‘Body Language’ Meets the Naked Truth

In one sense, figure painting has been on a steady downward trajectory in art circles ever since the invention of photography. There was no longer a pressing need to describe the human body in paint when a mechanical device could capture its every curve and wrinkle. Even when figurative painting has been unfashionable, some artists have brought a distinctive personal vision to the depiction of flesh and bone.

Stanley Spencer, Lucian Freud, David Park, Francis Bacon, Philip Pearlstein, Alice Neel and Eric Fischl are among the painters who invigorated the tradition at various times during the past few decades. But in a culture dominated by the photographic image, most paintings of the nude body are dry academic exercises devoid of intensity or revelation.

For “Body Language: Current Figurative Painters” at the Art Institute of Southern California, Grady Harp (formerly with Lizardi/Harp Gallery in Pasadena, now a free-lance curator) has chosen works by a dozen American artists ranging in age from early 30s to early 60s.

Some treat the figure primarily as an exercise in detailed rendering; others insert it into an anecdotal context. But the overwhelming sense here is of academic technicians and tedious moralizers, some not even particularly good at what they do.

By far the most compelling pieces in the show are Hanneline Rogeberg’s two small untitled diptychs of partial views of a woman’s body. All we see are her hands manipulating her breasts, the fingers indenting creamy flesh in an intensely palpable way.

Poised delicately between the clinical and the erotic (she might be teasing a lover or doing a breast exam), these images are redolent of sensual intimacy--not only in what they reveal but in the lush way they are painted.

Also working in oil, Claudia Parducci titles each of her four small paintings of men’s or women’s breasts or genitalia with the initials of the sitter. But she undercuts the provocative potential of each of these radically abbreviated “figures” by grouping them in a series. The way they are hung--one above the other, with alternating male and female body parts--also gives them an annoyingly gimmicky look. If you try to look at one painting at a time, however, Parducci’s generalized brush work--the skin is hazy; the pubic hair, a soft, dark cloud--reinforces the tension between the individuality and voyeuristic impersonality of sexual organs.

At the other extreme are the slick vacuousness of Anita Janosova’s “Swimming Solo” (a calendar art nude whose body lacks a sense of water-displacing density) and the bland flattery of portrait painter Nelson Shanks. Other disappointments include the self-conscious stylings of John Nava and Wes Christensen, and Stephen Douglas’ ineffectual attempts at boldness.

Nava’s harshly lit female nude, “Seated Figure,” is seen in an uncomfortable-looking pose, with elbows poking into the air and eyes closed; his standing “Measured Figure” has a torso and limbs that are detailed with a miserly application of paint and a curious lack of volume. Nava’s chilly, distanced approach to the nude has been called Neoclassical, but it lacks the calm harmonies and appeals to higher ideals that characterized his 18th century forebears.

Christensen’s ludicrous attempts to breathe contemporary life into antique and medieval themes in small-format watercolor-and-pencil drawings include “Oedipus With Spongemop” (nude dude posed with a stool and mop) and “Chanson de Geste” (life-drawing instructor offers a hand to nude model stepping off her platform while each primly avoids looking at the other).

*

As if to counteract the conservatism of his highly detailed technique, Douglas paints and draws figures who affect small signs of rebelliousness, like posing semi-nude with wild hair and untied sneakers (“Jeffrey”), or wearing only hose and long gloves, in the manner of a 19th century courtesan (“Susan”). But the work is hamstrung by its cautiousness; it risks nothing.

For those who are entrenched in academic portraiture, it certainly helps to have a clearly identifiable way of seeing.

Wade Reynolds invests a lot in a pose. An almost preternaturally smooth-skinned athlete (“The Cyclist”) turns away from the viewer in such a way that a muscle in his buttock flexes and a meandering vein behind his knee leaps out like a snake. The whole bulk of the painting rests on that lone detail.

* “Body Language: Current Figurative Painters,” through Sept. 27 at the Art Institute of Southern California, 2222 Laguna Canyon Road, Laguna Beach. Hours: 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Monday-Friday; 9 a.m.-4 p.m. Saturday. Admission free. (714) 497-3309.