by Gemma Wiseman

Created on: February 09, 2008

Fine artists of nude paintings often reflect the perspectives of classical Greek or Roman art; the result is an idealized nude, languishing in a relaxed standing or reclining pose. Renaissance art, such as Botticelli's "The Birth of Venus", revitalized classical mythological scenes with nude figures. But not all painters of nudes strictly adhere to classical reflections. So why did (and do) painters choose to create various nude paintings?

A high speed flight through art history will highlight the varied reasons for creating nude paintings.

"Renaissance patrons wanted art that showed joy in human beauty and life's pleasures. Renaissance art is more lifelike than in the art of the Middle Ages." www.mrdowling.com This sudden flowering interest in all things Greek and Roman represented a new freedom; in particular a love of the human form, that in medieval times, had been heavily repressed in ecclesiastical design.

In the 15th and 16th centuries, the paintings of Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo set a precedent, giving muscly, curvaceous detail to the naked human form. Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel paintings married religious subject with artistic interpretation of a very real nude human figure. It was as if Michelangelo was elevating the human body to a sacred space in the art world. Nudes provide a powerful presence in his paintings.

By Napoleon's Empire, in the early 19th century, when again there was a fresh look at nudes in classical art, the nude paintings of Jacques Louis David seem to favour sensual line, eliminating awkward contours and even blemishes of the flesh. There is a surreal purity of white flesh intending to stimulate idealistic sensations. For David, the nude was a dream-like creation, appealing to a subtle sense of perfect sensuality.

A return to classical connections was always the means to give nude paintings some kind of respectability. This was particularly so in the English Victorian era when nudity was generally associated with prostitution and all trappings associated with a lower class of people. Art students had to travel to Paris to seek tuition in painting the human form. Yet, Queen Victoria herself "gave her Prince Consort Albert every birthday a nude study as an official symbol of her true love." www.absolutearts.com It is almost as if nude painting in these times was an underground practice, not well recorded, but it did exist. Only in the 20th century did it come to light that renowned artists such as Millais and Rossetti used

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