Nakedness

Jan Saudek’s photography gallery was certainly one of a kind. I thought some of it was really incredible, but definitely enjoyed certain sections of it more than others. Something really strange happened as I walked through it, however. I realized that as I became more and more comfortable with seeing the naked figures, I actually preferred them to the clothed ones. Never thought I would have said that. Hah.

I still do not appreciate at all the nakedness when it’s used in erotic poses or immoral settings, but I began to really like the simplicity and purity of a body in its unadorned form. The body that God created and nothing more. I loved the photographs of a mother with her children, or of a father holding his baby close to his chest. I liked even some of the photographs that didn’t deal with the family, but presented the human body unaccompanied by cloth.

Later on in the exhibit, whenever he photographed a body with clothes on, they seemed distracting to me. It seemed like an unnecessary accessory… lots of material for what? And I think his photographs might have presented me with a little taste of the natural, simplistic glory that our bodies were created to possess. And I suppose that makes it art, for he not only represented life, but presented something new.

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