{"id":2975,"date":"2018-12-27T09:24:22","date_gmt":"2018-12-27T09:24:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sexinreview.com\/main\/?p=2975"},"modified":"2019-01-24T08:08:54","modified_gmt":"2019-01-24T08:08:54","slug":"the-renaissance-nude","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/sexinreview.com\/main\/the-renaissance-nude\/","title":{"rendered":"The Renaissance Nude"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I have not been this excited about a Getty exhibition since their once in a lifetime Boucher exhibit. Like that one, this is another once in a lifetime opportunity to see all these works in the same place without having to travel all over Europe. Jean Fouquet’s 1450s Virgin and Child<\/em> (title pic above) may never travel again. It really is the cream of the crop of Renaissance nudes. The show runs through January 27th, <\/sup> and if you miss it you’ll have to travel to London’s Royal Academy where it begins in March. You really don’t want to miss it, though, as it is an absolutly spectacular collection. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was intimately familiar with almost\nevery work on display in the current Getty exhibit The Renaissance\nNude<\/em>. I have spent countless hours digitally removing cracks and\nblemishes from digital versions of almost everything on display in\nthe show. That is because I have been working on nude and erotic art\nfrom artists who lived between 1440 and 1940. That does leave out a\nnumber of artists in this show who lived outside of that narrow 500\nyear window.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This was all for my new book, Passion:\nArtists and Their Nudes<\/em><\/a>, available on Amazon in March 2019.\nYou can read all about it and the associated digital art restoration\nproject featuring over 30,000 works of art at the link.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Renaissance was a good starting\npoint as that was when the nude began to be more acceptable, at least\nas long as it was in the proper context. Body shame can be traced\nback to the story of Adam and Eve, although clearly the idea of the\nnude body being sinful had to be around before that to be\nincorporated into the story. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By 1530, the nude began to dominate in art, and Michelangelo’s nudes had found their way into the Sistine Chapel. Sure, fifty years after they were painted the Pope would order that clothing be painted on the nudes that was not removed until the 1990s, but they had a good run.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Michelangelo, The Three Labors of Hercules<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

There are over 100 paintings, drawings, sculptures, illuminated manuscripts, and prints from Italy, France, Germany, and the Netherlands. They include Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael, Michelangelo, Hans Baldung (Grien), D\u00fcrer, Titian, Dosso Dossi Giorgione, Correggio, Messina and others, spanning from 1400 to 1530. This was a significant period in the development of the nude. The show is also divided evenly between male nudes and female nudes. This fairly reflects the times.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Bartolomeo Veneto, A Woman as Flora (ca. 1505\u20131510)<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

According to curator Jill Burke in a piece she wrote for the Guardian: \u201cTo take 15th-century Florence as an example, it\u2019s been estimated that as many as 17,000 men were accused of sodomy from a total population of around 40-50,000\u2014that\u2019s the majority of Florentine men incriminated for same-sex relations. Not surprisingly, the erotic qualities of the naked male body were very much part of contemporary discourse, and it was assumed that women, as well as men, could be aroused by images of naked people of either sex.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Two important changes came together\nduring the Renaissance. Ancient art from antiquity had been\nrediscovered, and it included no shortage of nudity. This ancient art\nwas considered elevated, so it helped make nudity more acceptable. At\nthe same time, artists began to study art more scientifically, and\nrealized that the basis of all figure drawing was a firm\nunderstanding of anatomy. This led to far more realistic nudes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Dosso Dossi, A Myth of Pan (1524)<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

While nudes were arousing to people at\nthe time, they had to be in an acceptable theme. Common stories were\nused that illiterate people could follow without reading any\naccompanying text, and if nudity made any sense within that theme, it\nwould be generally acceptable. The themes that included nudity were\ntypically ancient Roman and Greek mythology and stories from the\nBible. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A painted nude of a known person would\nhave been scandalous, but even so, powerful men and royalty liked to\nhave paintings done of their mistresses, often with one breast bared.\nFouquet’s Virgin and Child<\/em>\nis the earliest known example. The model is believed to have been\nAgnes Sorel, the mistress of King Charles VII of France. It is part\nof a religious diptych. Dutch historian Johan Huizinga wrote of it:\n\u201cThere is a flavour of blasphemous boldness about the whole,\nunsurpassed by any artist of the Renaissance.” \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Jan Gossart, Hercules and Deianira (1517)<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

The\nshow is organized under several themes:<\/em>\nThe Nude and Christian Art; Humanism and the Expansion of Secular\nThemes, Artistic Theory and Practice, Beyond the Ideal Nude<\/em>,\nand Personalizing the Nude<\/em>.\nThey also focus on a number of specific themes, such as Venus and\nSaint Sebastian.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If nude art is an interest, this is one of the more important art shows to see. Prints of paintings never do them justice. Seeing the actual paintings took my breath away. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you can’t see the show, they still have a great companion book. It is titled The Renaissance Nude<\/a> and was edited by Thomas Kren, Jill Burke, and Stephen J. Campbell. Published by the J. Paul Getty Museum, in includes more than 250 artworks by the greatest masters of the Renaissance in its 432 pages.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Renaissance Nude at the Getty Museum<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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