LLEI D'ART 13

jorge egea Doctor inFineArtswith his thesis Modelling, Creation and Knowledge:SpiritusClassicus, out of his essential dedication to the modellingof the figure and the classical traditionof the nude, Jorge Egea also investigates photographicprinciples, as a formalisation withinwhose limits light andmatter flow as one. He has been lecturer in theSculptureDepartment in the Faculty of FineArt at the University of Barcelona for ten years, and has taught drawing at the PolytechnicUniversity of Catalonia, engraving at theAccademiadi BelleArti di Bologna, and has been awarded a scholarshipby the Ministry of Educationwithin the JoséCastillejoprogramme. He has adegree inCeramics from thePauGargalloSchool of Art and is founder of theCatalonian Institute for research inSculpture OnClassicandContemporary (III) On the representation of themale body AsKennethClark noted in hiswork TheNude (1953) ‘The Greeks discovered two incarnations of energy in the nude that have livedon through the entirety of European art, almost until today. There are the athlete and the hero, and from thebeginning they havebeen closely related to each other. Thedivinities of other religionswere static, and everything that surrounded their worshipwas immobile and static; but fromHomer onwards, the gods and heroes of Greece haveproudly exhibitedphysical energy and demanded a similar exhibitionof their followers’. Speakingon this unique energy, in theprevious issue, we noted various aspects associatedwith the representation of themale nude in art andwedrew thedifferencebetween ‘homo-erotic’ and ‘andro-erotic’ to show an inherent characteristic of themale image i.e. its ethical-philosophical meaning.Wewouldwish togo further into this idea of the representationof themale as themalebody is a clearly specificphenomenon in the history of art. It also acts quite differently from thepresence of the female nude. Thepower, both symbolic andphysical, of themale figure has created its own iconography, quite inseparable from the figurative traditionof theGreco-Roman legacy, both from similarity andby opposition. The idea of virility – the andro- erotic – par excellence is present in themale nude, but not in every nudemale. This shapingof the hero-athlete that Clark makes reference to is themain exponent oF this. In connectionwith these ideas, I was pleasantly surprised when I visited the house-cum-studioof thephotographer Manel Ortega on a short trip from London to theSouth Coast. After setting himself up inBarcelona, Ortega (Granada, 1956, www.manelortega.co.uk ) has set himself up inBrighton. Hisworkmainly focusses onportraiture and the male nude andhas been exhibited inSpain, theUK,Mexico andNewYork. Some of his images havebeenpublished such as Vogue , Mascular or Arte Fotográfico . Photography of themale nude shares some aspectswith the theory of thedepictionof the nude ingeneral, but has some specificpeculiarities. Firstly becausephotography is an art of themoment, asCartier-Bressonwouldgoon to explain. Amoment inwhich light takes shape ofmatter and the latter is fixed forever. But it is this instant thatmakes photography more voluble,more fleeting,morewilling tobend to the rules of change, trends and fashions…for this reasonwe should highlight thosemomentswhenphotography becomes part of the great traditionof classical representation. Ondiscoveringone ofManel Ortega’s unpublishedworks entitled Jonatan , I couldnot helpmy brain throwing up the image of a sculpture that I knowparticularlywell, once that is part of the formidable and yet little-known collectionof theSan Jordi Royal Academy of FineArts inBarcelona. I amof course referring to the VictoriousGladiator by the neoclassical sculptor JosepBover. JosepBover (1802-1866) was educated inBarcelona and set himself up inRome in1823, where hewould stay until 1827. In ItalyBover was thedisciple of theAndalucian sculptor JoséÁlvarezCubero (1768-1827), who in turn collaborated inAntonioCanova’sworkshop (1757-1822). Bover finished this piece inRome in 1825 and sent it back toBarcelona as a student. Jonatan becomes the contemporary living flesh image of a sculpture that precedes anddefines it, before its very existence. Twoheroes, one of flesh, one of plaster, that unknowingly share the same ideal beauty, thebeauty that transcends the specific andparticular qualities of the moment of somemalebodies posing. Thus they acquire the timeless beauty of the classical. However, neither Ortega normany other contemporary artists, evenBarcelona artists, are aware of the existence of thismagnificent sculpture. Contemporaneity has often led to an ignorance of thepast. It has caused a fault, a breakbetween tradition and thepresent despitewhich the significant forms of art, its energy and symbolism, have remained as a nexus, as a strong tie to artistic language. Whilst in the 20 th century there havebeenmany examples of destructionof the art of thepast, literally speaking, in the 21 st century the re-evaluationof tradition and the recovery of figurative values are evident signs of apost-decadence renewal. If we followPanovsky: a rebirthwithin themany rebirths ofWestern art. For this reason this parallel between thework of Bover and Ortega is important, despite thedistance impliedby the technique and the historical moment.Many coincidences bring them together, and herewe are notmaking exclusive reference to the general silhouette of thepose, but rather to thedetermination and character of thebody, and even to the presence of a cloth that, even though itmight not be in the sameposition, reminds us of the relationshipbetween the male nude and the cultural, ethical andpolitical aspects that we referred to in the first lines of this text. This fact reminds us of thepersistence of themeaning of forms, or of particular pathos of form, andof how this meaning transcends various historicmoments tobecome part of theworldof forms that culture transmits, following the theories beganbyAbyWarburg and his concept of Pathosformeln or pathos formulas. He used this these toprove the evolutionof the iconological method i.e. the continuationof thememory of the forms-formulas throughout history. This linkingof form to the idea ofmemory wasWarburg’s adaptationof the classical Mnemosyne , the 89