The artistic nude and sexuality in western art

Venus of Urbino of Titian, 1538

Questions about the body and sexuality

Our body and sexuality are linked to the reproduction of the species, that is, to the history of humanity itself. However, the issues around this theme are extremely complex, although it is a reality that cuts across all human beings.This year, in fashion, sexuality is again in vogue, as we can see from the spring 2021 collection campaigns, L'Amour of Jacquemus and When Together from Diesel. On the contrary, in the last decades, visual artists have insistently worked on identity, body, gender and sexuality, with their work being central to the development of critical thinking by viewers.This is a theme that follows us, as individuals and social groups, eventually portraying ideas, values, beliefs, religion and culture. Starting from iconic representations of different historical periods, we will understand how the naked body and sexuality is shaped and defined by these diverse factors.

Venus of Willendorf

The origin of artistic nude 

One of the first representations of the sexualized body is the small sculpture of Venus of Willendorf, worshiped as a goddess of fertility. Thus, it is clear that sexuality was linked to motherhood from an early age. However, with the Greeks and Romans this idea is developed in a broader way, due to the social and religious aspect of this culture. These give wings to human desires, dreams and concerns, transmitting their ideals without taboos in their artistic representations.

Based on mythology, the erotic liberation of their culture is publicly displayed through sculptures of the gods. Several artists have represented Aphrodite, the goddess of love and beauty, naked or removing her clothes, as we can see in the sculpture of Aphrodite of Cnidos or in Venus de Milo. O artistic nude it is a constant, even in representations of fear, suffering, pain or death, as is the case of Greek sculpture Laocoon and his sons, which depicts a legend from the Trojan War, in which Laocoon and his sons, Antiphanes and Timbreus, are strangled by two sea serpents.

Laocoon and his sons

The ideals of the body from the Middle Ages to the Modern

During the following centuries, Europe is immersed in the Church of Rome and pagan religions disappear, being imposed a strict morality that condemns moral deviations, with public punishment, torture or even condemnation to death. Thus, the representation of the ideal of beauty and harmony of naked body is abandoned by the iconographic contents. The few naked figures from medieval times are depicted deformed, conceiving the idea of contempt for the body and the immorality of sexuality, as can be seen in mosaics dating from 1250-1970, Hell by Coppo di Marcovaldo, on the dome of the Baptistery of St. John.

In Gothic and later in pre-Renaissance Italy, the artistic nude was reborn in a rather timid way, as can be seen in the work Baptism of Christ by Giotto, in which Jesus is represented naked while being baptized by John the Baptist.

Baptism of Christ inGiotto, 1305

With the political, social and cultural transformations of the modern age, religion loses the preponderance it had in the Middle Ages. Representations of religious themes continue to exist, with the naked body achieved a divine character, with works such as The Creation of Adam and the Last Judgment by Michelangelo. However, this era is marked by the humanist idea of Man at the center of the universe; thus, in art, the portrayal of humans and their environment acquires greater relevance. Employing the use of perspective, Renaissance artists were inspired by the art of classical antiquity, portraying the naked body with an aesthetic character, as we can analyze in the following paintings: Venus of Urbino of Titian, The born of Venus by Sandro Botticelli, Apollo and Marsyas by Pietro Perugino, The Three Graces It is La Fornarina by Raphael.

La Fornarina by Raphael, 1518–1520

In the Baroque era, representations of the female nude continued to predominate, with the artist Peter Paul Rubens marking this era with his paintings of robust female figures that embody the sensuality of historical and mythological episodes: The Judgment of Paris, The Three Graces and Venus, Cupid, Bacchus and Ceres. At the end of the modern age with the Rococo, the heroic classicist idealization was abandoned and a subtle and refined eroticism was assumed. An example of this are the paintings by François Boucher, The Odalisque It is The Toilette of Venus.

The Three Graces by Peter Paul Rubens, 1630–1635

Nudity in contemporary times

At the beginning of contemporary times, after the French Revolution, neoclassicism was born, which once again recovers the forms of classical antiquity, however in a pure, severe and cold way, in order to convey a moral and patriotic content to the spectator. Human sensuality continues to be transmitted, but covered by these values, as can be analyzed in the works Cupid and Psyche by François Gérard and Morpheus and Iris by Pierre-Narcisse Guerin.

From the 19th century to the present, the female nude in art it is increasingly abundant in all artistic movements, in romanticism, in the vanguards of the 1920s and even in post-war art. It is essential to mention some of the fundamental works of this period, which, due to the boldness of body exposed human caused great controversy: Liberty Leading the People by Eugene Delacroix, The blonde baigneuse by Renoir, lunch on the grass It is Olympia by Édouard Manet, Les demoiselles d'Avignon in Pablo Picasso It is pink nude by Matisse.

Olympia by Édouard Manet, 1863

In the 1960s, with the performance of artists such as Carolee Schneemann, Value Export and Marina abramovic, the nudity it becomes a weapon against male dominance, sexual representations and social inequalities.At present, artists like Julião Sarmento, Maria Sanchez, Paula Rego, Júlio Pomar, Salomé Lamas, João Gabriel, João Pedro Vale and Nuno Alexandre Ferreira, Duarte Vitória, Patrícia Magalhães, Arlindo Arez, José A. Nunes, among others, have been central to the development of critical thinking about the society we inhabit by raising imposing questions about the body, identity and sexuality. An example is the series of paintings created by Paula Rego about abortion that helped to depenilize the voluntary termination of pregnancy. Thus, we understand that in Western art the naked body it started to be linked to motherhood and the sacred, however in contemporary times this theme has become a manifestation of identity and the problems present in society and in current culture.