I'VE SEEN NAKED WOMEN!

    The human body has many beautiful and interesting lines and forms, and viewing and studying it is a wonderful way for artists to hone their skills. In case of fact, the art department where I studied had a great over dependence on the use of nude models, mostly females of college age. I always had a feeling that it was laziness on the part of the professors, an easy way to keep the students occupied. Nonetheless those studio exercises were a valuable way to gain proficiency at rendering forms.

    What is always humorous though, inevitably at every art exhibition or festival, the viewer will find at least one young male artist whose works certainly are not paying homage to the art world tradition of thoughtful interpretation of the human form. Instead his works will nearly scream, "I've see naked women!" or "I've had sex with a woman!" as if he was the first young man to discover these things, and he must share the news. Funny young men.

    I dismiss those artworks as adolescent, and choose here to give a shout out to a few artworks depicting nudes which honor the beauty of the human body. An enduring global symbol for this is the 1504 seventeen foot tall marble sculpture of David by Michelangelo. Nothing more is needed to say other than awe inspiring and timeless.

    Next, we think of American artist Andrew Wyeth as producing unforgettably detailed images of American scenes, but he was also exceptional at delivering graceful images of the female form, as in 1969's Overflow. 

    And looking to more current and local work, San Francisco was the launching point of artist Andrew Ameral, whose 2005 Anna could not be lovelier to gaze upon.

    Underneath our clothes we are all interesting figures in one way or another, and art can remind us of that.