Experts say they are ‘99% certain ‘that they have finally discovered the identity of the model who posed for the Gustave Courbet L’origine du Monde (The Origin of the World) scandal (1866). A new book claims that the Dutch area depicted in the painting belongs to the Parisian ballet dancer Constance Queniaux. While historians have […]
Celia Paul cried during her first session modeling for Lucian Freud. “Nudity disarms me,” Paul wrote in his new memoir, Self-Portrait. He described sitting for him as a torturous experience and his sense of supervision as overexertion. “I felt like I was in a doctor or in a hospital, or in a morgue.” At one […]
The museum is filled with paintings of nude women. This is a deeply codified practice that has changed over the centuries. Giorgione’s Sleeping Venus inspired many artists; and, through their representations of Venus, artists created patterns. This pattern evolves over time; and a distinct revolution in the depiction of women in art is the result. […]
A study of nude models is often called an academy (académie in French), because such paintings and drawings have been standard practice in art schools, or academies, since the sixteenth century. This work depicts a model in a pose that is found in at least two other paintings. One of these, now at the Musée […]
Mythology was often used as subject matter during the early Renaissance and Mannerist periods because of the ongoing reverence of the Romans and Greeks, and also as a way of escaping the relatively limiting ‘devozione’ (religious matters). As the Roman goddess of love and beauty, the Greek equivalent of Aphrodite, the figure of Venus is […]
Read more Representation of Women in 16th Century Italian Art
Renaissance artists changed the course of Western art history by making the nude the center of artistic practice. The revival of interest in classical antiquity and a new focus on the role of images in Christian worship prompted artists to draw from life, resulting in the development of a new vibrant representation of the human […]
Introduction For contemporary feminists, the role of female nudity in Renaissance Art presents an extraordinary set of ethical contradictions. While formally beautiful, such use of nudity can be seen to reduce women to their sexuality and inherently perpetuate sexist ideals. The analysis of these works opens a discussion on gender politics, identity, eroticism, and the […]