The Female Nude: Art, Obscenity and Sexuality

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I like the challenge of it,” said Pérez, “of confronting more traditional masculinity and in some way trying to bend it and question it, and to create a space for men to explore and go beyond what they have been allowed to.” Representing the human body has been one of the major themes throughout art history since prehistoric times. In fact, among the paintings that have marked history, many are nude paintings of bodies, more specifically naked woman. We can take as an example Botticelli’s The Birth of Venus, Courbet’s The Origin of the World or Modigliani’s Reclining Nude. The nude genre can be assimilated to a large number of pictorial subjects, the most famous including Matisse and Ingres’ “odalisques”, Renoir’s and Cézanne’s “bathers” or the “Olympia” of Manet and Magritte. A recently opened show at the Barbican re-examines the work of one of the most celebrated proponents of “body art”, the late Carolee Schneemann, who, in 1959, travelled down the East Coast, then took a ferry to Cuba for an abortion, which was provided without anaesthetic. She was 20 and in a relationship, but did not wish to become a mother – hence the trip, and her willingness to endure such pain and hazard. After the procedure, Schneemann wrote about the sense of liberation she felt, her head “flooding with wonderful power… The body writhes and crumples and twists, the head is filled with joy, exultant and free.” In 1425, the Italian painter Masaccio created a fresco representing Adam and Eve driven out of Eden, for the church of Santa Maria del Carmine in Florence. While Adam lowers his eyes and hides his face, Eve hides her nakedness, her eyes spinning and her mouth open as if she were screaming. Above them, we see an angel dressed in red who points to the exit. The two characters are bent over, ashamed and afraid to leave Eden. Masolino Is Evelyn instead creating this art with an awareness of the historical and contemporary heterosexual male

Explore The Courtauld’s remarkable collection of paintings, prints and drawings, sculpture and decorative arts. In 1863, with his two paintings Olympia and Déjeuner sur l’herbe, Edouard Manet radically rejected the academic norms of the time. The Modern painter wanted to represent the reality of his time: Olympia is a prostitute, and not a mythological goddess or a nymph. He painted this reality without trying to idealize it. However, in the mid-19th century, depicting a nude was only permissible if situated in an exotic or mythological space. Here, the nude woman is strongly individualized and provocative. She stares at the viewer: it is this direct gaze and expression of indifference that causes a scandal. In the academic paintings, the naked female figures are “surprised”, as if somebody has walked in on her in the nude. Ultimately, they do not show themselves voluntarily naked. However, Olympia contradicts this idea. Edgar Degas This year the ladies will be raising cash for the club and money for GB Wheelchair Rugby, after their funding was slashed. Maria Clara Macrì: At the beginning of this adventure, I wanted to find the new woman, the woman of the millennium, the one that is striving for freedom just standing for the right to be exactly who she wants to be. I was looking for women that are uninterested in having a marketable value, women that do not recognise themselves in the stereotyped, sexualised images that mainstream media force onto us. I was looking for women that, for these exact reasons, are willing to write a new chapter in the history of humanity.

In the three nude figures of Moonbeams Dipping Into Water the nude women are also shown to be connected through touch, through their hands and legs. The figure at the top of the canvas seems to be having her arm lightly stroked by the woman beneath her. The sensuality of the draping also, like the sunflowers leaves and waves, adds another erotic touch to the representations. As well as the hands and legs of the figures joining, the drapery connects the three figures. The drapery just covers the women’s genitalia, but isn’t stationery, like the waves it appears to be moving over these areas. The drapery is sensuously flowing over and caressing the figures genitalia, charging the erotica of the painting. Representations of naked female forms, mostly white, in European culture have existed throughout art history. For centuries these female figures defined ‘High Art’, the sexuality of these figures was permitted under the guise of mythological figures, nude female figures were represented as idealised gods not earthly women. From Titian’s sixteenth century representation of Venus of Urbino (1538) to Rembrandt’s Danaë of 1636. Later in the eighteenth century in Jean-Honoré Fragonard The Raised Chemise, 1770, this mythological context is only vaguely alluded and the sensuality of this canvas can be compared to Manet’s 1863, Luncheon, a modern woman has discarded all her clothes confidently and sits with fully clothed men. More recently Lucien Freud’s celebration of the fleshiness of the female form envelops the canvas .

The women agreed that they weren't embarrassed to get naked as they regularly see each other in the shower (pictured, one of last year's snaps) Israel-Hamas war LIVE: Israeli airstrikes destroy 300 targets in Gaza and Lebanon overnight as WHO warns of 'imminent public health catastrophe'For instance, the Swedish photographer Julia SH takes the museum as her setting, upsetting traditional western concepts of how that institution regards the female body. She does this by placing plus-sized women into striking, balletic poses on pedestals and in galleries that are more accustomed to displaying young, thinner women. As Hajjar noted, SH’s works are “nothing like what you would have seen in a museum before”. Hajjar added that, “We’re interested in dealing with the ‘nontraditional’ female body and what that looks like.” Is it sensuality the focus of her representation of the naked female figure, or is it vulnerability or truth or another

She recounted the making of one of her favorite photos, of two boys whom she happened to meet on the street one day in Senegal. “One of them told me, I’ve never done anything like this before, but I’ve learned so much today. He said that was a day he would never forget. We had created something, he felt included in the process.”

The all-women Hitchin Ladies Rugby Club squad have once again stripped off for charity to raise money for the club after their funding was slashed and to promote female players in the sport. The Female Nude brings together, in an entirely new way, analysis of the historical tradition of the female nude and discussion of recent feminist art, and by exploring the ways in which acceptable and unacceptable images of the female body are produced and maintained, renews recent debates on high culture and pornography. Here is a painting that religious morality would doubtlessly disapprove of! Underneath this charming spectacle is an incestuous scene, a kiss between Venus, the goddess of beauty, and her son Cupid, the incarnation of love. Provocative, unseemly, disturbing… There was no shortage of words to describe this scene that goes against all morality. Riding a wave is this emotionless, beautiful thing that you just feel so present,” the pro surfer said. “You stand up, and anything that you’re worried about or stressed about, it just goes away.” Bring home your favourite pieces from The Courtauld’s collection with our exclusive custom prints to suit your space. Choose from art paper or canvas, in a range of sizes and frames, and we will make your print and deliver it directly to your door.