This week a superlative show of Greek art at the British Museum was a revelation. Its focus is on the sensuality and humanity of the body depicted in Classical Greek sculpture.
This was the first time in art that nudity was celebrated for its own sake, idealised and stylised but clearly the human body we recognise. Its influence on the later renaissance and subsequently all western art since then has been so deep and profound, its as if that extraordinary moment in time invented our world.
How wonderful that art from so long ago can be as immediate to us now as when it was first created and having been privileged to work on recreating the body in art, it is humbling and awe inspiring to see these primal works in close up.
We are travelling to Greece in the summer and mentally I am already there now. This new painting “Sailing to Byzantium” is a prelude to the trip and the world of Homers Wine Dark Sea.
Also this week, as promised some new drawings of a body in motion.
Drawing is as they say, a line taken for a walk and after seeing this show it is a line that stretches back 2500 years to that glorious period of humanist enlightenment.
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