketching classes weren't offered to freshmen. We have to wait one or two years more before we can enroll in that class. That's why one of us - I don't remember who - came up with that bright idea of holding our own "extra-curricular nude sketching class".The sketching session didn't turned out well, because not one among us came out with a finished sketch. We were either truly still sketching neophytes, or were just plain awestruck by the beauties before us.

A female artist once remarked that she pities women nude models. For her, disrobing for a living, even before artists, is shameful. That would be true in many cases. The models we had who worked as bar dancers, especially the fourteen year old girl, were surely among the pathetic ones. But there are the lucky ones also, who earn big money for a job that would take just a few hours to accomplish. An artist friend, Frank Cruzet, who lives in Canada, even claimed that nude models there are a pampered lot. They are fetched  from their homes in a car, are made to pose nude for only a few hours, and then brought home again in the same car, with several hundred, or even a thousand, dollars in their pockets. Filipino artists, of course, cannot match the fees being paid by their Canadian counterparts, but I'm sure they are substantial enough,

Misconceptions abound about what goes on behind closed doors between artists and their nude models. I assure you that most of them are not true, especially if the sketching is being done by a group (below right). When artists sit in front of their easels, their concerns are narrowed down to a single all-encompassing objective, which is to translate into lines and colors the naked form they see before them. Libido issues are set aside. The only thing that matters is how to come out with a sketch that would compare favorably with those done by their fellows.

Nude painting adept Buds Convocar with model and finished artwork

But artists are humans too, and "aberrations" do occur. If the session is one-on-one, romantic ideas may come up. There was the well-publicized case of a painter who, overly aroused by the sight of his pubescent girl model, chucked off his sketching materials and proceeded instead to molest her. He was jailed for it - a not very positive outcome I would say for a painter who would have made his mark in the Philippine art scene had he not allowed his nether lascivious side to dominate him.

But that only prove that character is destiny, because this painter once took pride in styling himself as the "Father of Philippine Erotic Art". Living up to that tag, this painter had the temerity one time to gift himself with a kinky cake during a birthday celebration. This cake was adorned by a single lighted candle in the shape of a prick, which two rather reluctant children were prodded to blow.

That's not all. He also cooked up the idea of holding nude sketching sessions in a restaurant in Makati. This brought him into trouble with the alert citizens of the city. After receiving complaints from the moral guardians and church people, then Makati Mayor Nemesio Yabut, put his foot down, and ordered the "immoral activity" stopped. The said painter disregarded an unwritten rule which disallows kibitzers or onlookers in a room where a nude sketching session is taking place. That's the reason why I found it difficult to agree to suggestions by former classmates who are not painters, that we hold a nude sketching session with me as the only sketching artist. I also remember a story where a famous painter once talked to a female painter - a new recruit to their art group - who refused or was hesitant to sketch, because she was not yet confident of her sketching skills: He said that in their group, women can only do two things- they can either draw, or pose nude. The lady painter of course chose draw, and today, she is one of the revered masters of the female form in the Philippine art scene.

Birth of Venus by Boticelli

Venus of Urbino by Titian

Painters are celebrities all right. Many of them became famous for their paintings of female nudes. Botticelli, Titian, Francisco de Goya, and Edouard Manet, were prime examples. But the models for their paintings, who would have died unheard and unsung if they haven't posed nude, became famous too. Who would have remembered Simonetta Vespucci, the Duchess of Urbino, the Duchess of Alba, and Victorine Meurent, if they haven't modeled for the paintings The Birth of Venus, Venus of Urbino, La Maja Desnuda, and Olympia respectively?  There was also Gabrielle, or Ga, who worked as a bonne (maid) in the Renoir household. He was Pierre-Auguste Renoir's model for many of his paintings of  overly voluptuous female nudes (bottom picture).

La Maja Desnuda by Goya

Olympia by Manet

Why am I saying these? Well, I just want to further propagate the notion that nude modeling could be a respectable profession. No reason to be embarrassed by it. Celebrities have posed in the nude. There are two that easily came to mind. I saw in FHM Magazine the feature on erstwhile Pu3Ska vocalist Myra Ruaro (a.k.a. Skarlet), who posed nude for a group of painters. Another one was Myrna Castillo. I don't know if you remember that 1980s sexy star - but I first became aware of her when I read in a movie magazine an item about her posing nude for painter Jonahmar Salvosa. Myrna and Jonahmar were just starting then. That nude sketching session was the first in their series of stepping-stones to fame. Myrna Castillo's star may have dimmed for good, but many I'm sure could still recall the name. Especially Jonahmar (below) - who is still at it, creating sketches that would confirm his status as one of the Philippines' finest painters of female nudes.