Humanity in the Arts

Through a series of categories—the authority of the male figure, the human as divine revelation, maternity, and abstraction of anxiety and uncertainty—comparisons of selected images from differing historical cultures are contrasted in a bifurcated effort to identify the process of the visual transmission of ideas and to encourage thinking about the meaning, function, intentionality, and reception of the body as the idea of humanity. The curious, if not ironic, fact that the human body is a product of the natural order, however one comes to understand that body, is shaped by social reality and cultural and religious values.

The authority of the male figure.

The male figure, which is identified as normative in defining power and authority, or so feminist scholars in the late twentieth century would assert, can serve as a locus for consideration of the relationship between the function of images and the idea of humanity. Referencing The human form interpreted as symbols of power and authority. King Men-kau-Ra between the goddess Hathor and the Goddess of the Nome of Diospolis Parva (Egypt, IV Dynasty, 2800B.C.E.). Schist. © ROGER WOOD /CORBIS the classical Greek statue of Zeus (Poseidon) (460 B.C.E.) as a particularly fine example of the visualization of the classical principles of harmony and order through the human figure, the handsomeness of this human form becomes quickened by muscular tensions, especially in his arms, legs, and torso, and the intimations of respiration. This sculpted rendition of male energy and movement can be read as expressive of ideal form, creation and fertility, kingship and military power, guardian and athlete, and prevalent social and cultural order. A figure of extraordinary vitality, Zeus (Poseidon) visually attests to the "Western" principle of entrancement with the beauty of the human figure, especially as the revelation of the imaged forms of the gods and goddesses. Muscular structure, movement (whether internal or external), and the ability to connote emotion through facial expression, gesture, or pose, are among the sculptor's tools in transmitting the idea of humanity. This sculpture is called by the name of a god, but he is in the form of a human being.

By contrast, the classical Egyptian carved relief of King Men-kau-Ra between the goddess Hathor and the Goddess of the Nome of Diospolis Parvis (IV Dynasty, 2800 B.C.E.) is more formal in presentation and interrelationships among the three figures than the group interaction in either of Bernini's works. This is a sculpture of hieratic art in which the depictions of the human body do not visualize the canon of beauty through harmony and order; rather, this is an envisioning of social structures and of the body more as a symbol than an organic composition. The conception of bodily forms, while identifiably male and female even by twenty-first-century Western standards—physical attributes such as breasts, distinctive hair-styles, and social positioning (female behind the male, the male in the leadership slot)—are evident beyond the static geometric and linear emphases. Here the "ideal body" mirrors the social constructs of authority, power, and sovereignty as much through the weightiness of forms as through individual postures.

The straight-backed, almost stiff bearing of all three personages voices their class and role in their cultural world as they affirm, not challenge, the received situation in daily life. Both the king and the goddesses display their bodies without a sense of shame or rejection. Extraordinary delicacy and dexterity was required to carve the diaphanous garments on the two goddesses and the pleated kilt of manhood on the king. The bodily proportions of both the male and female figures are realistic, neither elongated nor disjointed. However, the smooth formation of the torsos and extremities unto the visual lack of muscle-skin-bone-respiration provides us with the reverse situation of Zeus (Poseidon), for Men-kau-Ra is a human being in the form of a god.

The human as divine revelation.

Perhaps the fundamental connector between Eastern and Western cultures, especially in terms of religious values and the arts, is the human figure as the signifier of the hypothetical image of divinity. The classical Greek tradition advocated the idealization of the human form as a reflection of divine beauty, a philosophic and artistic legacy operative throughout the evolution of Western culture, which affirmed the dignity of humanity. Christianity inherited this principle but was oftentimes antagonistic to it and vacillated in its attitudes toward the human as graced by the Incarnation, as matter in need of redemption, as the vehicle of innocence, and as the purveyor of sin and lust, especially in terms of women. Commensurately the Eastern attitude, despite its religious and cultural variations, affirmed an abstracted relationship between humanity and the supernatural. This is to say that the human body, either wholly or in part, signified an aspect or character of the mystical ideal so that nakedness/nudity, especially in the Indian subcontinent, connoted the sensuality of the fertility spirits, postures, and gestures, while in Chinese art, nakedness/nudity served a didactic function, especially in terms of ethical behavior. More generically, however, the distortion of a specific body part or its total abstraction signified its embodiment of spiritual ideals.

Variations in body types do not necessarily signal distinctive attitudes toward the idea of humanity but more likely than not reflect the actuality of the global assortment of climatic, meterological, agricultural, and dietary differences not simply between East and West but also North and South, intracontinental as well as intercontinental. So for example, there is an identifiable "northern European body type" which can be distinguished from a "southern European body type." The latter is premised upon the Greek ideal of beauty and proposes that whether male or female, the torso is distinguished by two equal triangles with the base of one running the width of the hips with the intersecting side angles converging toward the waist to meet the tip of the other triangle, which expands as its inverted base crosses the span of the shoulders. This visual sensation of a mathematically balanced harmony is extended through a geometric progression of the size of the head to a grouping of four heads to the length of the torso and extremities, respectively. This "southern body," which basks regularly in the sun and its warmth, also benefits from the regularity of fresh crops and is thereby comfortable in its skin, wearing lighter and perhaps revealing clothing not for sexual enticement but for physical ease and climatic comfort.

Conversely, the "northern body" displays less proportionate relationships between shoulder and waist, waist and hip, head and torso, and torso and limbs. Rather one sees in works of art and other visual documentation men and women with narrowed shoulders, elongated torsos, protruding abdomens, slender hips, and spindly extremities. Like the huddled masses, they cover themselves with layers of heavy clothing to protect their bodies from the almost perpetual cold and damp weather. Further, this "northern body" is not regularly sustained by the availability of fresh fruits and vegetables; rather the normal diet consisted of salted and preserved meats, pickled vegetables, dark breads, and beer. Similar variations in body types and sizes can be distinguished throughout world cultures, as can the ideal of beauty and the definition of the exotic. Thereby the recognition of the fundamental roles of nature and natural elements in the formation of the human body must not be ignored, and attitudes toward humanity extend beyond what we identify as normative but created influences: culture, economics, politics, religion, and society.

A further consideration to be discussed is posture and stance. How individuals perceive themselves and others and how they are viewed by others is dependent upon a variety of factors including physical position. So whether standing or seated, an individual figure projects differing attitudes toward herself and others, as well as reflecting societal status, class distinctions, and hierarchical values. Similarly the element of dress, or lack thereof in the instance of sculptured figures, also places an interpretive value on the human person and her identity. Gestures, whether digital, hand, or facial, communicate more than emotions, sensitivities, or feelings. Ideas including cultural, religious, and social values can be exchanged or taught through gesturing. All aspects of the human body, then, can safely be said to contribute to the idea of humanity in world cultures, as individual regional groups develop specific forms of body and gestural language and attitudes toward gender, body types, and dress within the more universal categorizations of sex and stages of physical maturation.

One of those universals is the body as a nexus for humanity and divinity. For example, consider the following four sculptures: the figure of Christ from The Pentecost (c. 1132), Standing Buddha (first century), The Maitreya of the Koryuji Temple (seventh century) and Shiva Nataraja, Lord of the Dance (eleventh century). These are four different renderings of the divine through the human figure in standing, seated, praying, and dancing postures; clothed, draped, and partially Poised between heaven and earth. Christ of the Pentecost (detail from The Pentecost, c. 1132), tympanum in the narthex of the Cathedral de la Madeleine, Vézelay. THE ART ARCHIVE /DAGLI ORTI clothed forms; and with or without halos. Each communicates simultaneously the nobility and the simplicity of being human and male and yet also configured in some way divine.

The twelfth-century Christ of The Pentecost tympanum is an elegantly rendered, seated but nonetheless kinetic figure. This particular image is identified iconographically as a Majestas (or Maiestas) Domini, or Lord's Majesty, in which the Resurrected Christ, denoted by his cruciform nimbus, is depicted as the ruler (and judge) of the universe, surrounded by the tetramorphs (Ezekiel 1:4–28; Revelation). His bodily form is ethereal, with elongated torso and limbs and enlarged hands and feet. This is not a depiction premised upon the Greek ideal; rather this is a mystical rendering of the "Word made flesh" who is emphatically contoured against the large mandorla that encases him as a sign of his divinity. The refined drapery is highlighted by the variations between thin and thick reticulations in the folds and pleats. At certain places the drapery highlights the naturalness of his humanity, such as the almost sheer covering over his legs, particularly the protrusion of his right knee, while in other places the heavy layers of fabric, such as that over his arms, resembles wings. Throughout, the curvature of these draped layers of fabric create dynamic, musically organized circles, arcs, and curves that express extraordinary vitality. Thereby, although seated, this male form is enlivened yet hesitates between a state of vibrant motion and calm stillness. This is a Christ caught, if you will, between heaven and earth, between humanity and divinity, between materiality and Simultaneously human and divine. Standing Buddha (1st century C.E.), Takht-i-Bahi, northwest Pakistan. Schist. HIP/SCALA /ART RESOURCE, NY spirituality. This is not a Christ who would be known or understood by early Christians who affirmed his Incarnation but envisioned him only symbolically.

By contrast the first-century C.E. Standing Buddha radiates serenity, calm, and stillness. His skillfully delineated garment swirls leisurely around his almost pillar-like form. Such an image of the Buddha was influenced by the Greco-Roman models of both sculpted figures and costume. Like the Christ figure, this Buddha is also missing a hand—the former his left hand, the latter his right hand. Ostensibly such selective destruction is the result of an act of iconoclasm that is often religiously inspired when the "images" provoke too much of an aura of reality and threaten the status quo of a religion or political group. Whereas the Christ communicated ethereality and the perceived ability to float away from the cathedral wall and upward to the heavens, this Gandharan Buddha is solidly placed on the ground, although the viewer does not see how firmly, as his feet have either been excised purposively or removed by a natural disaster. This is an image of the eternal, divine Buddha, not the moral teacher of the earliest Buddhist tradition. He is simultaneously regal and humble, human and divine, solid yet spiritual. Despite the refinement, spirituality, and disciplined strength, this Buddha image communicates the gravitas of humanity as refined aristocracy, particularly when contrasted with the Christ figure.

The Maitreya of the Koryuji Temple is a elegantly aligned figuration of the Japanese Buddhist principles of silence, calm, and compassion that lead toward enlightenment. Although a male form, this Maitreya is an asexual androgyne with soft and delicate hands and fingers that gesture teachings on wisdom and compassion. His slender body almost defies the weight of his enlarged head and thickened neck as it tilts forward in a meditation posture. His slight frame—small, gentle bones with minimal to no musculature—is revealed by his naked torso. His legs are covered by a loosely pleated drape as they intertwine into a yoga position with the soles of his feet turned outward to the sky and away from the earth. As with images of the human form in other historical time periods, cultures, and media, this Maitreya privileges the symbolic nature of the body over portraiture, emblem, or realism. The delicacy and fragility of this bodhisattva portends the ideals of spiritual wisdom and compassion, especially as expressed through love. Another commonality between Eastern and Western religious art in the utilization of the human body is that of the portrayal of love, especially divine love, in which men are characterized by a softening of their otherwise hard-edged masculinity. Thus John the Beloved Disciple (also known as John the Evangelist) is rendered as a soft, delicate, almost fragile but youthful male figure verging for some viewers on androgyny or femininity.

The ecstasy of the so-called Dancing Shiva professes the fundamental essence of rhythmic movement as both a primordial human act and a signifier of divine energies. The Hindu tradition characterizes Shiva, like the other deities, through a multiplicity of forms such as the Lord of the Dance who creates and destroys in one conflated activity. The child at his feet is the representative of the new: life, year, creation. However, for the new to emerge the old must be destroyed in the choreography of the life cycle. This is the image of an anthropomorphic deity who defies traditional categories of description as he balances the world on one foot. That foot, however, is symbolically naked and absolutely flat on the ground or the resting child. The contorted postures of his bent knees, elevated left leg, swaggered buttocks, wispy waist, dramatically stiff neck and head, and ceremoniously gesturing four arms and hands are coordinated to presuppose the appearance of a circle, particularly a flaming circle, as the symbol of eternity. Curiously, if the Christ from The Pentecost were placed next to the Shiva Nataraja one is brought to silence by the visual parallels and counterpoints. The extension of Shiva's outer arms is identical to that of Christ, although the hand gestures differ significantly: Shiva is holding objects such as a cymbal and a lotus in his hands, while the remaining right hand of Christ is empty as it turns palm out to the viewer; presumably he held a book, Bible, or orb in his left hand. The dramatic swag of the hips is visually parallel, although Christ's two enlarged bare feet rest flat on the edge of the mandorla while Shiva's enlarged feet are positioned differently. The right foot rests flatly and firmly on the offered child, while his right leg is elevated high above his bent left knee. Although further visual comparisons could be made here, what becomes significant is the difference: the ethereality of Christ causes a viewer to wonder if he won't just float away, while the gravitas of Shiva leaves him earthbound.

Maternity.

The universal category of maternity is something "more" than the iconographic convention of Mother and Child in either religious or secular art. This image is a confirmation initially of the limitless importance and nature of fertility and secondarily of the survival of both the species and of individual human beings. Found in all forms of religious and secular art within world cultures, the presentation of women with their children is simultaneously ahistorical and historicized. If the faces, costuming, or relationships depicted are identifiable then this pairing can be interpreted as individualized, portraiture, and historical; if unidentifiable or universalized as types, depictions of the mother and child are categorized as ahistorical, symbolic, and culturally or socially relevant. For example, consider the contrasts and commonalities between a twelfth-century Byzantine-style Virgin and Child (late eleventh to early twelfth century), a Gothic Virgin and Child (fourteenth century), an Indian Mother and Child (eleventh century), Michelangelo's Vatican Pietà (1498–1500), and Stephen De Staebler's Pietà (1988).

The Byzantine-styled Virgin and Child projects a vision of clear demarcations as to the theological and social definitions of maternity. The rigid, almost stiff posture of this standing female figure is emphasized, if not highlighted, by the tightly draped and pleated fabric of her dress and mantle, which cover Formalized depiction of maternity. Virgin and Child (Byzantine; 11th–12th century). Ivory. VICTORIA & ALBERT MUSEUM, LONDON /ART RESOURCE, NY the disproportionate frame of her androgynous body. Her feminine attributes are visible only in her softened but anonymous facial features, her conveyance of a child, and in the gentle emotion expressed in their mutual hand gestures. The Naturalized rendering of the divine mother and child. Virgin and Child (14th century; Cathedral de Notre-Dame, Paris). GIRAUDON /ART RESOURCE, NY normative convention—in Byzantine and in Western medieval and Renaissance art—of depicting the Christ Child as a miniature adult heightens the hieratic posture and authority communicated by this ivory sculpture. The visual moment of naturalness is found solely in the forward positioning of her left leg as the mother shifts her imagined body weight to accommodate that of her child. The unnaturalness of these figures may be exacerbated by the then dominant Christian antagonism both to sculpture and to the artistic rendering of natural bodies.

The elegant form of the Gothic Virgin and Child creates the impression of quiet motion through the interconnecting linear and curvilinear relationships of the loosely pleated layers of fabric of her garments with the S-shaped curve of her body. Exhibiting a very natural swayed posture for a mother who hoists her child on either her protruding hip or twisting upper body, this depiction of the Virgin offers a visual and societal counterpoint to the Byzantine portrayal. The legal status and rights of women, albeit women of class, expanded at this time in history, as evidenced by the way in which this Gothic queen, whose elaborate crown replaces the simple mantle of her Byzantine counterpart, holds forth the symbol of her country with her right hand and the body of her son with her Mother as creator and nurturer. Mother and Child (11th century). Statue from Kajuraho, Madhya Pradesh, India. Chandella dynasty. BORROMEO /ART RESOURCE, NY left hand. He offers his mother a round object, apparently an apple or an orb but in either case an object, a piece of property for her to hold and to own. The softened female form of this Virgin, despite her postural exaggeration and that of her child, approach a regularized vision of the human form.

As a contrast, or perhaps a confirmation, of the universality of maternity as an idea and a visual expression of the idea of humanity, consider an eleventh-century Indian sculpture of Mother and Child. The normative "Eastern" approach to the softened and voluptuous body of the female figure is evident even without the exaggerated turns of the neck and abdomen. The intersecting curves and arches of this woman's body both nurture and commune with the rounded figure of her child, whom she holds before her with a firm right hand, placing the child in a position for maternal examination as her solidly balanced left hand draws the child near to her rotund breasts. This mother figure, like her Indian contemporaries, is dressed both for bodily display and for comfort. Her minimized clothing emphasizes the biologically female characteristics of full lactating breasts, an abdominal swell, and swaying hips in coordination with the soft and delicate expression of maternal love and compassion.

Although this Indian mother, like her Byzantine-styled and Gothic counterparts, is depicted standing, she communes directly with her child, from the bend of their heads to the physicality of their connections—the child's hands on her The maternal life force. Pieta (1988) by Stephen De Staebler. Bronze. PHOTO BY SCOTT MCCUE; COURTESY OF STEPHEN DE STAEBLER breasts, legs akimbo across the mother's abdomen, the mother silently extending her pelvic region forward to support her child—so that the emphasis here is on maternal kinetics as opposed to religious, societal, or ritual significance. Fertility and survival fuse in this visual metaphor for human creation as the sacred merges with the secular into a potent motif that transcends geographic borders, economic classes, and religious divisions to express fundamental human and moral values.

Michelangelo amplifies the mother and child relationship and the nature of maternity in his first presentation of the Pietà, a Christian iconographic motif signaling the singular mourning of the mother for her dead child. This is a moment of great intimacy and emotion, which Michelangelo elevates to the higher levels of spiritual significance. Here the now seated mother encompasses the limp body of her deceased son in her lap. The varying circular, linear, arched, and swirled drapery that enfolds her body and her head turns initial attention away from both the size and symbolic meaning of her form. The sculptor skillfully creates a series of internal relationships between these two figures so that our sense in seeing this Pietà is first of the beauty of the human figures and the placid presentation of emotion.

Emotional presentation of mother and child relationship. Pietà (1498–1500) by Michelangelo. Marble. © BETTMANN/CORBIS

However, careful viewing results in the recognition of the circuit of visual games Michelangelo has created within this one sculpture. There is the Neoplatonic philosophic emphasis on the beauty of form and thereby of a retrieval of the classical Greek tenet of the spiritual valuing of the body. This formal beauty, in fact, is of religio-philosophical importance for Renaissance Christianity and a distraction from the more important internal visual "game." The mother's body is greatly out of proportion to the relationship of an adult male body to that of an adult female body. Attentive viewing moves us beyond the theological reading that Mary's ample body signifies mater ecclesia (mother church) to a recognition that the interrelationship between mother and son is actually that of mother with her youthful child. Further, she attends not to the viewer as her Byzantine and Gothic ancestresses did but rather to the sighting of the life force within her son's body—respiration. Given the Renaissance fascination with and knowledge of human anatomy and medicine, this sighting of Christ's diaphragm is more than a visual centering point; it is emblematic of the merged valuation of art, life, religion, and science.

Stephen De Staebler's late-twentieth-century Pietà provides a counterpoint to these four sculptures of the universal of maternity. Manifesting a modern recognition of the fragmentation The imperfections of humanity. Archangel (1987) by Stephen De Staebler. Bronze. PHOTO BY SCOTT MCCUE; COURTESY OF STEPHEN DE STAEBLER and fragility of the human body with the eternal dynamic of spirituality, this pairing of figures is abstracted to their fundamental essences. Removing all pretense or social conventions of costume and decoration, as well as any historicized identity by "erasing" identifiable facial features on both the mother and her child, De Staebler recognizes the universal truth of maternity as a life force defiant against disaster, war, and limitations. The child is fused to the mother through her heart as well as her body, as signaled in the positioning of his head emergent from her breast. This abstraction, however, visually reaffirms the natural postural relationships between mothers and children as evidenced in the four sculptures here examined as well as in everyday situations. This mother strides forward on elevated toes as her fragmented body appears poised to levitate above the restrictions of human finitude and guilt, of life and death, despite the scientific and medical advances of the twentieth century; and yet she remains conjoined to the earth, whose contours and surface textures parallel those of this same figuration.

Among the most powerful symbolic pairs in world art and iconography, the stylization, exaggeration, postures, or body types in renderings of the mother and child relate as much to the historical and political time periods in which they are created as to the religious or secular values they signify. Whether African, Oceanic, Mesoamerican, pre-Columbian, prehistoric, or modern, this universal expression of the idea of humanity confirms visually the enduring meaning of fertility, survival, and love through maternity.

Abstraction of anxiety and uncertainty.

The final universal category for the idea of humanity through sculpture is that of the abstraction of anxiety and uncertainty as recorded in Brancusi's Torso of a Young Man (early twentieth century), Alberto Giacometti's Figure of a Man (1947), and Stephen De Staebler's Archangel (1987). Despite the diversity of styles and artistic movements identified as twentieth-century sculpture, the common descriptor is the term abstract, which is derived from the Latin ab stracto, "to take the essence from." These three modern, thereby abstract sculptures simplify the traditional detailing and characteristics of the human figure in calculated departures from the philosophy, spirituality, and politics of the classical ideal. Economic but elegant employment of lines and curves analyze the essence of the structure and geometry of the human form while never denigrating the native spirituality of the idea of humanity.

Beginning with Brancusi's elemental torso, the human body is depicted as a fragment symbolic of the whole. Such a fragmenting of the body is often interpreted as a disruption, a sign of the philosophic and religious distress of the early twentieth century and a cause for anxiety. However, given the influences on Western culture and art of le primitif, especially the influence of Africa and Oceania in the late 1800s and early 1900s, of "the East" at midcentury, and of "the marginalized" from the late 1960s, the tendency toward abstracting expressed here, first through Brancusi and finally by De Staebler, signifies a retrieval of the fundamental native symbolic valuing communicated through the image of humanity. How humanity is configured—radical simplification, emotional expression, organic forms, geometric structures, or ideal beauty—is as dependent upon cultural attitudes, social mores, and religious values as on the realities of climate, nutrition, economics, and the prevailing conventions of art.

In contrast to Brancusi, Giacometti appears to return to figuration. However, it is not the classic ideal but rather an elongated and disproportionate figure that connotes the anguish and distress of World War II, existentialism, and the recognition of human finitude and frailty. Nonetheless the spindly distentions of this man's arms create a curious mixture of identifying gesticulations in his right hand and transcendence through his left hand, almost as if he were the reincarnation in minimalist terms of the Christ figure at the Last Judgment. The distortions in Giacometti's figure are, however, no less calculated than those in Michelangelo's sculptures. The geometrically progressive nature of the relationships of head to torso and torso to extremities combine with the fundamental human characteristic of gestural communication to project the sense of a "real person."

De Staebler's Archangel may initially be perceived as disjunctive, as the angelic form merges with the human in what appears to be a visual fragment. However, just as cultural and philosophic shifts occur throughout cultural history, the viewer's mode of "reading" images moves from that of a sequential narrative to a gradual absorption of shifting concepts of truth and fiction. Reflective of midcentury societal and religious critiques, De Staebler's figures are a re-visioning of the idea of humanity, no longer premised on the philosophic ideals of classical Greece but rather upon the realities of human frailty, including variations in body types, illness, and the process of aging. Although Western artists have recognized that the idea of humanity, like the human form, can be deduced from the most minimized detail, it was sculptures such as De Staebler's Archangel that challenged late-twentieth-century viewers to ponder the meaning of being human and to rejoice in the spirituality of humanity despite its imperfections.