Women have long been subjected to what has become known as the male gaze. They are portrayed with a flirtatious degree of agency, often seductively inviting the viewer to engage in sexual consumption.
While religious art emphasised chastity, Renaissance artists frequently painted nude women. Hildegarde Handsaeme’s paintings are true odes to women, with generous shapes and poetic bodies.
History of the Representation of the Female Body in Art
The female body has been a source of fascination for artists since prehistoric times. In early figurative art, the female body was depicted as a symbol of fertility, life and divine beauty. In the earliest rock paintings like the Tassili n’Ajjer, women were immortalized in community scenes involving hunting and rituals. Then, during the Renaissance, art moved beyond religious contexts to explore the human body in all its naked glory. This exploration continued during the eighteenth century with the emergence of romanticism and realism. This was exemplified by such famous works as Botticelli’s The Birth of Venus, Courbet’s Origin of the World and Modigliani’s Reclining Nude.
The nineteenth and twentieth centuries saw the emergence of new artistic movements which explored the human form in ever-more abstract ways. In the Victorian era, prudish customs hid a fascination with the female nude that was often cloaked in academic or mythological justification. Modernist breakers like Cubism and Surrealism took on the challenge of portraying the female form in an abstract way that challenged traditional notions of beauty and modesty.
In more recent times, contemporary artists continue to investigate the female body and its many facets. Some, such as Tom Wesselmann, have used the female body in an almost anatomical way to capture its physical essence and power. Others, such as Marina Abramovic and Yayoi Kusama, use the female body as a metaphor for the idea of womanhood.
Still others, such as Shigeko Kubota and Elke Krystufek have pushed against the canonical ideal of the female body in their work. Kubota’s Vagina Paintings feature a naked female squatting on the floor with a brush attached to her vagina. Krystufek’s performance Motherhood (2009) involved masturbating in public in front of her audience. The nude bodies of such other artists as Yayoi Kusama, Takashi Murakami and Damien Hirst reveal the raw energy that is the feminine body and its ability to captivate and intrigue. In their exploration of the female form, these artists are a reminder that the body can be anything it wants to be and that art is the ultimate vehicle for its expression.
The Absence of Clothing in Art
As we explore the history of female nude art, it’s interesting to see how the presence or absence of clothing has changed. The absence of clothed bodies reveals the tension between humanism and eroticism, the physical and the ethereal. Clothed figures are at once intensely physical – the muscles and flesh strain against clinging fabric – and at the same time ethereal – a figure becomes abstract through the blurring of shapes and lines. In contrast, unclothed figures are more intimately human – the soft folds of skin, the delicate contours of body, and even the slightest expression convey a sense of the individual’s inner being.
While a few artists depicted naked women in their works as symbols of femininity, the depiction of a nude woman was rare until the Renaissance. It was generally considered that the male body was the one closest to God’s creation, as seen in Leonardo Da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man and the countless male nudes found throughout art history.
The emergence of the renaissance painting gave rise to a more realistic depiction of the human body. Artists sought to capture the natural proportions of the body and, as a result, the nude form became more common. This trend continues today, as we see artists strive to capture the beauty of the human body in a variety of forms, both nude and clothed.
Even firmly established artists have caused controversy with their depictions of nude women. One such case was a work by the painter James Whistler titled Study for a Portrait of Lady Caroline Gordon-Lewis. It is not known if the model was Lady Caroline or if Whistler used his imagination; but her reclining pose and her facial expression are authentically feminine. When the painting was first displayed, the wife of the Marquess of Hartington complained that it showed her in a state of nakedness which she found distasteful.
A more recent example of an artistic controversy centered on a nude female is the controversial work Bathers by Paul Cezanne. The painting is composed of three elongated shapes, each positioned to show off a part of the female body, and yet the overall effect is not of voyeurism. While this painting was controversial, it is also an important early attempt to deconstruct the body through abstraction.
The ‘Oriental’
The depiction of naked women in art has had a long and varied history. It is tied up with cultural notions of modesty and the way they change over time, social norms about what should be seen in public and private spaces and a whole host of other factors.
It is also about expressing the eroticism of the female form and that has a lot to do with what is deemed to be attractive and what should not. The Venus of Willendorf – the nude statue of the goddess of love and fertility, created between 24,000 and 22,000 BCE is often seen as one of the first examples of this kind of eroticism in art.
This was the start of a long tradition of depicting a nude body in painting and sculpture. A great many paintings have portrayed naked women over the years, from Botticelli’s The Birth of Venus to Modigliani’s Reclining Nude. During the Renaissance the nude woman became a popular subject for artists as it was perceived to be very sensual and sexually provocative.
During the 19th century, with the rise of Orientalism, a different kind of nude image came into being. It was referred to as an ‘odalisque,’ meaning she is a concubine of an Oriental prince. This new style of depicting a nude woman was able to express the erotic nature of the feminine body in a context that was culturally acceptable.
Today, there are many ‘Oriental’ nude images of women that can be found in galleries and other types of public spaces. There are also photographs and even ‘nyotaimori,’ where a nude woman is posed in front of food. It is a kind of sexy’street art’ that has developed into a popular practice on college campuses. However, there are still concerns about the health risks of this type of exposure as well as concerns about a form of objectification that may be involved.
The ‘Contemporary’
In modern times, depicting a nude woman often raises eyebrows but also enlivens discussion about art, society and eroticism. For instance, Manet’s painting Olympia, a bold piece that defied academic norms and showed the reality of a naked woman rather than the idealized goddess that the Renaissance favored, shocked audiences of its time. Manet’s Olympia, which is almost as direct and erotic as his later work Anthropometrie, both pushed the boundaries of what art and nude female bodies could be.
Even a century after Manet’s work, artists are still pushing the boundaries of what can be viewed as erotic art. The British artist Tracey Emin, known for her sculptures and installations, has taken to painting with a similar approach to explore the sexuality of the human body. In her painting She Lay Down (2011), a solitary nude reclining figure is painted with bleached out colours and thick brushstrokes.
Another acclaimed British painter, Jenny Saville, is best known for her brutal depictions of the naked body. She was part of the YBAs (the Young British Artists) movement in the 80s and her paintings are raw affairs with thick and hard brushstrokes. Her piece Hyphen from 1999 depicts two girls in close-up and is a beautiful and erotic work.
But perhaps the most controversial modern nude painting is by the American artist Gilbert and Sullivan, who portrayed a nude woman as an angel in their opera The Gondoliers. This was not only a scandalous piece at the time but has been cited by many feminists as a work that promoted objectification of women and the notion that women are subservient to men.
The nude body in art is an enduring subject that continues to inspire and challenge. Whether as the ethereal Danae of Rembrandt or the naked Venus of the Renaissance, there is always a desire to show the beauty and mystery of the female body. But with the rise of christianity and its emphasis on chastity, depictions of female nudity diminished in art. Only now are nude works once again regaining popularity. Perhaps the reemergence of this genre has been catalysed by our desire to capture moments of our lives in photographs, film and digital images, or by our increased acceptance of the natural and untampered with human body in general.