In ancient Greek society, nudity was a sign of shame. But today, celebs use their bodies to promote body positivity and challenge societal norms.
Egon Schiele’s depictions of female nudes convey empowerment and suggest that women can resist the objectification of their bodies. These works were incredibly controversial for their time.
Although male nudity was widely admired in ancient art, it took until the fourth century BCE for women to become prominently presented naked. This was when the sculptor Praxiteles made his famous Aphrodite of Knidos.
In Classical Greek culture, the idealized body was a sign of health and vitality. It also conveyed power and fertility, particularly for goddesses like Aphrodite or the Near Eastern deity Ishtar.
The sculptors of Greece and their descendants set the tone for beauty standards that persist to this day. They also established the notion that a beautiful and worthy man was one who trained his body for athletic pursuits, a practice known as gumnasia. This became a cultural norm in the Roman Empire, where athletes and warriors were often depicted in a nude state on reliefs and painted vases.
Botticelli was the first to introduce a realistic, life-sized nude woman to Western art. His forebearers used the human body to symbolize sin and shame, but Botticelli transformed the female form into a symbol of love and beauty.
To avoid censorship, he folds Venus's long hair over her genitalia and hides one breast. This game of what is exposed and hidden makes the painting both erotic and feminine.
This innovative work is so Naked women familiar that we sometimes forget how groundbreaking it was in its day. But its message continues to resonate, inspiring artists in all media from pop culture to fine art. For example, in the music video for her 2012 album Applause, Lady Gaga donned a smattering of seashells and a voluminous blonde wig to become the goddess of love.
Gustave Courbet is an important figure in the development of 19th-century French painting. He rejected academic convention and boldly addressed social issues in his paintings. In his female nude paintings, he directly portrayed the realities of life. This is a stark departure from the classical convention that only depicted goddesses and nymphs as nude.
His most famous painting is called “The Origin of the World.” The painting features a close-up view of the genitalia and abdomen of a sleeping woman lying on her bed with her legs spread. This image sparked intense controversy in the society of the time.
For decades, the painting was thought to be lost in the chaos of World War II as a result of looting by Red Army and Nazi soldiers in Hungary. However, the painting was ultimately rescued and restored.
Since the Renaissance, the female nude has been a fantastic source of inspiration for artists. It is the embodiment of beauty, desire and reverie. Sometimes, it has even caused scandal.
For example, Manet’s Le déjeuner sur l’herbe (Lunch on the Grass) caused outrage because of its frank depiction of naked women in an everyday setting. This was in direct contrast to the idealized beauties of academic painting.
Impressionists rediscovered the nude as an aesthetic of form and color. Berthe Morisot, a close friend of Manet’s, is considered to be the first woman Impressionist. She took part in all but one of the Impressionist exhibitions. Her painting La maja desnuda (The Naked Lady) has been interpreted as a witty meditation on the act of looking, a central concern of the movement.
The nude exploded in popularity during the 19th century as artists like Courbet, Degas and Manet sought to shock and titillate. They rejected the stylization of previous generations and focused on showing the female form as it really looked, often to explicit effect.
In the early 20th century, Otto Dix painted tortured women and war widows, while Egon Schiele explored the body as a source of sexual impulses and as a symbol of death. These works challenged the moral codes that had governed artistic representation for millennia.
The female nude has been an essential theme in art since Ancient Greece. But it has not always been a popular subject, especially in the West. The reasons why for this are many, but some have been political and others simply aesthetic.