My friend Kate sent me this image she saw in Communication Arts Magazine and I think it speaks directly to the question I addressed in an earlier post regarding bodypainting and nakedness. In this foto I’d say that the woman is pretty thoroughly painted and very definitely naked. Reading perhaps too much into it, I think that dual impression is part of the intention of the artist here, for they have deliberately left the model’s pubic hair visible when it could have been hidden via the bodypainting, and that seems to me to be intended to make the viewer recognize the nakedness of the model. I can see this image as making a statement that a painted body is naked, just as a zebra is naked, no matter how thoroughly decorated it is. Even if the artist’s intentions were not that specific in regard to this question, I see this image as equating the painted model with the striped zebras, placing them both in the same state of nature/nakedness.
I also think it’s a cool photograph — how cool to have had the chance to do a photo shoot with live zebras — and I think that anyone would see this as a work of art. Although some people have trouble with nakedness in any form, having a naked human appear in a work of art is an established and accepted tradition, from the ancient Greeks and on. So much depends on context.
Check out the previous posts for more on this question:
is a painted body naked? https://thestorybehindthefaces.com/2011/04/15/is-a-painted-body-naked/
is a painted body naked ? – Pt.2: Painting Clothing On vs. Painting on Clothing https://thestorybehindthefaces.com/2011/04/18/is-a-painted-body-naked-pt-2-painting-clothing-on-vs-painting-on-clothing/
Unfortunately I don’t have a copy of the Communication Arts Magazine July/August edition that this image was in, and couldn’t find out who was the bodypainter or photographer from their web site http://www.commarts.com/ , so I can’t include proper credits here. If you know who generated this image, please add that information as a comment.
What I would like to know is why we are able to recognize wonder and beauty in any animal, obviously naked, while for the human being everything must be completely different as well as complicated.