The Joy of the Fleeting

How should the human body be depicted? This question has remained a fundamental issue in Western modern art, closely tied to ideals of beauty and conceptions of the human being. For centuries, classical realism and anatomical accuracy were regarded as the standard for representing the body in painting – predicated on the assumption that faithfully reproducing the “real body” constituted the true mission of art. Yet, as Henri Matisse (1869–1954) once asserted, the body in art is not merely a subject to be imitated; rather, it forms the very core of creative visual expression, to be reconstructed through line and color.2