The Human Back

 

THE HUMAN BACK

The human back is a part of the body of interest to the visual artist.

The entire torso has 30 pairs of skeletal muscles, with the muscles in the front more accessible to visual examination than those in the back.

The male back is more muscular than that of the female and is of particular interest for this reason.

Michelangelo, for example, was unusually drawn to depicting the muscularity of the male. His studies of the male back are renowned for the artist’s draftsmanship.

Two studies of note are “Male Back with a Flag” (1504) and “Libyan Sibyl” (1511).

“Male Back” was a study in preparation for “Battle of Cascina,” commissioned by Piero Soderini for the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence. Although Michelangelo never finished the fresco, copies of his cartoon survive, notably that of his pupil, Aristotele da Sangallo.

Male Back with a Flag (1504)

 

Battle of Cascina (undated) by Aristotele da Sangallo after Michelangelo

“Libyan Sibyl” is a preparatory drawing for a Sistine Chapel fresco which was executed in 1511.

The back of the sibyl, which is strongly shaded, looks more male than female because of its muscularity. It is not as apparent in the colored fresco.

 

Study of Libyan Sibyl (1511) by Michelangelo

Libyan Sibyl, Sistine Chapel (1511) by Michelangelo

 

Michelangelo’s drawings are dramatically shaded because of his fascination with male musculature. However, it isn’t necessary to always work so vividly. In this finely executed study, the artist realistically models the figure seen from the rear, skillfully creating the illusion of volume using only three tones—black, white, and the gray color of the paper itself. His draftsmanship is excellent. 

Weighted Stasis (2006) by Dan Gheno

 

Vladimir Zagitov is a contemporary Russian artist. He is a figurative painter, sometimes intriguingly abstract, who chooses bright colors and exploits dramatic points of view. Almost expressionist in quality, he is compelling, often startling, and at his most maddening he is edgy and discordant. Zagitov is visionary, not always mystical or religious.

“Escape into Egypt” (2002) illustrates several of his strengths as a visual artist. Zagitov in this dramatic composition renders the muscular back of Saint Joseph in stylized strokes and bold colors.

Escape into Egypt (2002) by Vladimir Zagitov

Eric Boyer on the Artsy website writes: “In 1985 I started to explore in metals, being employed for five years in a metal working shop where I learned to forge, weld and fabricate decorative iron railings, furniture and other household items. Among these were the dozens of fireplace screens of various designs and sizes that I fabricated and assembled. Being fond of salvaged materials, I began to play with left over scraps of the #8 mesh that were discarded from the assembly process. Having always been attracted artistically to the human form, and for other reasons both ethereal and practical, I began to sculpt figures. At first small and rather timid, these mesh sculptures began to attract attention, resulting in my first exhibition, in 1989, of 3/4 life-size figures at Art on the Mountain in Wilmington, Vermont. Working with wire mesh continues to fascinate me after over more than twenty years.”

https://www.artsy.net/artist/eric-boyer

—“Eric Boyer: American, b. 1960,” Artsy

He lists one- and two-person exhibitions dating from the 1990s into the beginning of the second decade of the millennium. His last auction dates 2015 and all auctions listed feature pieces from the mid-1990s. Based on the foregoing information, we can date his sculpture to c. 1990s.

Wire mesh or wire cloth has been defined as “a type of textile that has gained widespread popularity over the past hundreds of years, thanks to its many benefits and versatility. Unlike traditional cotton textiles, wire mesh is generally made of metal or allow wires that are woven together in a variety of patterns and styles, using a specialized loom.”

https://stainlesssteelwiremeshes.com/news/the-history-and-evolution-of-wire-mesh.html

—“The History and Evolution of Wire Mesh,” Metart Building Tech Co., Ltd., July 12, 2022

The use of woven wire mesh in specifically art dates to ancient times, where it was the material for the jewelry of the Egyptians and then later on for the Vikings. Wire mesh’s principal use during the medieval period was chainmail. Industrial technology for the mass production of wire mesh was developed during the Industrial Revolution, and upon the inception of the Second World War, the need for wire mesh in its many forms and diverse applications dramatically expanded. Demand for wire mesh has increased into the present time.

“The first documented use of woven wire mesh was in ancient Egypt where it was used to create gold and silver jewellery; a technique that was later adopted by the Vikings.

“The Vikings used silver and gold wires to weave ropes, which were stretched to make jewellery for their most famous and powerful leaders. This wire weaving process was called the Viking Knit.

“It was then during the 5th Century that woven wire became increasingly popular, as it was used for body armour. Many of the woven wire products were made from hand wrought iron wire. It was an important step forward in the wireworking industry, especially in Europe where Chainmaille (which derives from the French word ‘maille’ meaning mesh or net) were becoming increasingly popular.

“Other historians argue that woven wire body armour was actually used as early as 300BC and then peaked during the Dark Ages and Renaissance period. Today, it’s still used for body protection purposes, in woodcarvers and meat packers’ gloves and jackets, as well as by scuba divers to protect them against shark attacks.

“During the 17th and 18th Century steel and iron wire was generally traded on a small scale for domestic appliance applications such as cages, buckles, trays, windows etc.

“But it was in the 18th Century that the first case of a wire weaving loom for industrial purposes was evidenced. It derived from several influencing factors, which included the development of the paper industry and textile loom.

“In 1798 a French papermill worker had an idea to use fine wirecloth in a continuous form to produce paper, which was introduced to the UK by Henry Fourdrinier (whom the process was later named after). The endless meshbelt could then feed through the wet pulp at a much greater speed to produce continuous, large quantities of paper. This revolutionised the paper industry worldwide and allowed a basis for the technology to be applied to wider industries.

“The textile industry was also growing at the time and it was soon realised the basis of the textile loom could also be used to weave metal wire. This new automated wire weaving process then quickly developed throughout the UK during the Industrial Revolution; arguably it was the catalyst for the speed at which the Revolution developed.

“Then after the Industrial Revolution, demand for woven wire mesh peaked once again during WW2. It was an extremely useful application for many products used in the war such as military vehicles, aircraft filters, petrochemicals, sieving equipment for explosives.”

https://www.cadischprecisionmeshes.co.uk/info/technical-hub/the-history-of-woven-wire-mesh/

—Katie Robinson, “The History of Woven Wire Mesh,” Cadisch Precision Meshes

As a medium of sculpture wire mesh is a recent and contemporary development.

A pioneering figure in the development of wire mesh sculpture is Ruth Asawa (1926-2013); her first exhibitions date from the mid-fifties.

A unique attribute of wire mesh of the rigid (versus woven cloth) type in contrast to the assorted media of traditional sculpture is that wire mesh is used by the artist to bound empty space. Partially transparent, it may be exploited to replicate, paradoxically, the three-dimensional shading which we observe in two-dimensional drawings; moreover, this effect may be viewed dynamically from multiple angles. Because wire mesh is not as hefty as traditional media, artworks fashioned from this material may be lightly suspended from above; in this way, they may even be set in motion. Also, when wire mesh sculpture is variously illuminated, it interacts with the light cast and generates its own shadows.

“Nude” by Eric Boyer invokes the beguiling illusion of solidity here when he deploys the semi-transparent medium of wire mesh to mimic two-dimensional shading. We are transfixed by the subtle, shifting topography of the muscular male back.

 

Male Nude (c. 1990s) by Eric Boyer

Beginning his career as a professional illustrator in the fifties, Michael Leonard (1933-2023) turned towards fine art in the sixties. During this period, he experimented for some years with abstraction and with non-traditional and mixed media.

“In 1954, after two years of National Service in the army, I went to St Martin’s School of Art in London and studied Commercial Design and Illustration, (subjects that at the time seemed more likely than fine art to provide me with a viable future). By the time I left Art School in 1957 I was already working as a freelance illustrator and for many years was busy producing artwork for books, magazines, advertising and the press. Much of the work on offer was stimulating and enjoyable but after a time I felt the need to express a more personal vision. Lunch hour visits to the National Gallery fed a growing ambition to make pictures for the wall rather than the page — work that would be experienced in the original rather than in reproduction.”

https://www.michaelleonardartist.com/biography

—Michael Leonard, “Biography,” Michael Leonard

“In 1966, still searching for a suitable mode of expression, I embarked on a number of heavily textured paintings featuring Icarus and the Minotaur - two characters from Greek myth I was obsessed with at the time. (Icarus Burning Up, Icarus across the Sun and The Minotaur in the Maze).

“The large heads of The King, The Queen and The Prince (and to some extent Head in Profile) I was seeking to tap into something hieratic and archetypal and hoping to suggest recently excavated artefacts, with traces of earth still clinging to them. These pictures were made using an eclectic mix of house paint, powder colour, crumpled tissue and glue. Later, using the same materials, I made Head in Profile, Man’s Back and Wrestlers 1 & 2.”

https://www.michaelleonardartist.com/works/paintings/early-work

—Michael Leonard, “Early work - finding my voice as a painter,” Michael Leonard

He was notably attracted to nineteenth- and early twentieth-century American and contemporary British realists; he eventually settled on his predominant style, which we might describe as “close-toned realism.”  

“As an illustrator with ambitions to be a painter, I found the contemporary art scene of 1960’s London somewhat confusing and hard to connect with. What I was looking for was something to fire my imagination and perhaps give me direction. To my surprise I found it in the work of an abstract painter, Robyn Denny. A set of his screen prints made magical use of close-toned colour in a format of standing rectangles and I wondered if such effects could work for figurative pictures like my own. …I put close-toned effects to radical use in an early self portrait, In a Dark Window 1970 and used similar effects in Leroy in a Blanket 1970, Under a Tree; Alan with the Dogs 1972 and several others. As well as adding a note of ambiguity, this tonal restraint served as an antidote to the high impact, high key sensationalism of the commercial world I was aiming, eventually, to leave behind.

“For years I had been attracted to painters in the Realist mainstream of American art such as Andrew Wyeth, Winslow Homer and Edward Hopper and was encouraged to learn that, like me, both Homer and Hopper had spent much of their early careers working as Illustrators. I was also drawn to some of their successors, in particular Richard Estes, whose cityscape reflections in plate glass windows inspired me to embark on a series of ‘window’ pictures of my own. My pictures, however, were smaller and less complex and generally included figures.

“…Later I came to admire a quirkier group of North American realists sometimes referred to as The Lyric Realists. Among them were George Tooker, Jared French, Alex Colville and Paul Cadmus.”

https://www.michaelleonardartist.com/works/paintings/exhibited-painting

—Michael Leonard, “Exhibited Paintings,” Michael Leonard

“Man’s Back” (c. 1966) in mixed media is a sophisticated work of abstract figurative art guided by the overall configuration of the male back; it is partially non-representational. The artist demonstrates interest in bones and muscles and their abstract transformations. He rouses the viewer by contriving textures and creates the illusion of depth and solidity by deploying overlapping anatomical shapes and tonal variation. 

Man’s Back” (c. 1966) by Michael Leonard

 

The female back is a different story from that of the male. The female back is usually represented as sensuous—smooth, supple, graceful, often slender.

The foregoing attributes are rendered by Rodin in “Danaid” (1889) with extraordinary skill and finish. The marble piece is identical to one of the mythological figures in “The Gates of Hell,” a bronze commissioned by the Directorate of Fine Arts in 1880 and completed in 1917.

 

Danaid (1889) by August Rodin

Danaid (1889) by August Rodin, left side view

Danaid (1889) by August Rodin, right side view

Vicente Manansala, 1981 National Artist of the Philippines for Painting (posthumous), original member of the Thirteen Moderns formed in 1937, is recognized for originating and advancing the style of Transparent Cubism.

His colorful palette is not apparent in this piece, but his geometrization of the subject and penchant for transparency—even in black-and-white—are.

Although Manansala was renowned for his particular brand of Cubism, we should not confine him to a box. He was highly skilled in naturalistic depiction; the nude was a major subject of his oeuvre.

 

Untitled (Female Nude) (undated) by Vicente Manansala

Cesar Legaspi, 1990 National Artist of the Philippines for the Visual Arts-Painting, was a highly skilled draftsman and accomplished in oil.

The nude in transparent cubist style was a major motif of his work.

He was an original member of the Thirteen Moderns launched in 1937.

 

Nude (1979) by Cesar Legaspi

Aleen Aked (1907–2003) has been described as Post-Impressionist, and the quality of light and color in her work attests to the designation. The luminosity of this piece is hypnotic.

Its subject matter is secular, somewhat mundane, which is Modernist. Not an ounce of Neoclassicism here. She is a painter of the twentieth century.

 

Nude from Behind (undated) by Aleen Aked

“Swimmer Sculpture” by Eric Boyer is a suitable complement to “Nude” by the same artist. The voluptuous female back contrasts with that of the strapping male.

 

Swimmer Sculpture (c. 1990s) by Eric Boyer