book (in spanish) - el desnudo

The drawing of the human figure engages us completely: it concerns the emotion we feel in front of the model as we observe its physical characteristics and perceive, alternating them with our own, its moods. Perhaps, in a similar way to what happens in the portrait, and with even more subtle and profound values, observing the body of one of our fellow men provokes a kind of gaze also on his inner flow and provokes almost a reflection or a projection in him... It is not surprising, therefore, and it is well known, that since the first beginnings of artistic and religious feeling, the representation of the human body has constituted one of the most elevated and significant themes. The nude identifies man in his essence, perhaps with different itineraries in Western and Eastern civilisations: in the former, for example, there seems to be, as a distinctive feature, a tension in the analysis, description, anatomy and explanation of the organic, in the composition between generality and individuality in the latter, on the contrary, there is a predominance of attention to the vital flow, to the diffuse but revealing signs of the most intimate and essential characteristics of the inner energies.

Giovanni Civardi

Giovanni Civardi was born in Milan and teaches Anatomy and Drawing of the Human Body at various schools of fine arts, as well as being a sculptor and portraitist. For more than a decade he worked as a press illustrator. His works have been published in several languages.