Gender equality... for nude paintings
Royal Academy tots up number of naked men and women on display
GIVEN the prevailing sensibilities about gender, it was only a matter of time before some bright spark decided to try to balance the number of nude men and women on show in an art exhibition.
And this is no ordinary show. It is an exhibition of Renaissance masters including Titian, Raphael, Michelangelo, Leonardo, Durer and Cranach at the Royal Academy.
This is probably the first such spectacle where the pictures are chosen not just on merit, but on the sex of those depicted in the sculptures and paintings without many clothes on.
The Renaissance Nude is due to open in March 2019 will include around 85 works created from 1400 to 1530 showing the evolution of the ‘idea and ideal’ of the nude throughout Europe.
The decision to introduce a gender quota was confirmed by the gallery’s director Tim Marlow at its season launch and follows a period of soul- searching in the arts and entertainment industry about the treatment and portrayal of women.
Per Rumberg, a curator at the Royal Academy, said he and his colleagues had been ‘very keen in the beginning to have an equal balance of men and women’. He told The Daily Telegraph that, although he had not done an exact headcount of the nude figures, ‘there is almost parity between men and women’.
He said the academy had also tried to achieve a gender balance among the scholars working on the exhibition. The idea for the London show was conceived around three years ago, and will be opened in partnership with The J. Paul Getty Museum in California.
Mr Marlow said the meaning of the exhibition had changed since then amid the ‘cultural climate’ of the MeToo campaign against sexual harassment.
He said: ‘On one level you can say, art historically, are there more women than men? Yes, but in that period is it considerably more?
‘Historically what are the differences in the way the male and female bodies are portrayed?’
Other exhibitions at the Royal Academy, such as the Oceania or Bill Viola shows, will not be subject to gender quotas. Mr Marlow added: ‘But in a subject exploring the Renaissance nude in a historic period it seems a very interesting exercise to do.’
The Renaissance Nude exhibition will include paintings, sculptures and drawings.
Feminist campaigners have often criticised galleries for the lack of women artists in major collections compared to the high proportion of nude women appearing in the works displayed.
Earlier this year, the National Gallery confirmed that less than one per cent of its works are by women. Maureen Lipman says the MeToo movement has gone too far and risks ‘wiping out men’.
The actress, 72, called the campaign ‘knee-jerk’ and said celebrities who parade around ‘dressed like prostitutes’ send out mixed messages to men.
She told Radio Times that the message given out with MeToo ‘smacks to me of the reaction to Jimmy Savile – “We messed up big time [by not uncovering his crimes sooner], now let’s get every light entertainer and unfashionable comedian … for putting a hand on a knee 40 years ago”.’
‘Interesting exercise’