Eye Contact, Nude Art, and Abstraction

Eye contact has the ability to raise our blood pressure and heart rate. Perhaps this is because a long stare can be seen as an act of aggression all the way to a way to a sign of attraction and intimacy. Two things that will get people's hearts pounding.

We look deeply into our lovers eyes and they do the same to us. It's better to avoid looking at a strangers eyes for the same amount of time you would your significant other, because you never know to what extreme they could respond. (Most likely they won't feel compelled to passionately make out with you, but…anything is possible. Perhaps this is love at first sight?) Generally, this is why the longer the eye contact can be maintained, the closer the connection there is between the two. But, if you're trying to throw down with someone, looking at the other’s eyes becomes a strategic way to read them and possibly avoid a blow to the head.

Within art, the depiction of a person's face creates similar problems to our biological mind. This is because our brains can't tell the difference between what's real and fake. We might intellectually know, but that's not the only factor affecting our reactions. Whenever we've cried, cringed, laughed, etc. during a movie, it was because our biological brain was fooled. VR is even greater proof of this trick to our senses. Jumping off a building in a game becomes difficult. Our physical response is automatic and non rational, which is part of our default mode at work. Art that has very clear faces in it will illicit certain automatic responses and psychological obligations in this same way, despite us knowing that no one is really looking back at us.

This experience of faces in art then (looking while being looked at) can be part of the appeal. It can also be a distraction. How will the person being looked at respond? Or, maybe even more importantly, what will others think of us while we look at the subject? How will we be judged by others looking at our non verbal responses? If the subject is nude, it only adds to the difficulty of this situation. And since art is designed to be public (as opposed to a diary), this mental weight of judgement from others is necessarily dealt with on some level.

Much of the solution art has to the confrontation of eye contact and being seen lies in blurring the reality of the person in some way. Essentially it's about abstraction and hiding, so that the interaction is less real. There are even poses and postures that can signal to others that it's ok to look. Ones that clearly lack sexualness or sensuality. These things give the viewer and the viewer's observers the peace of mind that there is clearly something happening beyond sex, e.g. a woman breastfeeding her child, or a situation containing suffering. When the object of one’s looking is not distinctly an individual, or the individual is not in some sexually alluring state, we feel a little more at ease to let our eyes wonder; even if it’s only a fraction of a second longer. (In the case of pathos, it's probably better that we have an urge to look intently since it's possible we can be of some kind of assistance, or avoid the pain ourselves.)

Nude art asks us to defy our instinct in a similar way that a VR game says it’s ok to jump off a building. Despite our own anxieties, we’re allowed to revel in looking deeper. Various forms of abstraction to the figure makes us feel less judged by others if we stare. This is because we can make a case for ourselves that we are no longer looking so much at an individual, but something more general regarding humanness. We aren't seduced towards the person, but to people.