Pascal Milhavet is a French photographer and videographer who lives and works in Paris. Since his childhood, he has been around photography. He has striven to catch fleeting moments that he can render timeless through the image. He uses the photograph as a means of expression and develops his photographic work by exploring the human body in all forms with sensitivity and a discerning eye for aesthetic attraction. Photography is his passion. Pascal’s collection of photographs includes nudes, models, bodybuilders and wrestlers. He has unveiled images of human musculature, tattoos, attitudes and, finally, elements of masculinity. His models have worked to sculpt their bodies into an almost perfect physique. The fruit of this intense work are the indelible traces of identity.
The nude is an artistic genre that consists of the representation of the human body in its state of nudity. It is a constant in the history of Western art; in antiquity, and then in the Renaissance, a subtle and bare representation of the human body has always been found. The nude is an art form attributable to the Greeks in the 5th century B.C. In ancient Greece, the Greeks paid great attention to the body, especially the masculine body, and to sacred beauty as a component of an ideal. In classical Greece, the Greeks studied proportions with a single goal: the ideal of the perfection of the human body. For Aristotle, "art completes what nature cannot bring to a finish."
Polykleitos (490-420 BC), along with other sculptors, established the canons of the art form of the male nude. Across the different historical époques, the harmony of the body has always been highly sought after. The best-known definitions of the human body come from the Roman architect Marcus Vitruvius (v.90-20 BC), who defined the ideal proportions of architecture based on the measurements of the human body. Following this, Leonardo da Vinci’s (1452-1519) “Vitruvian Man " is of great importance in the theory of the Renaissance. It is the body that gives pleasure and pain, sadness and joy. It is present at all moments in life, and is that with which one passes through the world.
In modern day art, architecture and advertising, the nude is frequently used to symbolize abstract concepts: innocence, strength, power, and manhood. The English art historian, Kenneth Clark (1903-1983), distinguishes, in his book, "The Nude", two separate classifications of nudity widely employed in the English language: "the natural human form (Naked) and the idealized nude (Nude). This difference between the bodily nude and the artistic nude was born with English critics in the eighteenth century. The author explains the role of painting and sculpture in the naked body.
From the David of Michelangelo (1475-1564) and his nudes that communicate the masculine beauty, to the appearance of the camera, the nude has always been present. It is only since the 1950s that male nudes have been available for viewing for the sole pleasure of the spectator. The nude constitutes an important part of the work of Pascal Milhavet, who captures the energy of the body; eroticism, and seduction, never failing to draw the visitor's gaze. He plays with contrasts, beauty and sensitivity in his models. The artist's sensitivity helps him better capture the subject's personality. He uses natural light, believing it to be preferable in his photographs which have an air of natural sensuality, turning the body into an almost perfect plastic model with the magic of the lighting. The collected works bear witness to the search for the different facets of the human body. His photographic style focuses on the enhancement of the body influenced by art, both through the painting and sculpture of Ancient Greece. The end product, in some of his pictures, is the result of a digital work that has transformed his photos into true masterpieces.
As we see the pictures set out before us, we begin to discover the talent of the artist, who subtly introduces us into a universe of aesthetic erotic, athletic, sensual, perfectly proportioned bodies without ever crossing the frontier into vulgarity. Generous and reserved, the artist possesses the gift of being always able to arouse sympathy. Today, now that Western societies have been liberated from the weight of social and religious restraints, the representation of the naked human body can be seen by most people without censure. Through his work the artist offers us a dreamlike look of the nude, unburdened by puritanism.
Heber Perdigon