Torso

This was the first pencil drawing I have done in a while and have never worked it to such a finish. Although a closer look reveals the shading and cross hatching is still visible. The process of shading , as I’ve done here, is reminiscent of stone carving with a claw chisel. The forms are revealed by repeatedly building up layers, as if focusing a lens, refining the form. Pencil is lovely but the graphite has a shine and lack of tonal range for the darks.

When I draw a torso, I am seeking a kind of beauty, and a naked male torso is a beautiful thing. But it is not desire I feel when I study and closely scrutinise the model to draw this image. When I look at the male figures of Michelangelo I do not feel an erotic charge and yet I find in them a great beauty. When I carve a figure I rise and fall over its undulations as if in a landscape. Over and over the form, following the lines of force that bind us in space.

People talk about and reference Michelangelo’s presumed homosexuality and it may even be the case that he was homosexual, it is just not a concern that affects my reading of his work. Rather than being motivated only by male desire, the profound sensibilities displayed in his work touch deeper realms of beauty. Beauty is deeper than desire.

The slaves for example have a great power, staggering grace and facility. A beauty which then must be a truth. Why do I feel this emotion, in my heart when I look at his work, stone carved as flesh and bone. What is beauty? Keats said beauty is truth and truth beauty. I have even gone so far as to use the word ‘grace’ when looking at his drawings, when confronted with the breathtaking facility and loving tenderness he displays when drawing the figure.

But I accept that the naked human figure has an erotic aspect. Lucian Freud said that he just saw meat when he looked at a human figure. Does this mean he simply saw the human form as biological organic machine, dumb, helpless and decaying. I don’t rate Freud as much as I used to, and sometimes I find it hard to separate his destructive behaviour as a man and a father from his art. It’s a bit depressing only to see oneself and others as a decaying machine. But he also said that the simplest human gestures tell stories.