Koppitz handstudie - Art nouveau public domain image

Rudolf Koppitz (1884–1936) is famous, justifiably so, for his Movement Study, 1925, a photograph depicting three dark-haired women, dressed in black from neck to ankle, who support the naked body of a fourth woman with eyes closed, head thrown back. Though thoroughly artificial, especially in its chiaroscuro, it is never labored: the naked woman stands as effortlessly on her toes as the chorus of mourners, and the bright aura that frames them seems as natural as the dark robes that serve to disembody them.