Depictions of nudity
[4] 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.Henry Scott Tuke painted nude young boys doing everyday seaside activities, swimming, boating, and fishing; his images were not overtly erotic, nor did they usually show their genitals.Opponents suggest that such works should be (or remain) banned and represent a form of child pornography, involving subjects who may have experienced psychological harm during or after their creation.[11][12][13] There have been incidents in which snapshots taken by parents of their infant or toddler children bathing or otherwise naked were destroyed or turned over to law enforcement as child pornography.Representations of nude Muslim women included "French postcards" for popular distribution, which escaped legal sanctions by being placed in the category of ethnography rather than porn.[24] During the First World War, nude images of Fernande by the photographer Jean Agélou where cherished by soldiers on both sides, even though these were illegal and had to be handled with discretion.[33] 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.[36] 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.[41] Neoclassical sculptor Hiram Powers earned his fame for The Greek Slave,[42][43] a statue that not only inspired some poetry,[43] but also the abolitionist[44][45] and women's rights movements in the United States.[60] Posters featuring nudity might be commercially available as well.In 1998, two French cartoonist partners Regis Loisel and Philippe Sternis made the feral child graphic novel (bande dessinée) Pyrénée as the cover, and page story in nude.For example, when the Swedish film Hon dansade en sommar ("One Summer of Happiness") was released 1951, it stirred considerable controversy because of a sequence involving nude swimming (or skinny dipping) and a close-up scene of sexual intercourse in which the breasts of Ulla Jacobsson were visible to the audience.The Blue Lagoon (1980), a coming-of-age romantic and survival drama, shows the sexual awakening of two adolescent cousins of the opposite sex who find themselves stranded on a tropical island where nudity is a natural part of the environment, unlike the Victorian constraints of their upbringing.[69] Similarly, in Titanic (1997) Rose Dewitt Bukater (played by Kate Winslet) poses nude for Jack Dawson (Leonardo DiCaprio).[76] The 2013 film Blue Is the Warmest Colour proved to be controversial not necessarily because it depicted a lesbian relationship for which it has been praised, but because of the conditions under which the starring actresses were forced to work by the director.In an interview with The Daily Beast, actress Adèle Exarchopoulos stated, "Most people don’t even dare to ask the things that he did, and they’re more respectful.The film is inspired by the real-life Chinese spy Zheng Pingru and her failed attempt to honey-trap and assassinate the Japanese collaborator Ding Mocun during the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945).[82] Due to the culture of the United States, MTV, VH1, and other music-related television channels usually censor what they deem offensive or otherwise inappropriate for their viewers.[83] For example, the music video for the song "Justify My Love" (1990) by Madonna contained a number of sexual fetishes and was consequently rejected by MTV."[83] In the United Kingdom, the Independent Broadcasting Authority, which regulated television and radio programming, banned the music video from being aired before nine o'clock in the evening.For example, album covers for music by performers such as Jimi Hendrix, John Lennon and Yoko Ono, Nirvana, Blind Faith, Scorpions, Jane's Addiction, and Santana have contained nudity.In Asian polities such as India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Japan, Korea, and China, erotic artworks and other representations of human sexuality have specific spiritual meanings within their respective native religions.In Europe, ancient Greece and Rome produced much art and decoration of an erotic nature, much of it integrated with their own religious beliefs and cultural practices.They served as sexual guidance for newly married couples in Japan in general, and the sons and daughters of prosperous families were given elaborate pictures as presents on their wedding days.[93] McConnachie describes the zesty 10% of the Khajuraho sculptures as "the apogee of erotic art": Twisting, broad-hipped and high breasted nymphs display their generously contoured and bejewelled bodies on exquisitely worked exterior wall panels.These fleshy apsaras run riot across the surface of the stone, putting on make-up, washing their hair, playing games, dancing, and endlessly knotting and unknotting their girdles....Beside the heavenly nymphs are serried ranks of griffins, guardian deities and, most notoriously, extravagantly interlocked maithunas, or lovemaking couples.In the modern era, erotic photographs are normally taken for commercial purposes.The Fabrica emphasized the priority of dissection and what has come to be called the "anatomical" view of the body, seeing human internal functioning as an essentially corporeal structure filled with organs arranged in three-dimensional space.The sketchbooks of some individual artists have become very well known,[102] including those of Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo and Edgar Degas which have become art objects in their own right, with many pages showing finished studies as well as sketches.[110][111] What is generally called "ethnographic" nudity has appeared both in serious research works on ethnography and anthropology, as well as in commercial documentaries and in the National Geographic magazine in the United States.[112] The ethnographic focus provided an exceptional framework for photographers to depict peoples whose nudity was, or still is, acceptable within the mores, or within certain specific settings, of their traditional culture.However, the works of some ethnographic painters and photographers including Herb Ritts, David LaChappelle, Bruce Weber, Irving Penn, Casimir Zagourski, Hugo Bernatzik and Leni Riefenstahl, have received worldwide acclaim for preserving a record of the mores of what are perceived as "paradises" threatened by the onslaught of average modernity.
NudityVenus de MiloHellenistic periodunclothed human bodysocializationinformationpornographyNude (art)Venus of WillendorfAntikythera YouthFrancisco GoyaaestheticsmodestymoralityVenus figurinesheroicAphrodite of KnidosPraxitelesAthensBronzinoGenoeseAndrea DoriaLa maja desnudaRokeby VenusVelasquezThe Creation of AdamMichelangeloVltavaThe Three GracesGertrude Vanderbilt WhitneyAphroditePedro AméricoHebrew BibleAbishagKing DavidThetisAchillesRiver StyxThomas BanksRenaissanceChildhood nudityThe Three Ages of ManTitianJerome DuquesnoyManneken PisBrusselsJeanneke PisHenry Scott TukeOtto LohmüllerBalthusWilliam-Adolphe BouguereauWill McBrideJock SturgesSally MannDavid HamiltonJacques BourboulonGaro AidaBill Hensonart gallerieschild pornographyRandall TerryBarnes & NobleMetropolitan Museum of Artfalse allegation of child sexual abusemoral panicchild sexual abuseNakedness and colonialismOrientalismFrench postcardsNude photographyGlamour photographya fine artcreativityeroticAlfred Cheney JohnstonZiegfeld FolliesshowgirlsVirginia BiddleFirst World WarFernandeJean Agélouhourglass figureEdward WestonEugen SandowThe Dying GaulGymnophobiaJohn VanderlynPennsylvania Academy of the Fine Artswould pay to see pictures of which they disapprovedJohn William WaterhouseManchester Art Galleryart classBiblical Davidmale gazeGuerrilla Girlsfemale artistsfull frontal nuditygenitalsKenneth ClarkFrances BorzelloLiberty Leading the PeopleThe Greek Slavetanning lampsMaria Antonia MerkelbachRomanticistEugène DelacroixRevolution of July 1830allegory of libertyPhrygian capFrench RevolutionFrench tricolorKing Charles XMarianneFrench RepublicNeoclassicalHiram Powersmodelsmagazinesthe use of sexual appeal in advertisingCalvin KleinBenettonAbercrombie & FitchM7 fragranceNose artB-17 Flying FortressUnited States Army Air Forces