Studie af mandlig models ben 1830 - 1833

Curator: We're looking at "Studie af mandlig models ben", a pencil drawing executed by Dankvart Dreyer between 1830 and 1833, part of the collection at the SMK, the National Gallery of Denmark. Editor: There's a subtle beauty here. A very soft image, almost ghost-like. The anatomical form is present, but seems to be disappearing. It is delicate. Curator: Right, and within the academic tradition of that time, these nude studies of male models served not just as exercises in form but also, implicitly, reinforced prevailing notions of idealised masculinity. The labor involved, not just of the artist, but the model subjected to that gaze, and the academy's authority itself... these things bear remembering. Editor: It is about labor – the artist's labor in observation, translation onto paper; and also, in some way, about the labor of the body represented, bearing the weight, literally the posture, demanded of it by the artist's observation. Note the precise and almost surgical rendering of the muscles. Curator: Indeed. Consider also how this rendering, and its placement within an institutional setting like the art academy, normalizes the male nude as an object of study, almost completely removed from the realities and subjectivities experienced by male bodies themselves. It reduces flesh and blood to artistic fodder. Editor: While simultaneously fetishizing the medium, the pencil, the paper. What specific types were available to Dreyer, and at what cost? How would their availability in the making influence what aspects of figuration Dreyer choose? Did his hand falter to afford a new pencil tip, at all? Curator: It's important to note that realist art was just beginning its flowering as the preferred and praised method, a radical democratizing influence against earlier traditions of idealized forms of court or classical sculpture. It is the reality of this male figure they were celebrating. The muscles strain! The line isn’t quite clean! That feels like something new and worth remembering! Editor: Looking at how this sketch relates to later works of Dryer can speak to his development, maybe. There is also, more broadly, to reflect on our modern view of it through queer eyes, challenging these academic representations that, as we have noted, remove the nude from any trace of lived reality. Curator: A fruitful conversation; I will ponder further over these layers in my scholarship. Editor: A vital way to remind ourselves of the complicated materiality behind even the simplest of forms.