art nude

The nude, as a form of visual art that focuses on the unclothed human figure, is an enduring tradition in Western art. It was a preoccupation of Ancient Greek art, and after a semi-dormant period in the Middle Ages returned to a central position with the Renaissance. Unclothed figures often also play a part in other types of art, such as history painting, including allegorical and religious art, portraiture, or the decorative arts. From prehistory to the earliest civilizations, nude female figures are generally understood to be symbols of fertility or well-being.

In India, the Khajuraho Group of Monuments built between 950 and 1050 CE are known for their erotic sculptures, which comprise about 10% of the temple decorations. Japanese prints are one of the few non-western traditions that can be called nudes, but the activity of communal bathing in Japan is portrayed as just another social activity, without the significance placed upon the lack of clothing that exists in the West. Through each era, the nude has reflected changes in cultural attitudes regarding sexuality, gender roles, and social structure.

One often cited book on the nude in art history is ''The Nude: a Study in Ideal Form'' by Lord Kenneth Clark, first published in 1956. The introductory chapter makes (though does not originate) the often-quoted distinction between the naked body and the nude. Clark states that to be naked is to be deprived of clothes, and implies embarrassment and shame, while a nude, as a work of art, has no such connotations.

One of the defining characteristics of the modern era in art was the blurring of the line between the naked and the nude. This likely first occurred with the painting ''The Nude Maja'' (1797) by Goya, which in 1815 drew the attention of the Spanish Inquisition. The shocking elements were that it showed a particular model in a contemporary setting, with pubic hair rather than the smooth perfection of goddesses and nymphs, who returned the gaze of the viewer rather than looking away. Some of the same characteristics were shocking almost 70 years later when Manet exhibited his '' Olympia'', not because of religious issues, but because of its modernity. Rather than being a timeless Odalisque that could be safely viewed with detachment, Manet's image was assumed to be of a prostitute of that time, perhaps referencing the male viewers' own sexual practices.

Types of depiction

The meaning of any image of the unclothed human body depends upon its being placed in a cultural context. In Western culture, the contexts generally recognized are ''art'', ''pornography'', and ''information''. Viewers easily identify some images as belonging to one category, while other images are ambiguous. The 21st century may have created a fourth category, the commodified nude, which intentionally uses ambiguity to attract attention for commercial purposes.

With regard to the distinction between art and pornography, Kenneth Clark noted that sexuality was part of the attraction to the nude as a subject of art, stating "no nude, however abstract, should fail to arouse in the spectator some vestige of erotic feeling, even though it be only the faintest shadow—and if it does not do so it is bad art and false morals". According to Clark, the explicit temple sculptures of tenth-century India "are great works of art because their eroticism is part of their whole philosophy". Great art can contain significant sexual content without being obscene.

However, in the United States nudity in art has sometimes been a controversial subject when public funding and display in certain venues brings the work to the attention of the general public. Puritan history continues to impact the selection of artwork shown in museums and galleries. At the same time that any nude may be suspect in the view of many patrons and the public, art critics may reject work that is not cutting edge. Relatively tame nudes tend to be shown in museums, while works with shock value are shown in commercial galleries. The art world has devalued simple beauty and pleasure, although these values are present in art from the past and in some contemporary works.

When school groups visit museums, there are inevitable questions that teachers or tour leaders must be prepared to answer. The basic advice is to give matter-of-fact answers emphasizing the differences between art and other images, the universality of the human body, and the values and emotions expressed in the works.

Art historian and author Frances Borzello writes that contemporary artists are no longer interested in the ideals and traditions of the past, but confront the viewer with all the sexuality, discomfort and anxiety that the unclothed body may express, perhaps eliminating the distinction between the naked and the nude. Performance art takes the final step by presenting actual naked bodies as a work of art.

History

The nude dates to the beginning of art with the female figures called Venus figurines from the Late Stone Age. In early historical times similar images represented fertility deities. When surveying the literature on the nude in art, there are differences between defining nakedness as the complete absence of clothing versus other states of undress. In early Christian art, particularly in references to images of Jesus, partial dress (a loincloth) was described as nakedness.

Mesopotamia and Ancient Egypt

Nude images in Mesopotamia and Ancient Egypt reflect the attitudes toward nudity in these societies. At the time, being naked in social situations was a source of great embarrassment for anyone with higher social status this was not due to the connection between nudity and sexual impropriety, but rather it being indicative of low status or disgrace. Non-sexual, or functional nudity was common in early civilizations due to the climate. Children were generally naked until puberty, and public baths were attended nude by mixed gender groups. Those with low status not only slaves might be naked or, when clothed, would disrobe when necessary for strenuous work. Dancers, musicians, and acrobats would be nude while performing. Many nude images depicted these activities. Other nude images were symbolic, idealized images of warriors and goddesses; while gods where shown dressed to indicate their status. The figure depicted in the Burney Relief could be an aspect of the goddess Ishtar, Mesopotamian goddess of sexual love and war. However, her bird-feet and accompanying owls have suggested to some a connection with Lilitu (called Lilith in the Bible), though seemingly not the usual demonic Lilitu.

Ancient Greece

Nudity in Greek life was the exception in the ancient world. What had begun as a male initiation rite in the eighth century BCE became a "costume" in the Classical period. Complete nudity separated the civilized Greeks from the "barbarians" including Hebrews, Etruscans, and Gauls.

The earliest Greek sculpture, from the early Bronze Age Cycladic civilization consists mainly of stylized male figures who are presumably nude. This is certainly the case for the kouros, a large standing figure of a male nude that was the mainstay of Archaic Greek sculpture. These first realistic sculptures of nude males depict nude youths who stand rigidly posed with one foot forward. By the 5th century BCE, Greek sculptors' mastery of anatomy resulted in greater naturalness and more varied poses. An important innovation was contrapposto—the asymmetrical posture of a figure standing with one leg bearing the body's weight and the other relaxed. An early example of this is Polykleitos' sculpture '' Doryphoros'' (c. 440 BCE).

The Greek goddesses were initially sculpted with drapery rather than nude. The first free-standing, life-sized sculpture of an entirely nude woman was the ''Aphrodite of Cnidus'' created c. 360–340 BCE by Praxiteles. The female nude became much more common in the later Hellenistic period. In the convention of heroic nudity, gods and heroes were shown nude, while ordinary mortals were less likely to be so, though athletes and warriors in combat were often depicted nude. The nudes of Greco-Roman art are conceptually perfected ideal persons, each one a vision of health, youth, geometric clarity, and organic equilibrium. Kenneth Clark considered idealization the hallmark of true nudes, as opposed to more descriptive and less artful figures that he considered merely naked. His emphasis on idealization points up an essential issue: seductive and appealing as nudes in art may be, they are meant to stir the mind as well as the passions.

Asian art

Non-Western traditions of depicting nudes come from India and Japan, but the nude does not form an important aspect of Chinese art. Temple sculptures and cave paintings, some very explicit, are part of the Hindu tradition of the value of sexuality, and as in many warm climates partial or complete nudity was common in everyday life. Japan had a tradition of mixed communal bathing that existed until recently, and was often portrayed in woodcut prints.

In the early twentieth century, artists in the Arab world used nudity in works that addressed their emergence from colonialism into a modern world.

Middle Ages

Early Middle Ages

Christian attitudes cast doubt on the value of the human body, and the Christian emphasis on chastity and celibacy further discouraged depictions of nakedness, even in the few surviving Early Medieval survivals of secular art. Completely unclothed figures are rare in medieval art, the notable exceptions being Adam and Eve as recorded in the Book of Genesis and the damned in ''Last Judgement'' scenes anticipating the Sistine Chapel renderings. With these exceptions, the ideal forms of Greco-Roman nudes became largely lost, transformed into symbols of shame and sin, weakness and defenselessness. This was true not only in Western Europe, but also in Byzantine art. Increasingly, Christ was shown largely naked in scenes of his Passion, especially the Crucifixion, and even when glorified in heaven, to allow him to display the wounds his sufferings had involved. The Nursing Madonna and naked "Penitent Mary Magdalene", as well as the infant Jesus, whose penis was sometimes emphasized for theological reasons, are other exceptions with elements of nudity in medieval religious art.

Late Middle Ages

By the late medieval period female nudes intended to be attractive edged back into art, especially in the relatively private medium of the illuminated manuscript, and in classical contexts such as the Signs of the Zodiac and illustrations to Ovid. The shape of the female "Gothic nude" was very different from the classical ideal, with a long body shaped by gentle curves, a narrow chest and high waist, small round breasts, and a prominent bulge at the stomach. Male nudes tended to be slim and slight in figure, probably drawing on apprentices used as models, but were increasingly accurately observed.

Renaissance

During the Renaissance, interest in the nude body in art was being rekindled after a thousand years. Toward the end of Greco-Roman antiquity, Christian doctrines of celibacy, chastity, and the devaluation of the flesh led to the declining interest of nudes for patrons, and thus for artists. Since the end of the ancient classical period, the unclothed body was only depicted in rare instances like renderings of Adam and Eve. Now, with the rise of Renaissance humanism, Renaissance artists were relishing opportunities to depict the unclothed body.

The reinvigoration of classical culture in the Renaissance restored the nude to art. Donatello made two statues of the Biblical hero David, a symbol for the Republic of Florence: his first (in marble, 1408–1409) shows a clothed figure, but his second, probably of the 1440s, is the first freestanding statue of a nude since antiquity, several decades before Michelangelo's massive ''David'' (1501–1504). Nudes in Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel ceiling reestablished a tradition of male nudes in depictions of Biblical stories; the subject of the martyrdom of the near-naked Saint Sebastian had already become highly popular. The monumental female nude returned to Western art in 1486 with ''The Birth of Venus'' by Sandro Botticelli for the Medici family, who also owned the classical Venus de' Medici, whose pose Botticelli adapted.

Andrea Mantegna (1431–1506) is considered by art historians to have been a pivotal figure in the resurgence of nudes in art because of his love of the ancient classical world and how he incorporated classical principles of form into his creations.
He is not the first to use classical influences in his work. However, few painters before him did this to the conspicuous degree and quality to which he did. He is known as a master of form, and his nudes are noteworthy because his style is influenced by his study of ancient classical sculpture and his knowledge of ancient classical Greek and Roman culture.
The drawing of ''St. James Led to His Execution'' demonstrates that, early on, Mantegna did anatomical nude sketches in preparation for the Ovetari Chapel frescoes. This is the earliest known drawing by the artist.

The '' Dresden Venus'' of Giorgione (c. 1510), also drawing on classical models, showed a reclining female nude in a landscape, beginning a long line of famous paintings including the ''Venus of Urbino'' (Titian, 1538), and the ''Rokeby Venus'' (Diego Velázquez, c. 1650). Although they reflect the proportions of ancient statuary, such figures as Titian's ''Venus and the Lute Player'' and ''Venus of Urbino'' highlight the sexuality of the female body rather than its ideal geometry. These works inspired countless reclining female nudes for centuries afterwards. In addition to adult male and female figures, the classical depiction of Eros became the model for the naked Christ child.

Raphael in his later years is usually credited as the first artist to consistently use female models for the drawings of female figures, rather than studio apprentices or other boys with breasts added, who were previously used. Michelangelo's suspiciously boyish '' Study of a Kneeling Nude Girl for The Entombment'' (Louvre, c. 1500), which is usually said to be the first nude female figure study, predates this and is an example of how even figures who would be shown clothed in the final work were often worked out in nude studies, so that the form under the clothing was understood. The nude figure drawing or figure study of a live model rapidly became an important part of artistic practice and training, and remained so until the 20th century.

17th and 18th centuries

In Baroque art, the continuing fascination with classical antiquity influenced artists to renew and expand their approach to the nude, but with more naturalistic, less idealized depictions, perhaps more frequently working from live models. Both genders are represented; the male in the form of heroes such as Hercules and Samson, and female in the form of Venus and the Three Graces. Peter Paul Rubens, who with evident delight painted women of generous figure and radiant flesh, gave his name to the adjective Rubenesque. While adopting the conventions of mythological and Biblical stories, Rembrandt's nudes were less idealized, and painted from life. In the later Baroque or Rococo period, a more decorative and playful style emerged, exemplified by