The female nude is a subject that has obsessed artists throughout the ages. From the innocence of Eve to the Libertine of the 18th century, painters have represented the female body in thousands of ways.
But what if women don’t want to do nude scenes? Emilia Clarke was lambasted after saying that she hated doing them on Game of Thrones.
The Origin of the World by Gustave Courbet
The Origin of the World is perhaps one of the most controversial paintings in history. It shows a close-up depiction of the genitals and abdomen of a female nude lying on a bed with her legs spread. In an era where nude women were almost always painted in an idealized way, Courbet’s frank treatment of the female body is scandalous. It also foreshadows the erotic Realism that would characterize much of his later work.
The painting was painted in 1866. It was one of several such nudes that Courbet produced in this decade, all challenging the conventions of his time. Courbet was part of the French Realism movement that rejected academic convention and used painting as a social statement. The Origin of the World was one of his most daring statements.
Courbet’s close-up depiction of the female genitalia is shocking in its realism and frankness. The Origin of the World is also unusual because it doesn’t depict a goddess or mythological woman which were traditional pretenses for such nude paintings. Instead it depicts a woman’s lower groin in full view with no apparent reason other than eroticism. The fact that her genitalia is in full view without any attempt to disguise it suggests that the artist is attempting to promote the idea that female sexuality is normal.
A lot of speculation has been made about the identity of the model in the picture. Some experts believe that she might be Joanna Hiffernan who posed for the artist in many of his paintings. Others have suggested that she might be a Parisian dancer named Constance Queniaux.
There is no question that the image is a provocative and a sexually explicit, but it’s important to remember that Courbet was attempting to make a statement about society in this piece. He was a radical realist and he believed that art could be used as a tool for social criticism and to protest against the oppressive conventions of his day.
He was a rebel and his paintings often caused controversy, but they also influenced other artists to pursue their own styles of realism. He also pioneered a new technique in painting by using a palette knife and even his thumb to apply and shape the paint. This revolutionary method shocked conservative viewers who were accustomed to seeing glossy paint on the surface of a painting.
The Birth of Venus by Botticelli
Botticelli’s The Birth of Venus is a painting that is considered one of the masterpieces of the Italian Renaissance. The painting is a mythological scene showing the triumph of beauty. For the Romans, Venus was the Goddess of Love and Beauty, while for the Greeks she was Aphrodite. The ethereal beauty of the naked Goddess is depicted on the canvas, a figure that exudes pureness and perfection. She is surrounded by flowers that symbolize fertility, and she stands on a shell that is symbolic of her genitals.
The Birth of Venus is a remarkable work of art in that it was painted at a time when the Catholic church would burn paintings that had pagan themes. The painting was a commissioned by members of the Medici family, a political dynasty that produced four Popes for the Catholic church and other high ranking officials. Botticelli himself was a devout Catholic but had a fascination with ancient mythology and history as evidenced by the other paintings of his such as the Primavera and the Departure of the Centaur.
One of the interesting aspects of this painting is that it is the first image of a fully-naked female to be painted since antiquity. Although the painting may be interpreted in a number of ways, many scholars believe that Botticelli was influenced by the Neoplatonic philosophy that believed the contemplation of beauty was a spiritual activity that elevated the soul.
The colors in the painting are a wonderful combination of lighter skin tones directly linked with Venus being a symbol of purity and the more earthy shades found in the surrounding landscape. The blending of these colors is what makes the painting so memorable.
The painting has also been the inspiration for several covers of The New Yorker magazine. In one example, illustrated by Susan Davis for the May 25, 1992 issue, Zephyr’s gentle breeze is replaced with the hot air from a blow dryer as Venus, clothed in a robe and holding a brush, is obviously primping herself.
Reclining Nude by Modigliani
A century ago, Modigliani’s reclining nudes were among the first to redefine how women were portrayed in Modern art. When they debuted at the Paris gallery of Berthe Weill in 1917, the sensual works quite literally stopped traffic and prompted the police to close the exhibition. Today, they are recognized as one of the seminal achievements in 20th century painting.
Although Modigliani had painted nudes in the past, it was only after he abandoned sculpture in 1914 that he developed his unique idiom for depicting the human body. In this work, he drew upon the artistic precedents of Italian Renaissance and Mannerist painting, the linear simplicity of African carvings and the earth-toned palette and geometric modeling of Cubism.
The present work is part of a series of 22 reclining nudes and thirteen seated ones that the artist completed between 1916 and 1919. The reclining nudes are characterized by fluid lines of black, blue, red and yellow ochres that outline the model’s form. In the Courtauld, Guggenheim and Metropolitan museums, as well as in MoMA’s Reclining Nude from the Back, a thicker build-up of paint – visible on the surface and revealed by XRF analyses – reinforces the contour of the figure.
Modigliani often worked directly onto the canvas, but in the case of the Barnes nude he also produced a pencil underdrawing. He made minor compositional changes between the underdrawing and the finished painting. For example, he lengthened the proper right arm in the paint stage as compared to the underdrawing.
In addition to the reworking of line and form, Modigliani used different pigments in the various paintings in the series. The paints he employed were primarily lead white, zinc white, copper sulfate and cadmium yellows and reds. Several of the sitters were painted in oil, but he preferred to use dry pigments for his portraits.
In the reclining nude, Modigliani also experimented with the effect of light and shade. His application of shadowing on the right hand side of the reclining torso accentuates her pose and highlights the curve of her hip. Moreover, the reddish tones in the upper and lower backgrounds contrast with the warm, creamy flesh of her body.
The Olympia by Manet
When it comes to scandalous female nudes, few paintings have caused as much uproar as Manet’s Olympia. When it was first exhibited at the Paris Salon in 1865, it stunned the audience – the Parisian elite – into near hysteria. This was no ordinary painting of a nude woman; rather, it depicted a Parisian prostitute. The nakedness of the women in Manet’s work broke with a tradition of female nudity that had been rooted in the ideals of antiquity and classical history. Before Manet’s painting, a woman could lose her clothes in a painting only if she were a goddess or mythological figure.
Manet’s Olympia features a fully-naked female, lying on a chaise lounge, with a black cat at her feet and a black servant holding a bouquet of flowers. The scene is set in the bedroom of a rich Parisian woman, and the painting was based on Victorine Meurent, one of Manet’s models. The reclining woman wears a gold bracelet and ring on her hand, a Louis XV throw at her shoulders, a silk flower in her hair, and delicate black ribbons around her neck.
Unlike the softly focused and dream-like world of the traditional historical paintings that dominated the 19th century art establishment, Manet’s Olympia is starkly realistic. This realistic approach to the subject matter and its depiction shocked audiences in the Salon.
Modern scholars believe that it wasn’t just the controversial subject matter of Manet’s painting that caused such an uproar but also his uncompromising technique and style. He used bold brush strokes and vigorously simplified forms that were a break from the academic traditions of his time.
Despite the fact that a number of Manet’s earlier works featured nude subjects, his Olympia was by far the most shocking because it didn’t conform to the standard pretenses for female nudity in art. It was not a goddess, a mythological nymph, or even a common middle-class woman but rather a Parisian prostitute and the depiction of her in such a wholly modern context shocked many people. In addition, the expression of the woman in the painting was remarkably cold and unemotional. She stares directly out of the canvas, placing the viewer in the role of her client.