A wide-ranging exhibition of art related to the naked human body is under way at the Yokohama Museum of Art in Yokohama until June 24. Most of the roughly 130 pieces on display are on loan from the Tate, a leading national art institution in Britain.
Titled "NUDE: ART FROM THE TATE COLLECTION," the exhibition focuses on the history of nude pieces created over a span of about 200 years and showcases paintings, sculptures, prints, photographs and other works of art. Most of the works were created from the latter half of the 19th century to the contemporary era. Featured artists include Auguste Rodin, Henri Matisse, Auguste Renoir, Pablo Picasso and David Hockney.
A highlight of the exhibition is "The kiss," a massive marble sculpture by Rodin on public display in Japan for the first time. This 1.8-meter-tall, 3.5-ton monolith, which depicts a man and woman passionately embracing and kissing, has an overwhelming presence. The couple are characters from Dante Alighieri's epic poem "The Divine Comedy," and their posture and lustrous skin are appealingly sensual. Rodin powerfully captures their tragic love.
"Woman in a tub" by Edgar Degas is part of the impressionist painter's celebrated series of pastels depicting women taking baths.
In Western art, naked bodies were depicted only to illustrate mythology and other narrative stories until about the first half of the 19th century. Degas, however, chose women washing themselves, a scene representative of real life, as an artistic subject.
Several works from the series were displayed at an exhibition of impressionist paintings soon after they were produced. His depictions of bathing women are said to have been regarded as extreme at the time, eliciting both positive and negative reactions from critics.
Eight intriguing works by the great landscape painter Joseph Mallord William Turner are also on display. Most of Turner's nude studies and sketches were destroyed after his death, but several miraculously survived.
This is the most substantial exhibition put on by the Tate in Japan in the past 20 years, said Maria Balshaw, director of the British art institution.
Although some of the exhibits may be provocative, they are meant to reflect the diversity of contemporary values.
--"NUDE: ART FROM THE TATE COLLECTION" runs through June 24. The Yokohama Museum of Art in Nishi Ward, Yokohama, is closed on Thursdays. Visit yokohama.art.museum/eng/ for more information.
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