"I see when men love women. They give them but a little of their lives. But women when they love give everything."

Oscar Wilde's observation provides the title for a show of paintings of women by David Laing Dawson at Gallery on the Bay.

The Hamilton artist, whose creations include novels and films, has been exhibiting for almost 20 years. He has painted mostly landscapes, and A Little Of Their Lives is his first exhibition devoted to the female nude.

The female nude is familiar and traditional, going back 20,000 years to the earliest art ever made. Most of those images were probably fertility goddesses. Roman artists, 2,000 years ago, cared more for looks than fertility. So they based their nudes on Venus, the most beautiful goddess in the universe.

With the arrival of Christian art in the third century, the female nude almost died. But 15th-century Venetian painters such as Titian and Tintoretto brought her back to life. Their paintings often referred to Venus but were meant to be odes to all beautiful women.

In the 19th and 20th centuries, female nudes embodied more ordinary women. Reclining or standing, outdoors or in the artist's studio, they were depicted in a casual moment.

Dawson's women are similarly unpretentious. Most of his paintings consist of one figure dominating the composition. Some of the women nurse infants, so we know they are mothers -- and lovers.

"I do think of the women in my paintings as being loved and in love," he says.

Painting from memory, Dawson keeps facial and anatomical features to a minimum. In Yellow Nude, the sitter faces the viewer, her body poised in an elegant sinuous curve. She tilts her head slightly to her left. Her left arm rests by her side; the other is bent, the elbow pointing out.

But Dawson happens to work in a loosely representational style, the kind that encourages us to look beyond the image and see line and form.

The arm positions, for instance, create geometric spaces. Between her left arm and her torso we see a narrow segment of a circle; her right arm and her body outline an isosceles triangle.

Dawson's animated style threatens the stillness of the woman's pose. Short, energetic clusters of brush strokes enliven her body. All around her, strong yellows, oranges and reds reach up like flames, perhaps hinting at a passionate nature.

Nude at Bath (after Renoir) pays tribute to the 19th-century French painter, who loved to paint voluptuous women washing or bathing.

Dawson places the sitter, who is turned to the right, so close to us that we see her only from neck to knees. The curves and colours of her body are echoed by the background, so she seems at one with her surroundings.

As a bather, the woman holds a small white washcloth. But its brightness and sharper lines make it leap out, creating a flash of visual tension.

These paintings and the dozen others in A Little Of Their Lives have a lot to give.

Regina Haggo, a former professor of art history at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand, teaches at the Dundas Valley School of Art. dhaggo@thespec.com

Showtime

Who: David Laing Dawson

What: A Little Of Their Lives

Where: Gallery on the Bay, 231 Bay St. N.

When: Until July 6

Hours: 12 to 5 p.m. Thursday to Sunday

Phone: 905-540-8532