When I first started nude modeling, one of my hopes was that the hours I would spend standing naked in front of strangers would teach me something important. What that was exactly, I didn't have any particular idea, beyond the hope that - whatever form the lesson took - it would allow me to appear wise.
Brothers, sisters,"" I would address the multitudes, still dressed in the paisley bathrobe I wore during breaks. ""I have just come from the studio, and I bring you an important lesson about... myself... I guess - or maybe just nudity in general... hey, can I get back to you on this?""
The fantasy crumbled after months passed without any sort of epiphany. Things often occurred to me while modeling, but these tended to be conclusions along the lines of ""my calves hurt"" or ""an orange would be great right now,"" revelations that refused to yield any deeper truths, no matter how long I meditated on them.
""Brothers, sisters, I bring you an important lesson about isometric exercise and Vitamin C.""
Worse, after the novelty of the situation wore off, I began to notice that standing still for hours at a time, even while nude, could be very, very boring.
The students' drawings seemed to confirm this. There I was in charcoal, head and hips cocked jauntily to one side with both hands curled daintily around the end of a walking staff. It was the pose, I had thought at the time, of an ostentatiously gay wizard - heroic, in a strange way. Unfortunately, my unmistakably apathetic expression lessened this effect considerably.
Looking at the drawings of other models hanging in the art department's display cases, I noticed that my boredom was not unusual. No matter the props used or overall absurdity of the scene, the facial expression of each subject suggested torpor. Here was the retired sheriff, riding nude in the saddle but looking glum and defeated. And here was the young woman listlessly swaddling a human skull to her exposed chest.
I'd noticed the same thing before in art museums, and had always found it distracting. The vacant expression of a seated monarch might be dismissed as the result of generations of inbreeding, but the lazy stare of the Flemish prince on one wall was reflected by the lassitude of the stable boy on the next. Even the attendant saints and angels in a nearby portrait of the Christ Child appeared nonplussed, far from the harking heralds
I had come to know from grade school Christmas pageants. ""Sigh,"" they seemed to intone in unison. ""Behold the savior, who is...somewhere over there. It's a boy.""
Stranger still were the martyrs. One would think that the sight of one's intestines being cranked out onto a rotisserie spit would be a source of dismay - or, at the very least, sincere concern - but Saint Erasmus seemed to regard his disembowelment with even less interest than the jaded townspeople who had gathered for the spectacle.
In a way, I suppose, the boredom of these people made them more relatable. I had never tried to preach the Gospel to a group of suspicious pagans nor been subsequently roasted alive as payment for my troubles, but like Saint Lawrence, I certainly knew what it felt like to be disappointed.
""Oh, come on, guys,"" he half-heartedly protested, as the Roman centurions stoked the bonfire.
""Really?""
It was the same look that was on the face of the nudist cowboy hanging in the art hallway, and the same thought that I had had when the drawing instructor had informed me that I'd be spending an entire class period lying in bed next to a scoliotic human skeleton. What did it mean that these similarities spanned thousands of years of human experience? Was it a lesson? What did it have to do with art?
""Brothers, sisters,"" I would tell the assembled multitudes. ""Suffering is universal and boredom is everywhere.""
""That's a terrible lesson,"" the multitudes would rage, before charging forward to seize my arms and legs.
""Oh come on, guys,"" I'd groan, as they tied me to the stake. ""Really?""
Really? E-mail Matt at hunziker@wisc.edu.
