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This work vvas originally published in French as Federico Ferrari and

Jean-Luc Nancy, ils SOI 1 11C5 [ a peau des illlages] Klincksieck, 2006,

Brussels, The texts under M, Q, and T have been substituted by theauthors for those in the original French edition,

Copyright © 2014 Fordham University Press

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored ina retrieval systern, or transmitted in any form or by any rneans-clcctronic,

mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any other-except for brief quotations

in printed reviews, without the prior pernùssion of the publisher.

This work has been published with the assistance of the French Ministry of

Culture-National Center for the Book.

Ouvrage publié avec le concours du Ministère fi'ançais chargé de la cul tureCentre National du Livre.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Ferrari, Federico, author.

[Nus sommes. English]

Being nude : the skin of images / Jean-Luc Nancy and Federico

Ferrari; translated by Anne O'Byrne and Carlie Anglemire.

pages cm

Summary: 26 reflections on nude images from the history of Western

art including Rembrandt, Goya, David Hockney and Nan Golden. The

authors, both philosophers, develop an approach to the nude that involves

shedding preconceived concepts and exposing ourselves to the fleeting sense

that passes over the surface of the nude's skin and over the surface of theimage - Provided by publisher.

Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN 978-0-8232-5620-4 (hardback) - ISBN 978-0-8232-5621-1 (paper)1 Nude in art. 2. Nudity-Psychological aspects. 3. Aesthetics.

1 Nancy, Jean-Luc, author. II. O'Byrne, Anne E. (Anne Elizabeth),1966- translator. III. Title.

N7572.F47213 2014704.9'421-dc23

2013049272

Printed in the United States of America

16 15 14 5 4 3 2 1

First edition

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Contents

Preamble 1

A Acephalous 7 N NÜ bus 67B Bathsheba l 0 Optic 7

C Caress 17 P Presence 75D Disfiguration 23 Q Quodlibet 79E Equivocal 27 R Resurrection 85F Fenestration 31 S Scopophilia 87G Goya 35 T Trans 9

HUlllUS 4 U Use 971 Incarnate 47 V Veritas 103

J Joker 51 W We 109K Khaos 55 X X 113L LUll1bar 59 Y y 117M Mode l 63 Zero 121Illustration Sources and redits 123

otes 125

v

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reamble

Pream.ble: before alubling off or taking a walk, for exarnple,through a picture gallery This one offers twenty-six pictures,paintings or photographs chosen for no reason but the arbitrari

ness and chance of our two tastes and interests. This arbitrarinessexposes us in a certain nudity.We have not clothed ourselves inknowledge or philosophy. We have no pretext or end to motivatea particular approach. In fact, it s not even really an approach,just a walk, a flaneur s wandering, which doesn t have to justifYitself.

Our interest in the nude is the rnost widely shared thing inthe wor ld a t least, in the world of Western art, since otherregions and periods of art have made nudity serve other interests.In fact, one rnight s y that everywhere else, nudity seenlS to beunderstood in erotic and/or sacred terrns, whereas the Westernnude seerns to be exposed for its own sake and to olier an interestin itself that is not related to the ends of knowledge or pleasure.

Undoubtedly, it always seenlS ready to be turned toward some-thing true or an experience of jouissance. But it neverthelessrenlains suspended, withdrawn, and undecidable. We are likewiseexposed, without theory or art history, in our own encounterswith the figures or singular rnornents of this nude that interests

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Preamble

art for itsown sake. O f course, it always also awakens sonle nl0ve-nlent of curiosityor desire,but is never reduced to it. This nlove-ment is so obviousand conventional that itis clear that thenudewants sonlething e l se -o r that it wantsnothing but to be nude.

What guided us both, each in our own way is this sortofpresence that is both fiUed with and strippedof itself, awithholding of cornplete exposition, the nlinglingof Inodestyandaudacityin an appearing that assurnesor consunles being. t isnot really being,but rather a flash, not perrnanence,but theinstantaneousnessof what carmot take root. Itis not a sense tobediscernedor deciphered behind aIl the signs and strokes, butaboveaIl sonlething true right at the skin.

Something true right at the skin, skinas truth: neither thebeyond-the-skin sought by desire,nor the underside that science

ainlS for, nor the spiritual secretof flesh revealed.For us, thenude is neither erotic nor anaton1Ïcalnor authentic. It rernainson the edge of or beyond these three postulations.The truthright at the skin is only true in being exposed,in being offeredwithout reservebut also without revelation. AfteraU what thenude reveals is that thereis nothing to be revealed,or that there

is nothing other than revelation itself,the revealingand what canbe revealed,both at once. It doesn't havethe power to lay bare;that is to say it is naked only in this verynarrow place- thesk in -and for this verybrief tÎlne.

I f a nude is not relentlessly itsown stripping bare,i f it is noteach tinle its appearanceand the sinlultaneous fragility, rnodesty,

and flash of this appearing that nlakesnothing appearother thanappearingitsel( then it is not nude but nudity, a spectaclefor the scienceof observationor lascivious Inanipulation.

That is why the inlageis its element,and its skinis alwaystheskinof an inlage.What renders itselfnaked rnakes itself aninuge,pure exposition. Itis no accident, then,nor a nutter of objective

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Prcamblc

or sensual curiosity, that the im.age devotes itself to the nude.The im.age of the nude replays its own nudity each tirne; it plays

its own skin o f the inldge: the conlplete presentation there in theforeground, on the only plane of the image, of what has preciselyno other plane, no dissinlulated depth, and no secret. The secretis on the skin (the secret and the sacred). Painting, drawing orphotographing the nude always poses the sanle challenge: howto represent the unrepresentable filgacity of stripping bare, the

instant nlOdesty that Olnes to conceal revelation, and the indecency that cornes to reveal the evasion.

The one and the other take turns exposing just this: here is asubject in the strict sense of the word, sub jectum: there is nothingbeneath it, and it no longer hides anything else. It rests on itselCand this self is the skin, the thinness of skin and its flesh color.

What painting paints when it colors itself with flesh and whatthe photo captures when it takes a body is the trans-parencythat plays on the skin, or that nlakes skin. This is an appearingthat rnakes nothing appear, a lurninosity that sheds light on itselfalone, a diaphanous touch that allows one to make out nothingbut its touch itself.

Today nu dit has becorne a relentless Inotif of thought; perhapsit goes back to Nietzsche, the first conternporary thinker to scoffat Europeans in their moral clothing, unable to get undressedwithout shanle. 1 Perhaps it goes back rnuch fiuther, to thoseGreek statues whose nudity seelns to us to have been divinityitself and whose artful nudity undoubtedly still retains a rnernorynùxed with Christian anxiety about flesh, as well as the sense of

an exposition that is both fragile and precious. These three tonalities of the nu d e - t h e divine nude, naked sin, and naked s n -

occupy thought today in rnany different ways, and Levi-Strauss'stide homme nu can serve as an enlblern for this thought. Thepreoccupation occurs in different registers, fronl the horror of

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Pl eamble

bodies thrown onto the charnel heap to the desperate desireto111ake bodies their own icons and it always leadsus back in thedirectionof stripping bare andconling undone. This alllbiguousproxinüty is also anopportunity for thought if: forthought it isa nutter above aIl else of renuining stripped bareof aIl receivednleaningand figures that have alreadybeen traced.The nudesofpaintersand photographers expose this bareness and suspenseonthe edge of a sensedu t is always nascent always fleetingon thesurfaceof the skin and on the surfaceof the Îlllage.

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Acephalous

It s not just an unfinished drawing (in fact, ifs the first state of

a work). The tact that t is unfinished reveals sOlTlething aboutthe intention or the scene. If Antiope s face does not appear, t

isbecause it

isdispensable in the eyes of Zeus. His gaze

iscon

centrated on the body. Transforrned into a satyr, the god, awornan-chaser, covets a naked body, its belly, thighs, and breasts.Nudity is the prey here, and the face does not belong to it,because the face would delnand something else from the satyr,sOlTlething other than to be grabbed and rnade the recipient of

his cun1. The myth o f Antiope is the story of a rape. But when

gods assault nl0rtals it often goes rnore or less like this: theywant to fuck only the skin and the WOlTlb. This is how t wasfor Leda, Danae, 10 even for Europa - the bull carried her off

without looking at her. They want a naked body, and that is

what they take, with no concern for anything else. Here thehand of god is going to raise the veil that still, though only

barely, covers the place he will penetrate. But already, as it fàlls,the veil takes on the shape of a phallus, of a prick corning to

strike her in her sex.

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Acephalous

This engraving in1itates a VanDyck painting in which noth-ing is left unfinished. Acornparison of the veils in the twoirnages, as weIl as of the faces of the satyr, showshow n1uchvan der Steen wanted to ernphasizethe elernent of phaIlicviolence.)

Brute and brutal desire reduces itsobject to a body without ahead, and reduces thisbody to the crotch where desire wantstocorne. In the coupling of gods and rnortals, itis always a rnatterof insenlÎnation, and there are always childrenas a result. In thiscase the children willbe Arnphion and Zethos.

But brute desire is not necessarily brutal. His lust can haveaIl the violence of his turn10il.The naked body that throwshirn into tunnoil for hün signifies grabbing thrusting andpouring forth. This body is neither to be looked at nor listened

to. Itis to be handled, invaded, and inundated. It also has itsheadrernoved.Without a face, the body cornes apart cornpletely. Itsnudity is a n1ultiplicityof approachesand touches.This skin nolonger holds together a unity: itbecomes the occasion fortheagitationto which it is offered: breaststo be grabbed,buttocksto be kneaded thighs to be opened. At each point there is a

point to arouse, a tension to irritate. This nudity no longerconsists of being undressed. It consistsof being stretched andspread out decapitated because separatedfrom a center and agovernment.

The one who OlIles to take itin order to stir up his comingsand goings doesnot dOlIlinate it:no one governs it any n10re.

Both of thelIl lose their heads. The one who takes also loseshiIIlselfin the ta king. He too is left naked: everythingis throwninto his prick.The piece of cloth in the shape of a phallusnolonger hides anything: it reallyis a peniswith its naked shaft;itis the textileof the naked in its erectile texture. AIlthe foids and

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cephalous

unfoldings o f he veil that billow beneath Antiope a l the learnedstudy of draping and cruITlpling a l the palpable stretching and

turning is no longer either cloth or curtains but is really theeffervescent foarn that becon1.es the soul and therefore the formof the naked body itself.

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In The Nude A Study in Ideal Fonn Kenneth Clark, followingErwin Panofsky, sets out the essential elenlents of a them)' of thenude that is still very infiuential today aluong both art historians

and experts in aesthetics.2

According to this discourse, the nudeconstitutes the artistic-rnetaphysical genre par excellence. Insofaras it is abstracted frmu the düuension of the particular and theproper, the nude is the rnanifestation of sornething fixed, ÜUIUO-bile, and tirneless: beauty. Since it first appeared, the representation of the nude has therefore responded to one question: Whatis man, in general? 3 It is precisely because ofits obstinate will togive a visible fonu to the hurnan that the nude is the distinctivesign of Western society and the luillenarian rnetaphysics that goesin search of a sensible image of the ideal. Greek statues are themost sophisticated example of this, since they are the tangiblesign of the power of a people and a culture capable of extractingfronl brute, forrnless luatter the abstract ideal of a humanityfinally rnade accessible to the senses. The nude therefore represents not a body but an idea: the idea of nun. It is not thedemonstration of what Man is; it is Man hirnself, definitivelyexposed to a gaze with no vanishing lines, a gaze that is iU1l110bilized before the fixity and eternity of its essence.

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But what is man? And what is nlan in general? Can we reallythink that Nude is the Iurne that defines the hunlanity andessence of Man? O r do we have to start thinking that the

nude - t he nude that appearedwith nl0dernity and perhapseven earlier, in one type of Christian Renaissance art oranother- is exactly this absenceof naIne that only aproper nanlecan inhabit?For us nl0derns, the Nude in itself doesnot exist. Ithas disappeared forever.The Nude rnet its end with the end ofaIl hUlnanisrn, that is the end of aIl visions of the world thatinsisted that there was an evident universal essenceof nlan. Manis not evident, not even in the nude. This is what nl0dern artshows us.

Bathsheba is naked, inlnlobileand sculptural, in an absolutebeing-in-the-self that is at the saIne tÜlle an absolutebeingoutside-the-self.4 Bathsheba is silent: she is i I ~ f à I 1 Swordless. Hergaze is lost in reading the letter frorn David.The language isindecipherable and leaves Bathsheba even nlore nakedand disanned: she is elç-static outside herself,in a state of utter disorientation. Her body is in the gaze of another and in the writtenwords that draw her beyond herself, into the world. The worldof sense is suspended. Yet what renuins is not the insignificanceof pain or the hyper-significanceof a nlodel of hurnanity. Whatrenuins is the significanceof her naked body and of a gaze thateludes every systenlof signs. The naked body and the gaze (ofthe nude and of the spectator) exceed the systenlof possible signification and establish a spacewith uncertain linlits, in which

the singular generalityof an existenceand the sense that it carriesin itself suddenly appear.

In fact, sense doesn't really emerge, since itis already conlpletely on the surface, on the surface of the body and on the surface of the painting over which the gaze passes. The nude is thesurface of sense and as such it is neither the signifier nor the sig-

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nified: it is pure signification, and the first exposition. The nude,nudity, and flesh rnelt into one another and/ or oscillate in a bal

ancing nlovernent with no apparent resolution. The naked bodyofBathsheba is a body of ouissance and suffering, but it is also abody cornpletely exposed, outside itself on the linunal edge ofits skin. The oil of the paint is the lirninallayer of her flesh, butit is also the touch that gives pleasure on the surface of the body.

Unlike the fonnal nlOdel which inspired IZenlbrandt (an

engraving by Perrier that reproduces an ancient Rornan basrelief showing a wornan bathing with her servant), Bathsheba is

naked, cornpletely naked and cornpletely detached fi om her historical context and frOlu the hieratic, authoritative character o f abiblical figure. And it is precisely nudity, the stripping bare of aU

luodels, that creates the eimatlosigkeit that ditlerentiates her fronI

classical iconology and projects her not into the aternporality ofa nlythical dinlension but into the new dirnension of an unprece-dented singularity.

By rneans of the singularity of its shape and its non-ideality,Bathsheba s body is the ernblenl of nudity itself, of the nudity ofthe nloderns. The naked body is life-size. A little red velvet rib-bon that hangs down frOl her hair and stands out against thedark colors aU around her l akes the whole painting vibrate anddraws attent ion to her breasts. The left breast is slightly defornled:it s probably a t un I0 r the evil that insinuates itself into herb o d y a n inIpelfection that l akes her nudity even nlore singular.And it is exactly this absolute singularity, this unrepeatability inwhich evil disfigures beauty, that causes her nakedness to belong

not to the order of (in) sensible sense but to the order of significance. Every sign effectively dissolves in repetition. Her nakednessis unrepeatable. Far frorn being a nI0del, a definite and definitiveessence, her nudity l ike aIl nudities since, but also like rnanythat carne before is the opening of an endless interrogation. In

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the end, the nude asks again: What is Inan in general? But onlya singular naIne succeeds, tinle afi er tüne, in forming a feasibleresponse in the face of the reiterated question. There is noresponse to the letter that Bathsheba holds in her hand and thatasks to be deciphered, to receive a sense and an unequivocalresponse: words fail her. AlI that relnains is the nudity of awounded and disoriented woman which becornes the crisis ofevery rnetaphysics of the sign, every will to hyper-signification,classification, systenlatization, granting of sense, and nlanifestationof essence. The question gets lost in the singularity of the flesh.t is the very essence of the nude that is lost. Short ofand beyond

every essence there reinains the inlnlanenCe of a body, its beingthere with no answers, totally exposed, and with no protection.

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aress

Is desire always in play in the representation of the nude? Wenuy think so, but we cannot be sure. There are nudes that sus-pend desire, subordinating it to a presentation of forn1s that are

not rneant to be desired because they are content with takingpleasure in themselves, or with being their own desire and pleasure.These nudes, su ch as Titian s Venus qf Urbino Picasso s Les Demoi-selles d Avignon (and perhaps rnost ofhis nudes), and even, thoughin a different way Modigliani s nudes are ail sated. (Perhaps thereare satisfied nudes, nudes of desire, and nudes of suffering, andlTIaybe it is not always possible to irnpose just one of these cate-gories on a given irnage.)

Desire can form the subject or the object of a representation,but this does not prevent it being both at the same tirne. It is thesubject when a painting shows what a subject desires and thatthe subject desires it (it does not matter whether the subject is thepainter or the spectator). t is the object when the painting showsdesire at work. In Cézanne s Ajterrzoon in Naples 5 the two possi-bilities are conjoined. On the one hand, the scene that is shownis a scene of desire; on the other, the scene of lTIonstration, or the

showing scene, if one can put it that way is the scene of the desireto see, to share or to touch the desire that is shown. This is because

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C a l C S S

what is shown, what both proposes and in1poses itsel( is the caressof two bodies toward which we advance through an entrancecreated by the lifting of a curtain (an anachronistic reference to anancient pictorial topos) and by the rnovernent of a servant wholeads us in behind the couple, catching them in a caress. (Can acaress be seen, other than by surprise?)What is shown is the greatflash of lightning, the white lightning of the wornan s bodystretched against the nun s brown body, with an arn1 around him.One body is lying on top of the other, but as if lightly elevatedabove it, posing rather than posed, the whole in a fragile equilib-rium. They are lying down but also suspended, capable of slippingor of a sort of leap, which the woman s left leg appears ready tornake. The painting s lack of depth suggests that the woman s knee

is touching the black ann of the servant, whose legs appear alsoto touch the woman s feet. Everything here touches and transmitsthe contact or contagion of desire and its arousal and satisfaction,its light touch and ernbrace, which is not, however, an interlacing.

t is a light touch, with barely any pressure. It is the irnpression ofskin against skin, right next to the skin. Nudity of desire, andtherefore fi agile nudity, which tastes suspense and indecision rather

than enjoying possession. The naked bodies, supported and leftin languorous expectation or repose, are reprised in the doublegesture above thern of the lifting of the cUl tain and the carryingand presenting of the tray bearing a discretely erectile teapot.What does it contain? A thirst-quenching beverage or a stimulat-ing philter?Whatever it is, this is what, held in the air, occupies

the center of the con1position. This is what cOlnbines in the middle of the painting an aerial suspension and the prOlnise of flowing.

t is held and held out at the extrernity of an élan that opens andapproaches, an eruption of red and black with a golden headscalf, an almost naked body that COlnes, in its obscure presence,to share and Inultiply the caressing cOlnplicity. (Isn t a caress corn-

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Cares s

plicity in the first place?)But there is yet another turn in this representation-there is,

precisely, another presentation. One is ternpted to say: there isobviouslyanother presentation, becauseaIl presentations calI fortheir redoubling, even their excess.And this is so for nudity rnorethan for any other presentation.)

This additional turn is given by the Inirror (obviously ).Wesee only the reflection of the sheet in i t a s weIl as, though very

blurred and indistinct,the reflectionof the black won1an, acounterpoint to the white sheet. The undone sheet, spread out, sig-nifies the love made on or beneath it, the love whose nakedplace this is. t signifies the nakedness of stripping lovers, like aveil falling frorn their exposed bodies as they undress and liedown, n1Ïngling in a wan11, cTun1pling caress.

The reflected sheet faIls along the vertical line of the n1irrorlike a chute of water that goes on, passingbeneath the fi-an1e ofthe rnirror, continuing to froth in the eddies of the real sheet,flowing to the botton1 of the painting, a strean1 that carriesthebodies and bathes then1, or that flows fron1 then1. (That thisisabout flowing, and flowing out, is suggested by the teapot asweil as by the ewer in the niche, which reinterprets the therne ofthe vase with a generous n10uth,which perhaps plays atbeingfel11inine, as the teapot plays at being nusculine.) But if aIl wesee in the rnirror is this reflection, the two wornen lTlUst also seethe reflection of the scene of which they are a part. The nunturns his gaze towardthe window, where the light of the sunreprises the golden tint of the lover's body. The won1en's gazesintercept eachother in the front of the scene, which we see onlyfron1 the back. Frornour position, we are ledto believe that the111irror reflects their frontal nudity, their breastsand stomachs_ treflects the 111an s nudity, too, his relaxed penis,the fragile nudityof what has poured out.

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Caress

Ali of the gazes-theirs and ours-are organized and captivatedby this before that is turned toward the rnirror or toward the

sky and placed under the sign of the after (in h-ont of behind,in tern1S of space as weU as time.) This is because the caress,during this rnornent of l'est, already wants to begin again. t is

content with its own spectacle and caUs for its resurnption, afervor that is always renewed, just as naked bodies are alwaysoffered anew and always renew an infinite desire.

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Disfiguration

In nimal ocomotion EadweardMuybridge tried to arrest rnoveITlent to freeze a figurein n10tion, and afterwardto bring it backto life through a successionof photogran1s. His sequencesintroduce-possibly for the first time in the historyof ail figurativeart (including, therefore,photography)-time as a central eleITlentof representation. His nudes and platesof anin1al subjects conse·quently takeon their true Ineaningonly in a sequence, or,in acertain way in a chrono-photography. (Étienne-Jules Marey,who coined this word, was atthe tin1e one of the rnastersof thistechnique.)Thanks to Muybridge s work,the necessityof confronting the enigInatic relation that existsbetween figure andtime, that is the problem of a figure s Inovelnentand the wayinwhich it is in motion, becon1es filndamental and evident.

Alreadyin Degas-who for a long time studied the work ofthis Englishphotographer, his contelnporary, inorder to depictaninuls in motion at the center of his canvases- this problern

appears absolutelymodern and becornes the very heart ofModernity. Obviously,Futurism and Cubisrn realize itsinnovative elernentsand its rnost spectacular potentialities byworkingthem out in infinite variations,but probably onlywith Bacon,in

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Disf igurat ion

the dornain of painting, was Muybridge's heritage really takenup, thought aU the way through, and thereby reinvented.

Study for a ude (1951) is one ofBacon's first nudes, and theindebtedness to Muybridge is inunediately evident. The numbersthat appear to the right of the figure are a reference to the nmnbering of Muybridge's photographs. Even the stage on whichMuybridge's subjects usually rnove is partially retained, though itbecornes a theatrical cage, a black theater box in which the fig-ure is about to dissolve. It is as i f in rnoving the figure has beendissociated fronl itsel( leaving only a trace of itself at each pointin the space traversed. The figure is thus reduced, to put it asBacon does, to a trace ofhuman presence, as ifhunlan presencealways gives itself only as a trace or a collection of traces. ForBacon, it is no longer possible-by contrast to Muybr idge- toput the figure in focus, to freeze it in nl0tion. Liberated frorncognitive or illustrative obligations, it lnoves within the picturespace. There is no longer any need for a sequence (although weknow that Bacon was also attracted by that possibility) to set it inmotion, because the figure itselfis movernent. Muybridge's ges-ture is reversed: the nurnbers behind the figure are written backward. Bacon's painting is figurative insofar as t shows thernovenlent that a body conlpletes in order to become a figure.His use of color, the black of the ink into which the body seernsto disappear, shows the research, the study, through which anaked body, in nlovernent, succeeds in shattering the clichés ofthe Hunlan Figure and exposes it to tinle, to birth and death,which COlne up so often-alnlost obsessively-in interviews withBacon and in his work.

Bacon's painting is this infinite study, this repeated and neverfinished attempt to get the naked to show itself, to get one whois naked a nude) to give itself as a figure. For Bacon, it is reallythe lnaterial of the nu d e o f the body, which is no rnore hurnan

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Disf igura t ion

than anitnal-that, Inore forcefuily than anyother subject, ailowsthe disfiguring of figuration in order to Inake a figure and its

rnovem.ent appear.The pictorial gestureis skinned, strippedof ailnarrative, anatonùcal, classificatory, seinantic, syrnbolic,or sanctifYing intent.What appears is the simple presenceof the real, itsfiguraI side: the nudity of a body. As Michel Leiris rightly writes,what appears is therefore art stripped of ail rneaningbeyond itsown practice. This is the nudity of an art in which the true

nature of ail realist art em.erges:the real is never a given; the realis realized. Paintingis precisely the praxis at theheart of whichthe real realizes itselfbybeconùng a figure exposedto tirne. Andbecause of this exposure to the excesses of tinle, each f igu reabove ail the nude figure, which is of course, strippedof anyornanlentation that could tie it to a particular temporality-isalways in the process o f disfiguring itself.The restlessnessof timesets atreInblethe inlrnobility that reignsin the nlÏrror of the representation and propagates rnovement there. After this shock,after this rupture of spatioternporal continuity,one can use theterm figure only for thisform (oflife) that, strippedo f everything,accepts the suspension of its proper fixity, its Ï1npassibility,andexposes itselfto the continuaI disfigurationof itself, to the continuaI exceeding of the body in relation to the self that is thebody's self. Only then can the act and the naked body beconlefigure and realize themselves. They become an existence, abeing-always-outside-of-itself,on the stufaceof the canvas, rightat the skin.

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ulvocal

Alexander had his mistress Campaspe painted by the great painterApeUes, who was his official painter and the only one he aUowedto do his portrait. Alexander wanted Carnpaspe naked ob dmir -tionem joym e ( in admiration ofher beauty ), according to Pliny.While working, ApeUes feU in love with her. The king noticedand offered his mistress to the painter. The scene was paintedseveral tirnes, but David represents it in a unique way. In lieu ofa grouped scene, as in other works, he arranges it on a widescale, so that the three people can be clearly seen. The two men,one behind the other, are turned toward the wmnan, who is ata distance fronl thern. Hel' nudity is exposed to thenl, and out ofrnodesty, though without being frightened, she nlakes a vaguegesture of reserve. But for those who know the story, her e m b r ~

rassnlent or her coquetry could both flatter her master while dis-simulating her deception and also intensify her lover's desire whilereassuring hinl of her nlastery of the game. Canlpaspe's nu di ty

exposed as the truth of her beauty, is therefore the place of andwhat is at stake in an irnbroglio of desire: both Alexander's desireand Apelles's are satisfied and frustrated. Alexander desires theirnage-desire for Inastery, for suprelne appropriation of thisbody that has already been possessed-although t has already

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been stolen fi Ol11hÜ11.Apelles desires the body-which he alsoalready possesses, even if he s only gripped it with his eyes-buthe can only have the image (and the tirne to execute it).

Along with Cam.paspe s gestures ofnl0desty, the carefully chosen décor tells us everything about the duplicity of nudity. Thisdécor consists of nothing but the bed, whose white sheets are setoffby black curtains. t is not only décor, a fral11efor presentation,but it is the painter s bed (as if one is ITleant to believe that Apellessleeps in his studio which he nlust in fact do when the kingis not there). The rnodesty itself is arnbiguous, because if Canlpaspe seerns to rnake a vague gesture to coyer herself with herhair, she covers nothing neither her breasts Bor her beUy. Thelatter especiaUy, rnore than any other part ofher body, is the partnl0st open to the painter s gaze. Elevated by the bed, this belly ispresented at the sarne height as the bellies of the two rnen: theyare aligned parallel to the axis of their gazes, which is also theaxis along which the painting is carried out.

This, however, has only just begun. Unlike rnore th an one predecessor who depicted the canvas covered with Canlpaspe s bust,

David gives us only the lines of the beginning of a sketch, fronl thelegs up to the stonlach, which is still invisible. And on these indistinct lines fallsthe painter s shadow, at once hiding and highlightingthern. Othelwise, the canvas is bare. 1Je know that David did notfinish his painting: would he have then filled out Apelles s?The background color is reprised in certain parts of the bodies.

The bare canvas is like the painting of the naked WOl11an,thoughit is an expression rather th an a representation of it, giving nuditya triple value: of exposition, stretched out, taut, offered to thepaintbrush; of rnaneuverability and rnalleability, in the sense thatthe body the painter wants to give hirnself will conle onto the canvas; and of distancing, insofàr as the canvas also serves as a screen

between the wonlan and the two nlen. (Screen or diversion: every-

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thing is set up as though there were twoaxes of the nlen's gazes,nlaking thenl cross-eyed: the firstis the axis of their gaze at the

wonlan, the secondof their gaze at her portrait. (In addition, thecanvas is presentedas a stage; a double black cUl'tainis raised on it.)

That is not ail. Nudity plays an even nl0re restricted role here.Already at first glance, Alexander's nakedbody imposes itsel(high-lighted by the loose foldsof royal purple cloth and the general'shelnlet. The rnaster exhibits hiulself naked, tacing his naked rrùs

tress: this display asserts his desire,is a rermnderof possession, andhighlights their synlnletry and,in a certain way, their rivalry.Alexander's body,as the virile versionof fine, sculpted forrn, doesnot cede anything to Canlpaspes. At this point, the gaze of thespectator finds itself attracted to the painting'stwo extrenuties:toward one sex or the other. History (or legend? It doesn'tmatterhere) would have it that Alexander was bisexual.We know howinlportant thenude was to David, sincehe even produced anlan-uscript on it; this painting couldin turn authorize an analysisinternIS of bisexuality or hornosexuality. So could the detail ofAlexander's hand touching the painter's shoulder. However,oneneed orùy analyzethe painting: nudityis clearly doubled,whetherin heterosexualor hornosexual fashion.But isn't this inherentinnudity in general? Is there isolated nudity? Isn'tall nudity facingitselfor facing another? Isn't nudity firstof ail a facing? Thoughit is one that never has a vis-à-vis, because the nudedo es not look.It is looked at, and also looks at itselfThat is why the canvas isenlpty and bare: it is painting facing itself like a great desirestretched out.The canvas is the one with an erection: look at the

phallic surnnut at the heightof the franle closest to us.The post ofthe bed nearby, crowned with a flared capital,is its counterpart.

Nudity is not a being. t is not even a quality. It is always arelation, several sÏIllultaneous relations,with others, with the self,with an irnage, andwith the absence of an irnage.

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Fenestration

The history o f Western art over the last five hundred years,which is also the historyof the nude as a pictorial genre, appearsin many regardsas the repeated atternptof a furtive g l a n c epeering through a window as in Renaissance art, for example)or leaning overthe lens of a camera obscuraas in seventeenthcentury Dutch ar t ) - to grasp a subjectwho is rnoreor less awareof being observed.For this broad and heterogeneous tradition,the artist is the one who places hirnselfin front of the windowof the representationand fixes the time-spaceof the subjectinthe san1.e frame. But if in painting and sculpture, on the onehand, the intervention of the hand of the artist is capableofintroducing a tÎlne lagand a proliferationof spatialand ternporalplanes, in photography,on the other, the reduction to a singlespatiotemporal dirnension becomes inevitable. Norn1.ally, photography arreststin1.e. t attests to the presenceof an objectbyrnaking it instantaneous.There is no longer any traceof the

hand and its rnovementsin the pictorial space, Inovernentsthat are il at differentmoments and are distant frornone another.

Accordingto a hypothesisabout Western representation7-which was sharedby the artist David Hockney, accordington1anyof his wri t ings- the subjectof photography,the nude in

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Fenes t ra t ion

has become an objectof representation. However,Hockney doesnot IÎlnÏt hiInself to constructing a rneta-image, to showingtheaccess through which vision is given a gesture thatis conUTlonto much of conternporary art.He places hÎlnself in the ünageandtries torender its internaI fi agrnentation,the internaI fi'acture thatcharacterizes access (insofaras there is no [point] outsideof accessfi'ornwhich one could observeaccess this is the great illusionofrnetaphysical art).As a result, itis not only a presentationof pre-

sentation, a visionof vision,but also the originary fragmentationthatail visionis in itself, in its alwaysbeing outside itsel( exposedto the gazeof the other. This tirst alterityis the singularbodyof ail nudity. The Ur teilung of the naked visionof a naked body.It is the originary partitionwithin which the spaceof representation opens, the divisionof the subject that precedesail identity.

Hockney does not try to fix the nakedbody in a single figure.He does not try to give it an identity,but rather contentshünselfwith letting it move inthe representation. Ian's hands Inoverhyth-rnicaily.Although objects can stillbe brought into focus and canstay stil l even though they are caughtin originarydivision-the nakedbody and the hand that triesto touch it cannot be fixedin one point of the space because they arean inexhaustible sourceof spacing.

The partiesenter into relationwith one another without giving birth to anyunit y not even the unity of the body. The imagedoes not close over;it fails to come to a standstillor to insistona particular whole.The eye is set in Inotion. The nude is theInobilityof the eye, itsnlotion and emotion. One can only foilowit andrender its rhythln.

The art of the rhythrnand tÎlne of exposition.The doubleexpositionof the window diaphragln of the canlera obscura:theexpositionof the existenceof a naked vision, andthe expositionto visionof naked, everydayexistence Jan Washing His Hair.

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Goya

In an old lexicon frmu Madrid maja refers to a stylish girl, proudand seductive. The rnasculine majo refers to a stylish rnan, coura-ge 11s and confident. The ternù etyulOlogy is debated, but itseelUS in the end to be linked with the erotic.

Shedding its native language and sense, slipping toward aproper narne, Maja becarne the title and subject of one of thenlost fanlous nudes in the history of painting. It rnay even be thernost faulOus between the Venus of Urbino and Olympia It (orshe) was certainly not painted without reference to the formerof these (and to sorne other forerunners, such as Velasquez s Venusat the Minor and Titian s Danae both of which were part of theprivate collection to which Maja would belong), just as Olympiawas certainly not painted without reference to the Venus ofUrbino and the Maja. The three are, before all conternporarytransform.ations, like three stations or three figures in an exposi-tion of the felTlale body. But while the two others can be related

to other nudes that their painters painted, the Maja is an excep-tion in Goya s work. The nude for hinl, this nude, is not a thernebut rather a limit to pictorial thought. However, at the lirnit, athought is always confused and anxious.

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Moreover, the l\IIaja is distinguishedby two particular featuresthat should be considered together. O n the one lund, shortlyafter the Nude Maja Goya painted a Clotlzed Maja ahllost iden-tical except for the clothing. The latter is said to have beenhung in front of the forn1er to conceal it. That did not stop theInquisition fron1 having both of theni seized. But the need forconcealrnent did not require that the painting that was to bethe screen feature the san1e n10del, this tÏllle clothed.After aIl,dressing is not reducible to hiding and always pronlises orren1inds one of a possible undressing. Yet the one who isundressed here is conlpletely undressed; unlike the nudes ofTitian and Manet, she does not cover her pubic area with herhand. Her pubic hairs are dis cretebut conspicuous, if not osten-

tatious. They are evennl0re

so once we think of the tirneperiod: Aren't these pubic hairs the first in painting, or not farfroni it? Thisnl0tif nlakes the denland for concealnlent stronger,but it is not very helpflll in explainingwhy one would put anarticle of clothing on the naked body in order to conceal -clothing that is itself diaphanous, intirnate, readyto be renloved,

and whose fabric covers the light curls at the bottonl of thebeIly but aIl but doubles thern in the process. Clothing andnudity nlotion to one another as though destined for or offeredto one another.

Together, these two features le ad usto believe thatthe doubleMaja is neither just a nude tlanked by its clothed doublenor just

two versions of the sanle portrait. This is because there is nodetenninate portrait (no one believes that thisis the Duchess ofAlba anylllore),and in any case it is not about that. It is about amis HU, nlaking naked, just as one says rnis mort putting todeath. It is a nlaking naked that undresseswithout rernainderand without nlodesty. The clothedone infornls us that the naked

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G o y a

one was undressed or undressed h r s l f ~that she shed what wasleft of her reserve.

What does this innnodesty Inean? What does it m.ean, thisoŒ?ring of a body whose voluptuousness-so obvious and wellforrned-is unique in Goya's work?

The other naked or half-naked wom.en in Goya's w o r k - w h oappear rarely and are sn1all in scale ° a r e sorceresses or oldwonlen. In one painting, a wornan is undressed, then stabbed by

a bandit; in another, a naked won1an's throat is slit by two Inen,who are also naked. l

Is the voluptuousness of the Maja as assured as we at first thinkit is or as we want it to be?

Let's take a doser look. As has often been renlarked, thewonlan's pose is not very convincing. Her arrns do not look as

thoughthey

could ren1ain raised for long, and rather thansup

pOl ting a reposing head, they have the job of raising the bustand breasts, which look as though they're still being held up bythe corset that has been rernoved. The annpit that is revealedcornpletes the rnonstrat ion (or dernonstration?) of a body that isvery intentionally turned toward us. Finally, the gaze says: look

l arn offered, l show the irnage and the idea of a WOlnan who isoffered . . . but anl I? Or to whorn arn l offered? To WhOlTl arnl offered in painting? To nothing other th an to painting and tothe pose.

A wave of irony washes over this body that l suddenly see istoo willingly disposed to be in a state of abandon. Maybe thereis nothing to touch in this nudity that shows nothing but defi

ance. Maybe the vestida is not the one who undressed herself,but is the one who will conceal the desnuda veiling her skinbeneath gauze, tulle, and silk, revealing naked skin as anotherenvelopnlent and revealing the l/lise à nu as a l/lise en retrait

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Goya

luaking withdrawn. If everything in the two paintings indicatesthe transparency of light fabric, isn't this to ernphasize thattransparency ceases with the skin, or that its incarnation doesnot give access to anything, not even to itself?

Another interpretation enlerges of the oeuvre of which thiswork is a part, albeit subject to an internaI exclusion. Anotherinterpretation, or the sanIe one extended and darkened. If theflesh is offered in the irony of an undressing ready to be coveredup and dressed again, the wornan-or the painting or thepainter-knows that she is provoking a desire fln ious with dis-appointrnent and is causing an uproar. Insolent and untouchable,the icon of generous flesh beconles blurred, and its carnationannounces a carnivorous cruelty. My desire, exasperated by the

ostentationof

artifice, hasno

choicebut

tobe

bruisedor to

bruise.Another o f Goya's paintings depicts a maja with a masked

nun. Sonle others depict a luaja with Celestine (an oldwornan, like rnany others in his work). Yet another depicts

two majas on the balcony, and another two majas, one

of whorn reads a letter with a mocking expression on herface: there is always a perverse cornbination o f looks, ormernenta mari rnixed with defiance. At bottom, these are vani-ties and Maja's pubescent flesh is not any happier than it is

terrible.

Everything does not end there, however. Once again, the

one who is dressed undresses herself, or the nude puts her clothesback on, but the light crurnpling of clothing woven for intinucy,l lade for unveiling and disrobing, wraps the tragedy in a suspensethat is undecidable. Maja is not cruel. She takes pleasure in theshock of desire and in knowing that the unbearable is imminent,that the shipwreck will happen (another of Goya's canvases,

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other naked bodies . 1 Inust understand, in rny desire and disap-pointnlent that all nudity drowns itself in its own ünpossibility,

and in its own painting, where its offering is suspended and for-ever reserved, drowning us aiong with it in the depth o f theinlage that it is

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Humus

The scene is played out in the place and at the lTlOrnent whennudity achieves its proper revelation. It is the scene where nudityis undressed or laid bare. The gesture that RelTlbrandt capturesas it is being made the quick tense lTlOVem.ent that he inlnlobi-lizes with his strokes is the gesture that will reveal hurnanity toitself as nu di ty. Only just el11erged frorn the humus frorn whichhis creator drew and shaped hinl nlan f1homme, he who is nudeof earth homo/humus is about to see hirnself and see hinlselfnaked that is exposed to an indeterrnination that rernoves hinlfr0111 nature or essence. More precisely the rnan and the W0111anwho are one fiesh are going to see one another naked the fieshthat beconles two by being exposed naked.

The elephant passing through den in the background repre-sents a nature that is not exposed that cannot be rendered nakedthat is enclosed in a carapace: an assurance or affirrnation thatdoes not care to affirnl itself. In contrast the woman and l11an

trelTlble with an affirnlation that passes through thel11 and exceedsthel11 as much as it grips thern. This is represented by the dragona figure whose extravagance could be described as Satanic evil asweil as it could suggest its fabulous invented character. In reality

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it rnust be understood that sinis nothing in itself; itis a twisted,glean1ing fantasn1agoria laid over nudity.

But sin is nudity: itis not to be clothed in the attributesof adestination,of a congruence with the order of nature andto findoneself, by contrast, given over tothe task of creating anoriginof inventingone (in the way the dragonis invented),or even ofventuring beyond aIl origin, that is,into the very crucibleof ori-

gin: into the nudity where the origin unveils itselfas what it isthat is as not given, not ready, not available,under way openlike the wonlan s cleft atthe center of the scene. Original sin:the failure to be clothed in an essence.

As a result, embarrasslnent canbe seen minglingwith trem-bling,with a waiting that can already tastethe risk that itis goingto take, the sour taste of the fi-uit thatis forbidden only becauset is not yet anythingand because it hasto be invented,ripe fruit

fron1 an origin that has not yet bloomed [pas encore éclose].These bodies rnust thereforebe on the verge ofbeing exposed

and exposed to one another. The wOlnan sbody is heavy. Itweighson i t s l f ~heavywith the weight of earth and desire. Theengraved linesand hatch nlarks elnphasizethe heavinessof theInass of dark hairand the dark weightof the beIly,in the nlÎddleof which is engraved a cleft thatis visible,as though aIl the hairbadbeen relnoved.The nakedbody begins by weighing. It flexesand twists a littleunder its own weight, whilethe hair thatfaIlsbelow her buttocksis like a shinuner of heat, an exhalationofearth warn1ed bythe sun.

Being undressed doesnot make abody lighter. Quite the con-trary. The elephantis lighter, andhe indicates thisby liftingupbis trunk and n10ving along athigh speed. In contrast, em.barrassnlentis weighty and aln10st shan1eful. This doesnot arise out

of a prior condelnnation of the flesh; this scene hasnot beenpreceded by any sortof repression. Itis tbe other way around.

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H u m u s

The flesh can find itself blamed only once there is shanle, thesentünent that COUles with appearing before oneself: the lllnility

of the umus or hormis exposed to itself: shown to the other andto oneself, to the other as to oneself, shown as what shows itself.

This is how the sexes were differentiated, as they had notreally been before now. The WOlnan is the weight of the body,the Inan its twisting. The WOlnan is the gaze that watches thegaze of the other; the rnan is the alarmed vision of the unknown;

and this unknown is first of ail the nudity o f the WOlnan, nu dityas such, which is always the nudity of the other, always altering,always inappropriate and therefore inlproper, the non-origin thatoriginates itself, that enlerges fronl itself, fronl nothing that justernerges.

Their hands meet on the fruit, except for Adarn s right hand,which is raised to rnake a sign whose uleaning rernains unclear:either a warning or an indication of what will happen next. Oneway or another, it denlands attention. We nlust take notice ofwhat is happening where the hands touch. The fruit is the placeof touch: there the bodies are skin to skin. The skin of the fruitis only the surface of this contact. The fi uit isn t even for eating.

t is what came into the lland, what offered to place itself in thepalnl and under the fingers (it is presented twice above the couple,on the branch of the tree to the lefE and in the nl0uth of thedragon in the center). Its light weight lets the hand enjoy itsroundness, which is punctuated by the eye (this is the narne forthe depression left in the fruit by the calyx of the flower). Thiseye is the gaze of nudity on nudity, as is further down the navel

of this wonlan who was not born of any mother: origin withoutorigin, the fruit that precedes every flower, the original absenceof natural bloOlning [éclosion]

The fruit organizes the touch and trenlbling of the bodies; itoffers itself as a sunlnling up of their rounded volunles; it is a

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Humus

breast and a buttock a belly a cheek and always atthe sarne

tirne the eye that allows usto see how rnuch the bodyis

exposed.For the body is fi-agile like the fi-uitand in enjoynlent it cornesundone as the Üuit cornesundone when it is eaten. It trelTlblesfronl being close to both its touch and its disappearance itsplea-sure and its death atthe sanle tÎlne.This is no longer a coupleof rnortals facing the irnrnortal gods.This couple tastes its death.

It touchesthe confusion ofbeing between rnanand earth hommand hUl l /US fertile earth and life visited by deaththe flower thatdisappears into the fruit spirit passedinto body hunlble andsharnefiJlbut drawing fi Orn the earth a strange fi-agile splendorthe ernotion of bodies as they face one another shrinking frornrevealing thenlselves.

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Incarnate

The nude sets us before an a-syrnbolisnl thatis as Michel Deguypointed out in an old essay on Bataille, also an a-theologythatstrips the divineof ail fornls of transcendence, an ÏIllmanentiza

tion of the divine body.12In this sense, the pink [incarnat] o f the nude is exactly the

stripping of incarnation: an incarnation without redenlption,without spirit, without Word, without epiphany. AlI thatis leftis the palpable rnatterof color that Inakes flesh:the mute slllfaceof nu dity.

Lucian Freud s pictures,and their extraordinary pink, rnakeus jèe flesh. They don t provide an iInageof it but show the veryconsistency of it. There are tangible traces of the rneeting ofcolor and canvas, of the hand that draws the lines of the body,and of the flesh that is incarnatedin the color. The weight of theKrerns white that Freud uses, which has twice as rnuch le adoxide as other whites, doubles the consistency of the flesh andgives body and life to the nude. But it also allowsthe penetrationof the flesh-precisely, in carnate and enters into the intirnacyof the nude.

Intirnacy, which is innernlost and rnost deeply hidden,beCOlTleS the sUlface. The interiority of this nude is the surface

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Incarnate

incarnate. The nu de s spread across the surface of the painting.

The eyes are closed, the rnuscles relaxed. Thiss

abandon, com-plete exposition to others Without this cOlnplicity, without thistrust in the other, without this unreserved letting go, the nudecould never be incarnated in its reality.

The incarnate s the subject that withdraws; those are its eyes

that close, rnaking it so that only skin s exposed, defenseless, to

the gaze and the touch of the other. The incarnate s the thresholdof eros

She s asleep. 1 look at her in silence. My eyes lightly touch the

consistency ofher body, its intirnacy, its strangeness. 1 love her. 1

love it.

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O f aH hurnan nudi ty-and there s no other kind of nudi ty- thepenis is the only part that reveals n lore than, or sonlething othertlun nu di y. It isn t skin, or it is no longer only skin, but is asuncovered as skin. There s nothing to push aside, neither hairnor lips, in order to expose the penis that the patch o f hairpresents and doesn t hide. It s there to be seen, not suspendedbetween the thighs, as is it is often said to be, but in front, Bankedby its fanlily jewels. Nudity here lacks any reserve of rnodesty.The skin is not the Iuminous transparence of the body: it is onlyan organ and an additionallirnb. In truth the body is left behind:we are before another presence that is singuIar, independentand hanging out. Either the penis faIls ahl l0st shapeless and crUlll-pIed, an awkward pendulunl, or it s erect, swoIlen, huge, powerfullyin action, with rneaning and presence only in ejaculation.

The mirnesis of the body is struggling here, even broken. Onecan only paint a penis by nesting t in the hollow of thighs that

are close together, Iike a little baIl caught in the fleece of pubichair. That s the way it is often depicted in classicai painting wh envine leaves or shells are not used. One rnight say this shows thegreat beauty vénusté] of the penis (and therefore its fenùnization).But the erect penis can t be painted (or photographed) without

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being pornographic, that is to say without revealing a methexis

without mi11lesis a contact, a contagion that dissolves the repre-sentation. The penis is the joker of the naked-but an unconlprornisingjoker, forever too irnproper really to be put into play.13

Yet Carracci succeeds in treating the untreatable. Polyphernusthe Cyclops has just caught Galatea, the object of his r0111anticdesire, in the arnlS of Acis. He raises the rock that he is going to

throw at the young rnan. Polyphel11us's penis is thrust forward bythe nlovenlent ofhis entire body Oust as the piece ofloose fà.bricto the right reveals his penis in its nudity). Although it's raised,the penis isn't erect: in this instant, it is he Id in the rniddlebetween its two possibilities. However, its tip is open: a lightercircle there lTlakes this clear. Corresponding with his shining orifice are the nine mouthpieces ofPan's flute that the giant carrieson his back. Ovid's text specifies that it is an enormous flute,c0111posed of a hundred reeds. 14 One hundred could be represented by ten, the tenth reed therefore being the penis. It isn'tgoing to ejaculate; it's going to sing or whistle while Polyphemus shouts polyphemus

literallylTleanS one who

has111any

voices ). This Inusical sexual organ is raised like a little trUlTlpetthat has just escaped the embarraSSlTlent of being a nlisshapentrunk or a rubicund cudgel. Polyphenlus has a hannoniousboner, and for once the penis can exhibit itself right in therniddle of a painting. However, this hannony is ironic: changed

into a sonorous pipe, the penis misses out on the sexual pleasureit was after.

The irony is made even stronger by the presence of the volcanoon the slopes of which the scene takes place (Etna, as Ovid spec-ifies). To the right of the giant's head, we can nlake out a spurtof fire on the nl0untain, while to the left ofhis thigh, at the sarne

height as his penis, a second crater holds open its fuming mouth.Sonorous or gaseous, this penis only spurts air.

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There is rnore. Open in the center of the scene, the phalliernouthpieee is eye-catching, but perhaps it also plays the role of

an eye turned toward the speetator, as so often appears in painting.The Cyclops s one eye looks up at the sky; Galatea s eye, lookingbaek, roUs upward; and Aeis protects his eyes. But the penis offersto us a blind and obseene orbit, a sort of omie rnenace. t is as

if to the spurt frorn the rocks beneath which the erushed Acis sblood will gush out to fonn a river, there eorresponded a spurt

of paint in our eye, which is nothing but Polyphernus s filriousspasrn and the painting of desire, which cannot be represented.

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Khaos

In the beginning thereis Chaos: the first of ail the gods to beborn from nothingness andthe orùy one to rernain after theyhave il disappeared. After it Gaiawith her vast bosom. appearedand so did Eros. Chaos Gaia and Eros arethe knot fr01nwhichthe historyof the world and the nlortalswho inhabit it develop.

Because itis the original stateof the disorderof Inatter Chaosis at the beginning abeginning that precedesailbeginning with-out howeverbeing anterior to it. Itis a beginning that is sirnul-taneousand always pending. t is a beginning therefore thatisnot oIÙyan origin but also below and beyond ail origins acaesura an initial deflagration that accornpaniesail the stepsofhurnanity. This departure spinsoff in no particular direction.Init up and down change place and lose their ITleaning. Chaosisthe confusion that exists beforecreation pure Inatter ablaze.

It is a gaping bottorIÙess opening overwhich float the figuresthat fix it in place. They fix it in two sensesof the tenn: they

Inake an ünageof it immobile but broken and they peer intothe pure possibility that itis always in rnotionin its indetermi-nation.

Chaos hangs over and subtendsthe hunlan and the eroticnudityof ITlan The nude inhabited by Eros appearsor surgesup

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Khaos

from the chaos of nutter. Between the naked body'sundulatingand vibrating lines, a figure takes shape,in an extensionwithuncertain contours, like apure plastic or nuterial signification.

In fact, the nude is still nlatter,but nutter that is producedafter the divisionof sense. (The paintingis bi-partite: itis the bipartition and the onenessof sense). Itis no longer first nutterbut figurative111atter pictorial matter, rhytlllnic rnatter.If chaosis noise, the nude is rhythrn;if the fornler is a 111ark a plane,thelatter is line, figure.

But the nude does not elude or suppress chaos. Firstnlattercontinues to corne frorn itor reenter it. In a certain way,thenutter of the nude conservesin itself tracesof the deflagrationfr0111 which the partition of sense has issued.Fr0111 one openingto another,matter continuesto flow out, fi'omthe originalopening to a wide-open nlouth. ( Chaos, khaos khaino rneans ' toyawn'; it signifies sornething that openswide or gapes, Heidegger writes.15 ) The nude: not a beautiful form, but chaos in theorderof the body, anopening in the closingof the figure, anarchiernatterin the n1Îddleof the laws of cornposition.

The naked figure eroticizesChaos and creates apoint of contact: in the nude, one touches thepartition of sense, atthe edgeo f the conlposition. Plasticconviction (Roberto Longhi 16)gives birth ta the figure drowned in the Chaos of first matter.Pictorialnutter touches livingmatter and gets back into touchwith a reality that, frornnow on, is neither in the paintingnor

outsideof it. It is on the edge, in the partition of the senses.The nude: not only aesthetic-and this goes for artin gen

era l -bu t also an eroticisrnof rnatter and fonll. Totouch nlatter'seroticislllis to sense the sense of the nude.

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Lumbar

We are faced with a back. A back, rather th an a face, is facing us.It s not that someone has turned his or her back, since he or shehasn t turned around. He hasn t turned away frorn us, and we

also don t anticipatehim_

turning toward us. He approaches uswith his back. He presents hünself frO n the back, and it is as aback that he is present. Nudity here is the nudity of the back.

This naked lTlan (if it is a Inan) is undressing, and he holdsthe cloth that he has alrnost finished taking off, the shirt that helifts and stretches above hirn, as though it were also supposedto shroud his head in order to better reveal his back. It s a large,old-fashioned shirt, Inaybe a nightshirt, and it falls in front ofhis body down to his knees. This is how we know that theentire front of the body is hidden from a spectator that wecould irnagine standing synlnletrically opposite us, in the background o f the drawing or, through a secret tear, on the otherside of the paper. n fact, the cloth of the shirt nleets the texture

o f the paper, and they blend together in thin lTlarks that areabsorbed into the background. UltiInately, this body has nofront, not even a possible or virtual one. t is entirely within itsback, totally a back in front. More than this, its front has becomeits back.

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umbar

The bacl( holds and exposes the force that holds the body upand carries it fmward. It isn't the face; it is the push that aIlows abody to face up to things. It is ail about this push and power: it isa fi amework of muscle and bone. Everything in it is vigorous. Ithas nothing to do with the stOlllach that digests, nor with theface that senses, flor with the sex organ that keeps watch. From.the shoulders to the heels, no part has a relation with anythingother than the comportnlent posture, and n1achinery of the body.

Because it is facing us, this naked back is not leaning back: itsnudity consists precisely in the fact that it does not refer to anyfoundation or support behind it. It has nothing behind it, andone could say that it has no behind. It turns the back into thefront, but puts it in front in a movement that carries it ahead ofitself, ahead of us, indeed taking us around the back with it inorder to hold us upright-not leaning back-corrlrrlÎtted tostanding facing it and facing toward it.

It is a question of its advance and élan, its support, tension,and cOlllportrnent-but not of its vision, speech, activity, or passivity. It is a posture, not a nature. It is naked right through to thestructure.

Cornelisz van Haarlelll's drawing shows the joints and tissues,rnuscles, tendons, and ligarnents of this body. AnatonlY rises tothe surface. t is the body n1ade up of loins and kidneys, thelunlbar nluscles in separate arches on the back holding the torsoon its base and surrounding the junction where the body rises,straightens up, and becornes a featherless biped.

The raised buttocks are tightened on the sacrmll, this extrelllity of the spinal column that was once consecrated to the gods.These buttocks, side by side, close and coyer up the loathsonleorifice of excrelnent, which is rarely covered in the animal king-donl. Sinlultaneously, they are offered to the grip of the desirefor that secret, for that tightening, ottered to anal pleasure, regard-

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Lumbar

less o f the sex of the figure: because there is nothing thatabsolutely exclu des the possibility that this body may be that of

an athletic wonlan. Or rather, whatever it is that plays aroundthe butt and at the center of the back plays with an indecisionthat is the indecision of sex itself, that traverses and works on thesexual as its proper difference and opening.

A slit or a hole at the center of aU nudity. n opening thatdoes not open onto anything, but that opens nudity as such.

The naked back is thus, in aU its power, the place of tremblingand expectation, a place where unnlasking and identification arealways to corne, sunk in the obscurity of the other side of thesheet on which the red chalk lays its wann plasticity.

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The naked rnodel stands before the painter. To a great extent,the history of painting suggests that Inodel and nude are equivalent: it is the naked body that rnust be observed, scrutinized,

deciphered for its own sake. The clothes, jewelry, and props canbe presented to the gaze of the painter in sorne other way Paintersoften make sketches of nude models and then dress the bodieslater, on the canvas. ut of what or of whom is the nude amodel? It is not the model of a general structure of the body,something that the painter knows and that he can reproduce asneeded with the help of rnannequins or diagrams. The nude isthe model not of the body s physical organization but of theintensity of stripping rit] bare. What s presented is not a form tobe copied but a force to be received, to bear and to run upagainst. In this sense, what the model models is not the body butrather the tension with itself that nudity brings about in thebody. N aked, the body loses and seeks itself, grasps and abandons

itself. It makes body with this élan, this restlessness, and this weightof itself against itself.

Here the model is presented as such. The title of the paintingis Seated Nude but it is also called Mademoiselle Rose, modèle de l ate-lier de Guérin. Pierre-Narcisse Guérin was the first of Delacroix s

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nusters, and Delacroixwould frequent his studio, alongwithGéricault,Cogniet, and Inany others.The sarne nlOdelis rnentioned in connection with severalother studies by Delacroixandwith at leastone other painting by the painter Chanlplnartin. Ina letter, Delacroix rnentions the buttocks of MadernoiselleRose as a sortof rnetonynly forthe work of anatonlÎcal study.ln tact, everythingabout this painting indicates that itis a study.The pose is arranged so thatthe right leg is stretchedout and theleft one is bent with the left foot restingon a box.The other boxor wooden structure servesas a support rather than a seat, thefabric is hastilyput in place, thetwo hands are evidentlydoingwhat they havebeen told to do, the face is turned and tiltedtoreveal its featureswhile rnaking the gaze absent,the breasts arequite bareand clearly shown, andthe pubic area is linlÎtedto anallusive touch.Then ail this is set against an indistinct background,whose daubing,with the assistanceof SOlne highlightingof theoutline,only serves to set fi-ee the body exposedin its nudity.

This is nothing less than the subject of the painting, whichgoes weIlbeyond an anatornical studyand an exercisein representation.The studyor exerciseis lost or surpassedin the practiceitself A nude cannot be sirnply an undressed body, becausetheundressingcannot be simple.Even when it s cornpletely profes-sional-and in this casewe have no reason to doubt that it was,since we have rnuch evidenceof the quality of MadenloiselleRose as a nlodel - i t is not the undressingas such that is theobject of the painting,nor the mÎse-à-nuor nlaking naked,butthe mise-en-vueor making seen.That is to say it is the prise-en-vueor taking into view, the gaze that grabshold of the model. Itobserves her, surely,and copies her. But it sees more than itobserves,and it paintssonlething other than what is requiredfora reproduction. Vou can search forother copiesof MadenloiselleRose, suchas the one by Charnplnartin (without a doubt painted

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during the sanle sitting),or the ones thatyou can identifYanlongthe studies and canvases byGuerin and the other students, butyou would not find the sanle gaze or the sanle thought in a bodythat is nonetheless so sÏlnilar. Delacroixis not far frOln paintinga scene, in fact, the scene of the rnodel. But the nlodel is awornan who knows what she is sharing with the painter andwhat there is for hinl to see and inlagine: the light marbling thatanÏlnates her skin here and there and colors her cheeks, the fact

that she forgets herselfas she submitsto the denlands of the pose,and this forgettingis a nlore intense affirmationof presence andrevene.

What is the nlodel (not MadenlOiseIleRose, about whom wewill neverknow anything) daydreanung about? She's daydreanl-ing about being a model, about the body as destined to presentmore than

a body,the

very ideaof

abody ( and

srnooth,as

Mallarnlé said),and o f the proxinuty and even intinucy of pres-ence. A body is there in the nlost imposing sense of the word. tis a size, height, and tenderness that nmstbe Ineasured. It is abody exposed in its nlaterial specificityand purpose: to enlbraceand to be embraced, to caress and to be caresse d, to becOlne evermore the fonn of a Inoved soul.

The rnodel knows a l this. She knows that she only showshow she is nude in order to show the infinite ends forwhich sheis made. Nudity is a broadening and largesse, an introductionand welconle, gloryand modesty, nlOnmnentand event, a l ofthese together. Here comes a body, a world, a skinwhose shad-ows, with delicate and intense contours, have alreadygripped usin an embrace: that of the paintingwith its own body.

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Nimbus

Since the nlirror is tilted up, the reflection can only be of apiece of the doudy sky.When the WOlnanlooks into the rnirror,she sees a corner of the sky and the place where her left hand(the sinister one-Ie t s re111.elnberthat) arranges or pins the fabricinto her hairdo. The fabric is deep blue and full of broad swirls,like the sky.The border of pearls, for its part, answers to the brightyellow band of he setting sun between the sky and the n10untains,which appear blue in the distance. The gold of the hair sinksunder the wide doth, just as the brown earth, and its roads andhouses, trail off into the distance, toward the rnountain and thesky that is heavy with an irnpending storm.

The WOlTlansees the darkened sky at her back, her back itself,and the back ofher head. She sees the background against which

her own naked flesh stands out, delicate and superb in its youth,tender, and offered to our eyes as if to a hand that would COlTleto grab this belly and this breast just as it would take the fruit sitting on the windowsill.

The wornan sees her nudity fron1 behind: she sees the threatthat is at her back, the threat of the storm. She sees the threat

because t is within her, reflected in her like the in1age in the lTlÎr-ror, attached to her like the blue and bronze fabric that swallowsher hair, in contrast to the rose-orange veil that reveals her body,plunging at the bottOlu of her belly, between her thighs, justbarely covering her other hair. Her skin the color of dawn matchesthe crepuscular douds: the night that cornes in the douds.

To nu di y exposed as the subject of a painting whose geolnetrical center is found just above the breasts, is apposed-notopposed-i ts own truth, in the background, like a disquietingdepth.

This disquieting strangeness can be seen in the young wOlnan seyes. She is not actually paying luuch attention to her hair but is

drearning, troubled, and lnelancholic. Her eyes reflect-as they

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Nimbus

say-a gravity without joy that belies the apparent happiness ofher body. In fact, this gaze plunges into its own reflection and

plunges our own gaze into the return of the self to the self againsta background of night and ünnlinent tor'ment, against a groundof ground without ground. Nudity has its death at its back, justas this nude has the doud behind her. Suddenly we understandthat this body, whose gesture traverses the space at a sharp angle,as she folds her arrn back behind her, can only last as long as the

flash of lightning that the jutting out of her elbow represents, ina reflection that highlights the nlOvenlent and its brevity. Thenaked offering is also oŒ:red to disappearance.

To the right, on the sill where the wonlan is seated, a foldednote bears the signature Johannes bellinus faciebat M.D.X.V.Faciebat and not jècit. He was doing, he was conlbing It isas

if his gesture had been interrupted and never cOlnpleted, likethe gesture of the WOlnan, which renlains suspended for eternity.It is his own death that Bellini painted, at nearly ninety years old,in this, the only non-allegorical nude that he ever painted (andhe painted very few nudes: the Allegory o Prudence and Orpheuswhich is from the same year as this nude and features a womanwith a sirnilar look).

It is the death of the painter that is in the background of thepainting, like the crow that hovers behind the l\IIadonna o theMeadow and like the sky full of sinlilar douds in the backgroundof so many others.

The death of the painter is also the death of the young wonlan.It is the cloud menacing nudity while giving it aIl of its value, a

presence that is both definitive and fugitive. AlI nudity presentsitselfbefore its own death.

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She enters a placewhere sorneone,who knowswho has setup alargem r r o r in fi onto f which she cannot avoid presenting herselfwhen she has to undress,and undressingis what you have to doin

this place. Sheis exposedto her

reflection,which

is very close.She goes out again to get her canlera. She getscompletelyundressed,more th an the filnctionof this place requires. She sitsdown and leansback to gain the distance that thisnarrow spaceotherwise lacks. Shetakes herself,as they say offered toher owndesire to see herself,to show herself.The lights nearbyand thejoin in the n1Îrror Inake up a sortof viewfinderthat fralneshervagina like a target. A bearrlof light fans alongthe dark hair,whose shapeis lost in the void overwhich it hangs (disappearance,elimination). Itis not Courbet sOrigin i he World. It is not awonlb for conception and birth between open lips. Itis a vaginathat loses itselfin the gaze that it blindsand that is blindedby thereflected light. Itis another origin of the world: fiat lux. Theflashoflight that burstsout is lux not to be confilsedwith lumenthe light thatfans on things.The sun, death,and sex: wecannotlook straight atthem becausethey do not have a face.They areeach an access tothe absolute,the infini te, real irnpossibility,andthe intünate obscurityof the image.There is no entry. Accessis

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p t i c

forbidden, but in an interdiction that gives access-tiIne to bedazzled and to renuin forbidden. It's obscene, which in Latinme ans a bad onlen or harrnfül, on the wrong side of thesacred. You want to get there and to turn away in the sameinstant, in the same space. The nude always contains this contradiction and contraction, rnore or less exposed. It is not a trans-gression: that stays in place. Modesty retains what obscenityreleases, and there is never the one without the other. The nudernust be seen, and seeing nlust be laid bare: when the two nleet,there is a black and white chiasnl, the optics of the nlirrorengraved on the optics of the filnl, a strearn of photons againsttheir graphs. Every bulging lens conceals its obscene sITmdge,and a l nudity is a source of light.

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Presence

The nude is presen e above aIl a presenceexposed to the gaze o fothers. A nude anynude always finds itselfbeing looked ateven when 1 anl the only one looking. The gaze when itencounters the nu dity of the body attests to its presence. Thenakedbody is present in the gaze. And its presenceis indubitable:it is there.

But the presence o f a body is also alwaysfl ing the gaze thatInakes an Ïlnage of t When the body is made into an image itleaves itself exceeds itself. Abody is never given as definitivelypresent to itself or to others even though it is also not pureabsence. The vision o f the naked body is exactly the experienceof this presence that always flees into absence into the irnpossibility of being an irnmobile given. My body is Hever given.AIl of the nude self-portraits are there to prove i t -FrancescaWoodrnan for example constantly dernonstrates thisin herwork. In her photography aIl of this fleeing presenceis embod

ied. AIl true photography of the nude shows the way that theindubitable presence of the body is always at the sarne tinle theanticipation of a gaze and the projection o f the subject outsideo f itself.

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Presence

Tina has her back to us. She is in a cone of light, and herposition is unstudied.Weston n1akes a portrait of the intin1acyof a beloved body that shows itself without rnodesty. (EdwardWeston and Tina Modotti, in t he Mexican years, between1923 and 1926, were joined in a profound artistic and loverelationship.) The intim.acy of this nu d e t h e intirnacy o fthe nude-shows in a clear way that what is rnost intirnateis not enfolded in interiority. It is, on the contrary, alwayscornpletely exposed in the light, to the gaze that conles from.the outside. Nudity is exactly this exit fronl the self thatelnbodies the body. And it is therefore also the experience ofa becorning-subject, but a subject without a face. Paradoxically, the subject looks at its body's shadow, the way in which

it leaves i tselfand

leaves the body. It waits for its own beholdingof itself, starting with the presence of its naked body. Thesubject is the anticipation of its indubitable presence. Its presence is therefore also its own suspension, the presence o f anu dit y o f presence, in which what is at stake is not onlythe subject but nudity itself. It is not an alternation between

the positivity of a plain presence and the negativity of ahopeless absence, but rather the everyday oscillation and

vibration of something past and sornething t ln t is notyet, in the lunünosity o f an imperceptible, ungraspable conling to presence. Alnl0st a specter, but a real and consistentspecter.

Every day, in the nl0st comnlon gestures, in the lTIOSt intirnate positions, there is the experience of nu dit y withoutgrandeur and without nl0del, without the possibility of beingcaptured: the way a shoulder blade juts out, a blanket, a fold inthe skin, a shadow, the rhythnlic hne of a nlovernent. The dis-appearance of aIl interiority, exposition of the nude, testimony

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Presence

to a presence. Pure exposition of the intÏlnacy of the self: setoutside itself, in the absence of a) s l f ~and exposed to theother (than) self. overnent of presence fi orn selfto self in thenudity of a bare space.

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Quodltbet

Arnong the different possibilities that the figurative arts offer forrepresenting the nude, drawing is perhaps the rnost surprising,given the lack of ITleanS at its disposaI. Drawing uncovers the artof the nude, turning the body over to its epherneral presence.

In Renaissance drawings, on both large and siTlall pie ces ofpaper, bodies multiply; they fi-aglTlent they double. Next to acentral figure appear hands, feet, legs, torsos, the gluteus, the bigtoe, noses. Often these drawings are studies done as preparationfor works still to be completed; SOlTletirnes the subjects represented don't seern to refer to pictorial conlpositions at ail Rather,they seem. cornplete just as they are. These are liberated drawings,and drawings liberated fi-OlTl every kind of nstrUlTlental use. Freesketches, as Janet Cox-Rearick calls them, they are drawingsthat have their own life and therefore are occasionally signed and

dated. The sketches, the paper, the drawings, especially whenthey function as portraits (which was the case starting in the

middle of the fifteenth century, both in Northern Europe andaround Florence), take on a value well beyond a ITlere preparatorysketch. Drawings, as Giovanni Agosti observes, do not existonly for practical purposes, but need to be seen as testifYing tothe ability of the artist: thus our interest isn't only iconographie

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but is also rnuch less instrumental. Many drawings becorne autonornous works before becorning precious gifts, valued piecesof a collection (beginning with Botticelli's Allegory ofAbundancernoving on to Mantegna's Judith and ending with whatWildeand then Hirst singled out as the presentation drawings ofMichelangelo, drawings m.ore or less finished that the artist wouldgive to his closest friends). Sabba of Castiglione, hirnself a greatcollector of art, recalls in his Ricordi (Bologna, 1546) giving voiceto a new sensibility concerning these drawings and sketches: asketch, a rough draft done with a sinlple charcoal and pen thatin its characteristics is no less pleasurable than figures of goldsu ch that in the sketch one sees and understands the nobility ofart better than in other works rnade and colored with so much

delicacy and effort.ln Pontornl0's Se Fportrait in Underpants, on the right we see

two highly realistic preparatory figures for the Supper at Emmauswhich probably date to 1525. This was a crucial period both forthe painter of the Florentine School and for a l of 1 alian art.Here Pontornlo exposes the drawing to the intirnacy of art, to

its most essential diInension. We might think that in such a bare[nudo] self-portrait we can hear echoes of the conversation that

Jacopo rnust have had with Leonardo Buonafé. It is Buonaféwho was portrayed at the right of the drawing, then inserted tothe left of Christ in Supper at Emmaus a work conceived for theconvent of the Certosa of Galluzzo. Buonafé was responsible for

the iconography of the Inonastery of the Certosa, and thus wecan hypothesize that in the words quoted above we can alsornake out Erasnlus's antidogrnatic teachings and calls for renewal.Indeed, Pontonno's self-portrait seenlS to have been inspired bya deep antidogrnatism. It confronts us with a drawing that is nornere study but shows, ahnost prograrmnatically, the pietas and

astonishrnent of a new gaze opposite a body-opposite one's own

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nude body. This is not a subject completed for another; whattakes forrn on paper is only that which gives pleasure, ql/od libet[ what pleases ]. In other words, this drawing is the sign of anart and an artist that work for the pleasure of doing and not inpursuit of a craft: an art, as Pontornlo will write in his f::l1uOUS

letter to Varchi, that wants to nlake its works rich and full ofvarious things, working-how can l put th is-where splendortakes place: nights with fireworks and other sinülar sights, air,

clouds, lands distant and near, houses that give different perspec-tives, anüuals of aIl kinds and colors, and so nlany other things.Every subject, in other words, is a good subject: ql/otlibet en5whatever it is but also whatever it is that is pleasurable and givespleasure. Thus we have the body, with its realistic l11asses of rnus-cle standing out in the area traced in red chalk, luarking hnes of

cartilage that luerge together in work influenced by the Florentine School just as they do in N orthern Europe. There one findsso rnuch of the unending beauty of every small detail thatVasari will place the value of the sixteenth century in its descrip-tively reahstic analysis, actually quite close to Dürer. A transitionwith no solution in continuity with respect to a nlental designthat gives forrn to a concept, to an experüuental concept, rnindfulof what is given by accident beyond the canons of dogma. Justas in the rnusical ql/odUbet of the sixteenth century, rnelodiesopposed both in fonu and tone follow and overlay each other,so in the rhythm of Pontonuo's elenlents we hear a continuaIfusion of styles and an infini te se arch for a new varied style[maniera]: Michelangelo and Dürer, Andrea deI Sarto and Luca di

Leida- the Italian Renaissance and Northern painting.After having cornpleted the frescoes of Poggio at Caiano and

the decoration of Certosa of Galluzzo s great cloister, Pontorrnois about to begin the consununate luasterpiece that will be theCapponi Chapel of Santa Felicita. His gaze is ready and cannot