Between a kiss and the naked truth

Abstract

Most people have a romantic and sexual picture of what goes on between an artist and a life model in a studio. The typical picture is of a young, female model and an older, male painter. They imagine the painter gradually seducing his naïve model in some made-for-Hollywood ‘sexual awakening’ story. Many Hollywood romances of the black and white era although embodying this ‘sexual awakening’ never show more than a mere kiss and hint at further sexual activity – a strategy intended to trigger the viewer’s imagination to fabricate a perceived reality.