Standing Male Nude 1923

Curator: Here we have Denman Waldo Ross's "Standing Male Nude," currently held at the Harvard Art Museums. The drawing itself is about 35 by 21 centimeters. Editor: It feels so tentative. Like a fleeting thought sketched onto paper with a soft pencil. There’s a vulnerability in the pose and the unfinished quality... almost dreamlike. Curator: Indeed. Nudes, particularly male nudes, were often exercises in anatomical study, echoing classical ideals, and served as a status symbol for academic artistic training. Editor: That geometric scaffolding behind him is interesting; it feels like a cage or, perhaps, a diagram of the artist’s own process. It’s like he’s both observing and constructing the figure simultaneously. Curator: The lines could also point towards the early 20th-century influences of cubism and abstraction, where artists were starting to fragment and reassemble the human form. Editor: Regardless, it’s the quietness of it that stays with me. Curator: Yes, its ability to quietly reflect on the body.