Opposite: Kent Williams, Upright, mixed media on paper, 24” × 19”. Above, Daniel Sprick, Reclining Nude, oil on panel, 36” × 48”.
Gravitas
L
ong before Isaac Newton reasoned that a falling apple is acted upon by an unseen force of nature called gravity, the Roman virtue of gravitas denoted weightiness in all its senses, from physical heaviness to seriousness, dignity, and depth of character. Physically, Earth is a speck in the universe. We are specks on that speck,
yet our bodies and the world we live in are almost unfathomably complex—our bodies contain the ability to comprehend gravitas and to generate cells.
in a mix of power and sweetness: words, song, gesture, passion, ideas, ingenuity, devotion, merriment, vanity, and virtue.
In her poem “Evidence,” Mary Oliver writes:
Over the centuries, artists have used the human body as an object of beauty and as a means to express the noncorporeal ideas listed in Oliver’s poem.
As for the body, it is solid and strong and curious and full of detail: it wants to polish itself; it wants to love another body; it is the only vessel in the world that can hold,
Daniel Sprick refers to the representations of “a less obvious beauty” in the paintings of Rembrandt and Courbet. “My subjects aren’t all beautiful,” he E VO K AT I O N
JANUARY 2022
15
