Early this month, Channel 4 broadcast a week-long daytime series called Life Class: Today’s Nude, which gave viewers an opportunity to learn to draw through five 30-minute nude life drawing classes.
Each one of the five episodes was led by a renowned artist tutor, beginning with distinguished painter, sculptor and printmaker Maggi Hambling, and also featuring portrait artist Humphrey Ocean and Judy Purbeck, who has been teaching life drawing for nearly 10 years.
If you missed the series, you can watch it again on 4oD.
Perhaps not surprisingly – given the inevitable presence of naked bodies in the series – Life Class provoked an interesting reaction from our viewers. Roughly half of those that contacted the channel thanked us for broadcasting an ‘inspiring’ series. The other half complained that we had transmitted nudity at lunchtime. Comments left on Channel 4’s Life Class website were overwhelmingly positive.
Online debate outside of C4.com has been equally mixed. A discussion in the Netmums forum concluded that nudity with an artistic intention was perfectly acceptable, and suggested the programme title was a good indicator of what would included in the series, should a viewer wish to avoid such nudity.
The Sun – surely an authority on nudity – asked readers if they thought the programme was ‘a bare faced cheek’, but readers’ comments left in response to the article were largely in favour of the show
I’ve also come across evidence that Life Class inspired real creative output in some viewers – Katherine Tyrell and Kevin Levell are two viewers who used their blogs to share their recent drawings and comment on the series. Indeed, the official Flickr site for the series – where viewers were invited to share their drawings – indicates that a great number of you were inspired to take part.
As ever, I’d love to know what you think – did you enjoy Life Class? Did it inspire your inner artist, or were you opposed to seeing nudity on daytime television? Please share your thoughts by leaving a comment below.
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When “Watercolour Challenge” went off air, you promised us another “similar” programme. We have been waiting for seven years.
Fantastic programme. Pure drawing no silly camera whizzing around as in other programmes so that we saw the subject. No intrusive music (how do other programmes manage to pick such inappropriate stuff?) and the whole programme went so quickly it felt like five minutes! Can’t wait for the next series. Don’t listen to the prudes who moaned about “nudity at lunchtime”. After lunch last week I saw the Rokeby Venus, should I have turned away?
I really wanted to see this show, but missed it because I’m on holiday abroad .. can it please be repeated during a time when art students can watch it? It looks like a really useful resource.
But Luke, real students *are* at home most lunchtimes, and can’t afford holidays abroad
I blogged about this when I first heard about it (at http://tinyurl.com/nnw9uo) and had no qualms at the time with the nudity (life drawing has a way of detatching eroticism from a body). I was however sceptical as to whether it would be more ‘live’ drawing than ‘life’ drawing, through a 2D medium such as television.
Having watched the program now it’s an interesting idea but in practice it’s hardly different to drawing a photograph on the screen (a photograph would hold a pose better) and I haven’t found the expert’s advice hasn’t been very inspiring or helpful.
While I don’t think it’s as controversial as the media hyped it to be, it’s all a bit tedious, flat and uninspiring. I say bring back Watercolour Challenge, the undulating landscape is far more inspiring than the lumps and bumps on a models body.
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