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I am enjoying my membership here very much. My drawing has improved tremendously already in less than two months since signing up. However, one thing that disturbs me is the full frontal nudity of the models. I would guess that the vast majority of members here will never draw or paint nudes including myself. We can still learn to draw the human form even if the models are covered somewhat(this applies the the image library as well). There are many videos here that I cannot watch because it would simply be inappropriate for me to do so. The nudity is distracting and offensive to more sensitive people. I hope you will take this into consideration for future courses. Thank you for the awesome instruction and video quality at a price that is hard to beat!
Are you serious?
As a member I am here to ‘draw and paint nudes’. So don’t talk on behalf of others. No one is forcing you to look at it so I suggest you either pursue other hobbies, or try to get over your insecure and conservative mindset. Why are you even trying to draw human figure if you are not comfortable seeing it?
Yes, I’m serious…and yes I can somewhat speak on behalf of others because the majority will not paint or draw nudes(you’re not the majority). The image library offers clothed models which I am thankful for but you can use the image reference with nudity in it. And, no thank you, I will not get over my conservative mindset.
So the majority of people who study anatomy and draw human figure are uncomfortable seeing nudity? I think you need a self-check. Also there are clothed figures in the gallery, stick to them. Oh and don’t ever go to life drawing, you’d be in for a surprise.
hey Domenica. Sorry for your inconvenience, but i think the majority of us are here to seriously study art, which means that the majority of us are going to learn anatomy.
You can’t really learn anatomy from clothed figures because the anatomy is all covered and as MetinSaray already mentioned, life drawings are fully nude models (in real life, not photos) and there is a reason for that, and it’s the same reason the courses here show fully frontal nudes, to teach us the forms and anatomy.
So, don’t speak for the majority of us cause you are not the majority (sorry to disappoint you), and if you don’t like specific content than you don’t have to use it. Use the one you are comfortable with.
That’s it, hope it didn’t come out as disrespectful or something because it was not my intention, wish you best of luck with your drawing journey.
Sorry about my tone as well. Didn’t mean to sound that offensive. But you shouldn’t talk on behalf of others, because its an art forum and the majority of the content here is on figure studies. There is nothing offensive or distracting about nudity, it’s on the individual, not on the subject.
If these valuable teachers and instructors are choosing to use nude, it’s probably for a reason. And that’s why we’re here for, and I respect their curated content. So I meant instead of trying to change the environment you are in, either find the one that is more suitable for you, or try to not get distracted by the frontal nudity and see it as a normal thing.
I am surprised and disappointed to read Domenica’s comments.
While I can’t understand such provincial attitudes (sorry, but that’s fair), they – obviously – exist.
Please do NOT change the access to nude models. It’s sad to say, but those that are ashamed of the human body have issues that can’t be worked out here, but those easily offended can either limit their own viewing.
Or perhaps…. prepare to join the 15th century…
Hey, now, that’s unfair … to the 15th century.
The Renaissance began in the 15th century. And Michelangelo was painting nudes on the Sistine Chaple in the 16th century. To be accurate, Domenica’s sentiments are more 17th-century Puritan than anything you’d find in the Middle Ages 🙂
But I agree with those who do not want the site to change. Nude reference is essential to developing as an artist. There is the “No Nudity” button for those who want that option.
“The Renaissance began in the 15th century”
Which is exactly why I referenced it… 😉
This is a challenge for some people, but the issue is important. For many with strong religious convictions and other socialization experiences full nudity can be a serious distraction. To Domenica I offer this as a way to pursue your interest in art without being hindered by the genitalia:
1) https://www.gotquestions.org/nudity-in-art.html – This article speaks about the attitude the christians might consider adopting when pursuing artistic excellence
2) https://www.thewayofbeauty.org/blog/2018/4/is-nudity-appropriate-in-christian-art – Specifically discusses nudity as the means of communicating a message in art
3) https://renewthearts.org/does-artistic-purity-ever-demand-vulgarity/– An article that discusses art and vulgarity
I am a Christian and now I am a Minister with a BFA, and I had the same concern while I was trying to get a grip on rendering proportions and anatomy better during classes. I needed an answer to achieve academic goals so I searched and found these. I hope it helps. Don’t be discouraged. God made the human body perfectly, man made “pornagraphy”, it is our responsibility as artist to keep perspective and take responsibility for how we view “everything” in front of us what we produce as a result of that.
Currently on the learn page you can filter by nudity which I’ve shown above. Additionally, there have been requests from some of our group account holders (particularly ones at the high school level) to allow for account-level nudity filtering which we don’t currently support. That is something we are working on.
Once we enable it for group account holders we will offer it as an option for everyone to be able to make an account “nudity-filtered.”
Personally, I believe that artist nudity is perfectly fine and I’m against censorship of the human body (yes, even in front of children) but I appreciate that many people feel otherwise (or even live in countries where artistic nudity is illegal) and we want to be respectful of this. This issue isn’t new for us and we have to deal with this when we post content to Youtube, Instagram, Facebook etc and we’ve had more than a few problems and fights along the way. Even our ads linking to our homepage have been flagged by Google and other networks and it’s been a real headache for us.
I know nudity in art is a controversial topic but hopefully this will help people choose for themselves. In some situations people’s options are to not be able to get an NMA account at all or to get one with nudity filtered and if that’s the choice I would rather they have the ability to get an account that is reduced in terms of content than nothing at all.
I made a mistake recently where I ordered online prints as references for an art piece. The printer gave me the option to mail me the prints or have them printed locally. I opted to pick up the prints and they sent me to a local Walgreens. When I went to purchase them the manager saw my prints and had a very strong reaction. Actually she threw them in the trash. My initial reaction was anger and I am ashamed to say I probably came across rude to the staff there. They ended up giving me my prints but for the rest of the week I felt terrible about the encounter. Long boring story but my point is that regardless of how we feel about this topic I would ask that we all try to show respect to people who may not agree with us.
Just to be clear we will not modify any of the content we produce moving forward. But for people who want to filter some content we will make that easier for them to do for their own accounts only.
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