The female nude body is one of the most frequent subjects of paintings. From eroticism to social and political messages, these naked bodies have inspired many artists.
During the Mannerist period of the 16th and 17th centuries, painters offered huge freedom in representing the human body. Curves were exaggerated and a strong sense of eroticism emerged.
Edouard Manet
Edouard Manet was a 19th-century painter who broke with artistic convention and depicted modern life in his paintings. His frank portrayals of Parisian cafe society made him one of the first artists to draw a line between Realism and Impressionism. His art also influenced many later artists, including Edgar Degas, Claude Monet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Alfred Sisley, and Paul Cezanne.
Manet was born on 23 January 1832 to a wealthy Parisian family of lawyers and civil servants. His father Auguste was a dedicated high-ranking public servant and his mother Eugenie-Desiree Fournier was the daughter of a diplomat.
In his paintings, Manet often portrayed women who were naked or nearly so. His work provoked scandal at the French Salon for its depictions of nude women and men engaged in sexual activity. Manet grew up with an interest in drawing and studied at the College Rollin in Paris for several years, but he was never a top student.
In his 1863 painting Olympia, a nude woman is shown reclining on her bed as she receives gifts from her presumed patron. Manet based the composition on a number of works, including Titian’s Venus of Urbino and Raimondi’s engraving of The Judgment of Paris after Raphael, but he broke with Renaissance tradition by avoiding smooth blending and using harsh lighting to humanize the model. He also included details that suggested the woman’s profession, including decorative slippers, a proffered bouquet of flowers, and a black cat slinking on the bed.
Francisco de Goya
Representing the human body has been one of the main themes in art since prehistoric times, as can be seen in paintings such as Botticelli’s Birth of Venus or Modigliani’s Reclining Nude. However, it was during the Mannerist period of the 16th and 17th centuries that nude paintings became truly free from religious constraints and started to feature strong sexuality. This was the result of the use of curves and counter-curves to accentuate the outlines, which gave a sense of eroticism to the bodies of the figures represented.
Goya was a highly moral man who espoused Enlightenment ideals of truth, reason and justice but lived in an extremely turbulent era in Spanish history, including devastating famine, the Inquisition, Napoleon’s invasion of Spain and the Peninsular War. He deplored the corruption of his patrons, the arrogance of the nobility and peasant superstition in matters such as witchcraft. His mid-period saw a change of direction in his work, with a series of prints such as Los Caprichos and a wide range of paintings depicting scenes of disaster, insanity and death.
Women occupy a prominent position in Goya’s work. His portrait of Mara Cayetana de Silva, Duchess of Alba in Black is a daring image of a woman dressed as a maja, the traditional costume worn by members of Spain’s lower classes. In addition, she is wearing a mask. Her pensive expression and the fact that she is looking directly at the viewer makes this an even more provocative work.
Gustave Courbet
Gustave Courbet is known for his controversial paintings of nude females that challenge societal conventions. His art combines an almost academic flawlessness with a natural representation full of open-hearted eroticism. Bathers or Two Nude Women is one of his most famous works. It features two naked women immersed in water, with their bodies delicately intertwined as they enjoy a moment of intimacy.
The painting is a masterpiece of balance and harmony. The model’s curves are highlighted by the light that plays on her skin. The asymmetrical composition is complemented by the drapery and landscape in the background. The presence of a dog suggests fidelity, while the woman’s pose and posture evoke Titian’s Danae.
For decades, it was thought that the torso and genitalia featured in the painting belonged to Courbet’s lover, Irish model Joanna Hiffernan. However, French historian Claude Schopp uncovered evidence that points to Parisian ballet dancer Constance Queniaux instead. He noted that Queniaux’s dark pubic hair corresponded better with the model’s shaven genitalia in the painting.
Sylvie Aubenas, the head of the French National Library’s prints department, also confirmed this theory. She said that “This testimony from the time leads me to believe with 99 percent certainty that this is what Courbet used as his model.” Schopp’s discovery also agrees with earlier reports of Queniaux having a resemblance to the renowned courtesan Marie-Anne Detourbay, who was competing for Halil Sherif Pasha’s affections at the time of the painting’s creation in 1866.
Edvard Munch
While some painters have portrayed women as beautiful, others have portrayed them as a little “freakish.” These women are devoid of all semblance of symmetry that humans find attractive, thus rendering them unnerving to observers. They also appear to lack a natural sense of proportion, and their faces are disfigured by various features. They are the perfect candidates to be called a “freak.”
Edvard Munch grew up in a strict Catholic family and studied engineering at the Tegneskole in Kristiania before re-enrolling in life drawing. He was influenced by Impressionist Claude Monet and Neo-Impressionist Georges Seurat, as well as Post-Impressionist Vincent van Gogh. In The Scream, he depicts the Virgin Mary in a manner that is both provocative and irreverent. It breaks away from all preceding representations of the chaste Mother of Jesus Christ, and shows her in the act of lovemaking. This defies both Renaissance-era Naturalism and 19th century Realism.
Munch’s paintings often explore themes of life and death, love and jealousy, and despair. He was a close contemporary of Sigmund Freud, who was interested in interpreting human behavior through the mind. This rich brew of emotional and intellectual experience is clearly evident in his work, particularly The Scream. He also painted portraits, landscapes, and figure studies.
Egon Schiele
The Austrian painter Egon Schiele is known for his intense, raw sexuality in his drawings and paintings. A protege of Gustav Klimt, he is considered an early exponent of Expressionism. Throughout his brief life, Schiele immortalized women on paper and canvas in a variety of body shapes and states of undress. In her debut novel, British author Sophie Haydock explores the lives of four of the female nude models who influenced and inspired him.
From an early age, Schiele had a fascination with the human body and its inner workings. He would sketch naked bodies of his siblings, and often took pictures of his younger friends and neighbors to study their forms. He was a shy child and struggled at school, but he excelled in drawing classes. He often fraternized with adolescents and his homes in Neulengbach, Austria and Cesky Krumlov in what’s now the Czech Republic became gathering places for children. In 1912, his erotic works of girls below the age of consent led to an arrest for seduction and abduction, but Schiele spent only 24 days in jail before the charges were dropped.
Even a century after his death, Schiele’s nudes polarize audiences. They’re frequently described as disturbing, erotic, and even pornographic. But if you walk into a museum or art gallery, they’re usually displayed alongside other works of great artists like Picasso’s Les Demoiselles d’Avignon and Valie Export’s GenitalPanik.
Paul Cezanne
Cezanne’s paintings are revolutionary, paving the way for abstraction. His portraits of women are dark expressions, with sickly greenish skin and grotesque figures. The women are naked but have their faces covered. They also have large bellies and breasts.
Cezanne was born in Aix-en-Provence and trained as a lawyer for two years before pursuing his art career full time. He was influenced by the Impressionists, but he wanted to produce paintings that captured solid form rather than the fugitive effects they achieved.
This style was revolutionary, and it set the stage for Fauvism and modern Expressionism. His 1860s works seem shaky and uncertain, but they reveal a depth of feeling that is almost palpable. These early paintings are infused with a feverish energy that is reminiscent of Delacroix’s swirling compositions.
In the painting, Bathers, Cezanne explores a new approach to representation. He deconstructed the subjects by removing all narrative and descriptive elements, and then reconstructed them by simplifying shapes and colors. This process gave rise to abstract forms, and it is a precursor to the work of Picasso. The subject of the painting is a group of people at the beach, but there are no clear features that would identify them as men or women. This painting gives a pessimistic impression of women’s bodies and is an expression of Cezanne’s fear of women.