Depictions of nudity include all of the representations or portrayals of the unclothed human body in visual media. In a picture-making civilization, pictorial conventions continually reaffirm what is natural in human appearance, which is part of socialization. In Western societies, the contexts for depictions of nudity include information, art and pornography. Information includes both science and education. Any image not easily fitting into one of these three categories may be misinterpreted, leading to disputes. The most contentious disputes are between fine art and erotic images, which define the legal distinction of which images are permitted or prohibited.
A depiction is defined as any lifelike image, ranging from precise representations to verbal descriptions. Portrayal is a synonym of depiction, but includes playing a role on stage as one form of representation.
Nudity in art
Nudity in art—painting, sculpture, and more recently photography—has generally reflected social standards of the time in aesthetics and modesty/morality. At all times in human history, the human body has been one of the principal subjects for artists. It has been represented in paintings and statues since prehistory. Venus figurines, often with pronounced depictions of female genitals, are well-known examples from this era.
For the ancient Greeks, male nudity was considered heroic and sensually pleasing. This attitude is reflected in their artworks, which portray the human body in idealized form. In addition, it was perfectly acceptable for a man to openly admire the physique of another. Vase paintings and sculptures of nude women were also made, exhibiting the female counterpart to heroic nudity in men. One example of such an artwork is the sculpture Aphrodite of Knidos by Praxiteles of Athens from the fourth century B.C. It was the first life-size stone sculpture of the nude female form in history. Although the original is now lost, it has inspired numerous other artworks, among them, the Capitoline Venus and the Medici Venus.
Bronzino's so-called "allegorical portraits" such as the Portrait of Andrea Doria as Neptune, of Genoese Admiral Andrea Doria, are less typical but possibly even more fascinating due to the peculiarity of placing a publicly recognized personality in the nude as a mythical figure, Neptune or Poseidon, god of the sea and earthquakes. Although naked, Doria is not fragile or frail. He is depicted as a powerful virile man, showing masculine spirit, strength, vigor, and power.Maurice Brock, Bronzino (Paris: Flammarion; London: Thames & Hudson, 2002).Deborah, Parker, Bronzino: Renaissance Painter as Poet (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000).
Portraits and nudes without a pretense to allegorical or mythological meaning were a fairly common genre of art from the Renaissance onwards. Some regard Francisco Goya's La maja desnuda of around 1800, as "the first totally profane life-size female nude in Western art", but paintings of nude females were not unknown, even in Spain. The painting was hung in a private room, along with other nudes, including the much earlier Rokeby Venus by Diego Velázquez.
Decorative or monumental art
Religious and mythological art During the Middle Ages, Christianity was unable to completely erase pagan influences in Europe. By the Renaissance, interest in classical civilization was revived, and Greek mythology served as an inspiration for a plethora of artworks, notably, The Birth of Venus by Sandro Botticelli. Moreover, the Judeo-Christian tradition has itself inspired a number of nude sculptures and paintings.
Depictions of youth
For centuries, art has portrayed child nudity as a symbol of youthful innocence, freedom, and vulnerability entirely devoid of its modern pedophilic connotations. This symbolism existed in depictions of daily life along with pagan and Christian iconography depicting Cupid and angels as nude boys.
The sculptures Manneken Pis and Jeanneke Pis in Brussels respectively show a nude boy and a nude girl urinating into a fountain below. The original bronze statue was created by in 1619. Artists such as Mary Cassatt painted mothers bathing and clothing nude children. Until the 20th century, nude swimming existed as a socially acceptable activity for boys in most cultures, leading to frequent artistic representations in photography and paintings. Child nudity remains common in various cultures within the Global South, leading to visitors photographing local children in the nude. In developed countries, professional photographers such as Will McBride, Jock Sturges, Sally Mann, David Hamilton, Jacques Bourboulon, Garo Aida, Chris Nikolson, Yoji Ishikawa, Ron Oliver, Irina Ionesco and Bill Henson have photographed children appearing at naturist events and published their work in newspapers, books, magazines, and art galleries.
Opponents of such photographs view such works as a form of child pornography involving subjects who may have experienced psychological harm during or after their creation, regardless of parental consent. Authorities investigated Jock Sturges and David Hamilton following public condemnation of their work by activists such as Randall Terry. Several attempts to prosecute Sturges or booksellers selling his work have been dropped or thrown out of court. Sally Mann's depictions of her own children in the nude have caused discomfort in viewers and generated significant controversy.
In the West, snapshots taken by parents of their infant or toddler children bathing or otherwise naked have sometimes been destroyed or turned over to law enforcement as child pornography. Such incidents may be examples of false allegation of child sexual abuse. Author Lynn Powell described the prosecution of such cases as a moral panic surrounding child sexual abuse and child pornography.
Colonialism
Many precolonial cultures inhabiting tropical and subtropical regions of the world practiced full or partial nudity without any connotation of sexuality. In the nineteenth century, Orientalism sexualized nude women from non-Western cultures through an ethnocentric misinterpretation of their lack of clothing as a form of immodesty. Sexualized depictions of nude women in French postcards and harems escaped legal sanctions as ethnography. Modern activists such as Andrea Smith frequently criticize the sexualization and objectification of Indigenous women as a form of racism and sexism that contributes to ongoing violence against women of color.6-18.2 Smith (70-85)
Nude photography
Photography has been used to create images of nudity that fit into any category; artistic, educational, commercial, and erotic. In the artistic case, nude photography is a fine art because it is focused aesthetics and creativity; any erotic interest, though often present, is secondary. This distinguishes nude photography from both glamour photography and pornographic photography. The distinction between these is not always clear, and photographers tend to use their own judgment in characterizing their own work, though viewers may disagree. The nude remains a controversial subject in all media, but more so with photography due to its inherent realism. The male nude has been less common than the female, and more rarely exhibited. Monday, June 29, 2020
Alfred Cheney Johnston (1885–1971) was a professional American photographer who often photographed Ziegfeld Follies showgirls, such as Virginia Biddle. During the First World War, nude images of Fernande by the photographer Jean Agélou were cherished by soldiers on both sides, even though these were illegal and had to be handled with discretion.Libby, Ken. "Miss Fernande". KB8GPO Radio Free Waldenburg.
Male naked bodies were not pictured as frequently at the time. An exception is the photograph of the early bodybuilder Eugen Sandow modelling the statue The Dying Gaul, illustrating the Grecian Ideal which he introduced to bodybuilding.
Popular culture Classifications and disputes With the expansion of the display of nudity in art beyond traditional galleries, some exhibitions experience backlash from individuals who equate all nudity with sexuality, and thus inappropriate for viewing by the general public or schoolchildren in art class. In exceptional cases, even well-known artworks, such as the statue David (of the Biblical David) by Renaissance master Michelangelo, could stir controversy. On the other hand, the removal of a famous nude painting from public display, however temporary, could cause a mostly condemnatory public reaction. Nude depictions of women may be criticized by feminists as inherently voyeuristic due to the male gaze. Although not specifically anti-nudity, the feminist group Guerrilla Girls point out the prevalence of nude women on the walls of museums but the scarcity of female artists. Without the relative freedom of the fine arts, nudity in popular culture often involves making fine distinctions between types of depictions. The most extreme form is full frontal nudity, referring to the fact that the actor or model is presented from the front and with the genitals exposed. Frequently, though, nude images do not go that far. They are instead deliberately composed, and films edited, such that in particular no genitalia are seen, as if the camera by chance failed to see them. This is sometimes called "implied nudity" as opposed to "explicit nudity." It is in popular culture that a particular image may lead to classification disputes.
Displays of nude artworks in museums may sometimes be a subject of controversy. In response, a museum may showcase only relatively tame statues or paintings, leaving more provocative works to commercial galleries. According to art historian Kenneth Clark, a fine work of art may contain significant sexual content but without being obscene. Art historian and critic Frances Borzello observes that twenty-first-century artists have abandoned the ideals and traditions of the past, choosing instead to create more confronting depictions of the unclothed human body. In the performing arts, then, this means presenting actual naked bodies as works of art.
Whether or not pubic hair is acceptable in art has not been consistent among different cultures and over time. In the West, pubic hair has been typically absent from fine art up until the last few centuries or so, but was rather common in pornography. Today, this trend has been reversed.
Activism and advertising Liberty Leading the People is an artwork by Romanticist painter Eugène Delacroix commemorating the Revolution of July 1830 in France. It features a partially nude goddess or allegory of liberty, wearing a Phrygian cap that had become the symbol of liberty during the first French Revolution of 1789, holding aloft the French tricolor, and leading citizens from all walks of life to overthrow King Charles X.Renwick, William Lindsay (1889). The Rise of the Romantics 1789–1815: Wordsworth, Coleridge, and Jane Austen. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990, c1963 This painting is sometimes mistakenly believed to portray the French Revolution. It is arguably the best known early depiction Marianne, the personification of the French Republic.
Neoclassical sculptor Hiram Powers earned his fame for The Greek Slave, a statue that not only inspired some poetry, but also the abolitionistWagenknecht, Edward. James Russell Lowell: Portrait of a Many-Sided Man. New York: Oxford University Press, 1971: 138. and women's rights movements in the United States.