The Rokeby Venus by Diego Velázquez Scandalous Nudes in Art: Diego Velázquez, The Rokeby Venus, 1650, National Gallery, London, UK. Even the indefatigable finder of allegories drawing on Renaissance Neoplatonism, the art historian Edgar Wind, had to admit that in this case “an undisguised hedonism had, at last, dispelled the Platonic metaphors.” With her unabashed nudity and strong gaze into the viewers’ eyes, the nude female in this 1538 work of art is undeniably erotic.
It is probably a portrait of a courtesan, perhaps Zaffetta. Mark Twain once called Titian’s Venus “the foulest, the vilest, the most obscene picture the world possesses.” Just look at Venus’ hand, it looks very suspicious. Scandalous Nudes in Art: Titian, Venus of Urbino, 1538, Uffizi Gallery, Florence, Italy. This Roman Venus is a smaller-scale copy of Praxiteles’ original. But because it was one of the most copied statues in the world, Roman replicas and descriptions that survive today give us a pretty good example of what the original looked like. The naked Aphrodite soon became a sensation: people came to visit it from all over Greece, numerous copies were made, and the statue was written about throughout the Mediterranean. The temple bought the clothed version, but private citizens of the town of Knidos bought the nude version and put it on public display in an open-air temple. Originally commissioned as a cult statue for a temple in Kos, Praxiteles made two versions: one clothed and one nude. His Aphrodite, undressing for her bath and completely naked, her right hand modestly covering her pubic area, was the first life-size representation of a nude female form. But in the mid-fourth century BCE, a sculptor named Praxiteles gave form to a naked Aphrodite. Even Aphrodite, the Greek Goddess of love, was always sculpted wearing loosely-draped robes. Wikimedia Commons (public domain).Īlthough the Greeks had no problem showing their male Gods and figures without clothes, the same rules did not apply to women. Aphrodite by Praxiteles Scandalous Nudes in Art: Cnidus Aphrodite, Roman copy after a Greek original from the 4th century BCE, Boncompagni Ludovisi Collection, Rome, Italy. In celebration of the wildly erotic tendencies of artists over the centuries, we’ve put together a list of the most jaw-dropping female nude painting. Often dressed up in a religious or mythological costume they often violated “the good taste” of the epoch because of their straightforwardness. Nude representations of men and women caused scandals throughout the centuries (female nudes of course more often, unfortunately). We’re here to let you in on a pretty widely known secret about art history: it is all about sex.
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