There are few experiences that are as universal as seeing a naked woman in film. It’s a part of the human experience, and it’s almost always sexualized.
Artists have depicted the female nude in thousands of ways. Sometimes religious and sacred, and other times uninhibited and Libertine. Whether the subject is Eve, a classical goddess or a modern woman.
Goya’s La maja desnuda
In Spain during Goya’s time, nude paintings were taboo. Unlike the more chaste depictions of classical female figures in other artwork, Goya’s painting of a naked maja was both sensual and risqué. The painting sparked controversy, because it depicted the female genitalia, including pubic hair, in a way that was overtly sexual. Goya hid the painting in his private collection for six years, but it was eventually unearthed by the Spanish Inquisition, leading to accusations of moral depravity. Luckily, Goya was able to avoid prosecution by claiming that the painting simply followed the artistic precedents set by Titian’s Danae series and Velazquez’s Rokeby Venus.
Although the Naked Maja is a controversial work, it is also one of Goya’s most iconic pieces. The unabashedly realistic portrayal of a reclining female nude is both titillating and provocative, and is often seen as the first Western painting to depict a woman’s pubic hair without negative connotations. The painting has been in the Museo del Prado museum in Madrid since 1901.
There is much speculation about the identity of the model in this painting. Some suggest that she was the young mistress of Prime Minister Manuel de Godoy, but this remains unconfirmed. Others speculate that the model was the painter’s sister or an old friend, Pepita Tudo. However, many scholars believe that the model is a composite of several different models.
The Naked Maja is believed to have been painted between 1795 and 1800, while Goya was still rooted in the aesthetics of 18th-century art. It was also created around the same time as the earlier drawings in Album A with young women lying on beds, which Goya may have used for preparatory sketches for this painting.
Goya later painted a companion piece to this painting, The Clothed Maja, which offers a more chaste depiction of the same model. Both works are currently in the Museo del Prado, and are frequently compared to each other. While the details of both paintings are not fully known, it is clear that Goya wanted to make a statement with these paintings.
Courbet’s The Origin of the World
The Origin of the World by Gustave Courbet has been scandalizing viewers ever since it was painted in 1866. It shows a woman’s lower groin and her breasts. Courbet strove for an erotic realism that was unsanctified by the prevailing taste of his time. He aimed to shock and provoke. His brazen full-frontal nudes challenged the prevailing moral standards of his day. This painting was the first to depict a realistic female genitalia without cupids or mythological justification of any kind. This raw eroticism was utterly shocking to the people who saw it for the first time. The painting became a call to arms for a radically new realism. It is also an expression of Courbet’s confidence and ego. He places himself full-size, brush in hand, in the work to demonstrate that he was a revolutionary artist of iron will and revolutionary genius.
The painting is so controversial that it has even been vandalized on occasion. It is currently exhibited at the Centre Pompidou-Metz in northern France where it is a focal point of an exhibit on the psychoanalytic philosopher Jacques Lacan who owned it for a while. TroysArt lists it as one of the most shocking paintings in history.
It was painted in the midst of the French Realism movement that rejected academic convention and boldly made social statements with their paintings. Courbet’s portrait was commissioned by Khalil Serif Pasha, an Ottoman diplomat and ambassador who collected erotic pictures. Courbet’s model Joanna Hiffernan was not only an exotic woman but a professional prostitute. The painting is also famous for its depiction of a vagina in an era when women’s bodies were only ever shown in idealized forms.
A recent discovery has confirmed that a cropped upper section of the canvas was cut off from the original piece. The Musée d’Orsay, where the painting now belongs, has confirmed this through pigment analyses. For more than a century, The Origin of the World was passed around private collections, including those of aristocratic families and the family of famed French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan. It was eventually donated to the Musée d’Orsay in 1995.
Impressionist painters
Claude Monet (1840–1926) was the most famous Impressionist and, according to art historian Ian Spalding, “the creator of a style of painting that has become one of the dominant forms of modernism”. Unlike the Realists or the Neo-Impressionists who preceded them, the Impressionists emphasized fleeting optical impressions and depicted scenes from everyday life. They also favored looser brushstrokes and blended colors, and sought to capture the dynamic effects of natural light, especially the play of shadows on a subject.
In addition to embracing the fleeting nature of visual perception, the Impressionists were influenced by other new trends, including photography and Japonism. Like their predecessors, they frequently framed scenes by juxtaposing buildings and figures with natural landscapes. In addition, they favored the use of large brushes to paint broad brushstrokes that captured a sense of movement and light, a technique called ‘daubing’.
The Impressionists began their careers as Pre-Impressionist painters, but their fearless departure from conventional artistic forms and subject matter set them apart. In the 1860s, the jury at the official Salon regularly rejected Manet’s works, particularly The Luncheon on the Grass (Le dejeuner sur l’herbe), which depicts a nude woman with two clothed men at a picnic. Manet’s painting courted outrage, but it paved the way for the Impressionists to depict subjects previously considered unsuitable for serious art.
Impressionists such as Mary Cassatt and Berthe Morisot were among the first women to exhibit with the group, and their paintings reflected both the private sphere of domestic life and the modern public space. They were among the first painters to depict women at work or in the street, and they challenged prevailing attitudes towards female nudity.
Other pre-Impressionists who paved the way for the Impressionists included Johan Barthold Jongkind, Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot and Eugene Boudin, whose paintings of marine landscapes inspired the Impressionists to paint outdoors (en plein air). In 1862 in Honfleur, the group met Johan’s brother, Camille Caillebotte (1799–1881), who influenced them as much by his teaching as his paintings (which were primarily of landscapes) and by his friendship with the young Claude Monet. He was a reserved but confident artist, and his sensitivity to the beauty of rural France helped to inspire the Impressionists’ later interest in the effects of light on color.
Botticelli’s Venus
The Italian Renaissance painter Sandro Botticelli was a master at portraying women with grace and beauty. His work, The Birth of Venus (1445-1510), a full-length depiction of the nymphean goddess, is one of the most iconic images in art history. The painting’s pagan subject matter shocked the church-dominated art world of its time, but it has remained a popular and beloved work for centuries.
In Botticelli’s version of the myth, Venus emerges from a shell as she drifts to the shore on a stream of water. She holds her breasts in one hand and her pubis with the other, suggesting fertility and sexuality. The elongated neck and erroneous arms are characteristic of Renaissance style, but the overall effect is of flowing movement. The wavy shape of her robe mirrors the ripples in the water and she appears almost translucent, her body appearing as though it is etched into glass.
Botticelli drew inspiration from classical sculpture, particularly Hellenistic-era statues. But it is thought that he based the face of his Venus on a portrait of a young woman named Simonetta Vespucci, a Florentine noblewoman who was married to the cousin of Amerigo Vespucci, the famous explorer. Simonetta was a beautiful and respected muse for many Florentine artists and poets.
The nymphean goddess is supported by Zephyr, the god of winds, and his companion, Aura, a gentle breeze. They blow Venus to the island of Cyprus, where the nymph Chloris waits on the shore with a robe and her myrtles, primroses, and roses in her hands. The nymphs and a young girl in the background are reminiscent of a group of classical sculptures known as the Three Graces, but scholars are not sure who they represent here.
The Museum of Fine Arts in Boston recently brought an exhibition of Botticelli’s paintings to America, including The Birth of Venus. The painting is also the subject of a new book by art historian Peter Watson. The book explores the many ways that the artwork has been reinterpreted and remixed in contemporary culture. Even James Bond has been given a taste of the painting: Ian Fleming’s 1958 novel, Dr. No, features Ursula Andress as a Jamaican shell diver who reminds Bond of his naked muse.