« La masculine, le féminin / Corriger la nature »

• Main Author: Frédérique Villemur
• Format: Article
• Language: fra
• Published: Centre d´Histoire et Théorie des Arts 2006-09-01
• Series: Images Re-Vues
• Subjects: androgyne; Arasse (Daniel); gender; Leonardo de Vinci; Michel-Ange; non finito
• Online Access: http://journals.openedition.org/imagesrevues/188

Through the formal issues raised by the works of Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo the enigmatic nature of certain figures’ sexual identity will receive less attention in future than the neutralisation - or even distortion - of their genders. In what ways does the androgynous figure harmonise with an ideal of beauty combining the genders as much as it reveals a perfect familiarity with the sexual differences it aims to destabilise? More precisely, what effects do the indefinite and non finito have on the masculine and feminine in such distinct rival arts as painting and sculpture? We shall see that androgyny has a figurative virtuality, and that with Leonardo da Vinci its efficacy is due to the power of the indistinct, to a fusion of the genders towards the neuter, while for Michelangelo it strives to exhaust the opposites in their antagonisms to the point of their possible aberration.