Standing male nude 1855

Curator: Ah, yes. Here we have Otto Scholderer's "Standing male nude" created in 1855, a compelling drawing made with pencil and chalk. It now resides here with us at the Städel Museum. Editor: Immediately striking, isn’t it? There's a languid, almost melancholy quality to the pose, that hand behind the head… He seems lost in thought, which is funny considering the artist presumably asked him to stand right there, unclothed! Curator: I think that contemplative air aligns with the academic art traditions. These were often exercises for artists— studies of form, anatomy. The figure's stance, leaning against that block, feels deliberately classical. You can really see Scholderer grappling with rendering the human form. Editor: Absolutely. It feels like Scholderer really saw him, rather than just imposing an idealized form. There's something quite earthy and human about the work that transcends the standard, stiff academic exercise, and it also looks a bit romantic for such an old work! Curator: And those are some significant reasons it endures beyond its context. While part of a study tradition— academic figure drawing in the mid-19th century was deeply enmeshed in constructions of masculinity, notions of beauty. The body was a site of both aesthetic appreciation, political significance in that period. Editor: I can see that now, the historical implications. To look at his eyes in the work it feels a touch subversive too— a gentle, real, thinking person rendered so delicately in line and shadow, it gets away from being an objectified form in that context. Curator: Perhaps that delicate, realistic portrayal— eschewing perfect idealism, focusing on an inner life— explains its ongoing appeal, our enduring curiosity for art created long ago that continue to bring something new to the eye. Editor: Definitely! It's a nude that somehow avoids feeling...naked. A tender paradox, no? Thanks to his ability to show that complexity so gracefully using just the tools at hand. I have really enjoyed our look into this particular nude figure.