New Reflex On Body Painting Art

New Reflex On Body Painting Art

I would like to rephrase our original question in the interest of brevity and to be more specific. "Why is it that the most recurring subject in all of art history by far is the human face and body?" Modern scientific research also gives us a clue to the reasons behind our question. The human face and the human body are psychologically stimulating to the mind. Our brains are actually hard wired to recognize human form. Take, for example, a chimpanzee. If you look at three different chimps for 5 seconds, would you be able to tell them apart as individuals? Now if you look at three human faces for 5 seconds, I bet your success rate will be much greater. But a chimp can recognize and differentiate between other chimps much easier, just as you can recognize a human face much easier.

You might say, Ok I understand why we look at faces, that makes sense, but why nude? Well there are multiple reasons. First (and least important to me) is tradition. There is a long tradition predating even the Egyptians of recreating the human body. So, as a method of teaching art, there are lots of people who have done it before and so there are a lot of excellent techniques and examples for artistic training that have been developed which apply to other forms of art as well. Second, it is a test of skill. If one can make a believable representation of something that we are so familiar with, then everything else is a piece of cake. If I paint a chimpanzee you would be less critical of whether it looks real or not than a human face, simply because most of us don't see chimps every day for our entire lives. Some artists get caught up in this challenge for perfection and are never satisfied with their degree of skill, (I know I never am) and so continue to pursue impossible perfection even though most people might not see the minute faults of the work which the artist does. -The next passage includes much of my opinion on the subject and is not intended to force my views on anyone, but merely to share another point of view.