The Importance Of Nudity In Ancient Greek Historical Art

Reclining nude female is a common subject matter in art history since the Venetian Renaissance, Titian’s Venus of Urbino painted in 1538 is one of the earliest reclining nude female in painting history. It described a beautiful young female laying on her bed with her sleeping dog, on the back ground is her maids looking for cloth or her in the cassone. Manet’s Olympia that painted in 1865 is a painting with a similar composition, A nude young female who was suggested a prostitute, behind her is her black female maid holding a big bouquet of flower which is possibly from her customer. On the same part of the composition, there is an animal as well, but this time it is a cat. Titian and Manet’s reclining nude female have a same composition and subject matter, however They are very different in art history, both stylistically and culturally.

Greeks were constantly in search of the "Ideal"(Riffert). Their "Ideal" was "a body capable of enduring all efforts, either of the racecourse or of bodily strength…this is why the athletes in the pentathlon are the most beautiful." (Tufts) This description of the "Ideal" person given by Aristotle reflects the attitude of the majority of ancient Greeks. People were not judged solely on their minds but rather strong emphasis was given to the body. This emphasis given to the body was given to the nude body. It is understandable that we question why nude art was so accepted by the Greeks, as they were the pioneers in this field. The answer lies in the everyday life of the people. It was commonplace for Greek men to exercise, go to war, and generally go about their daily business in the nude or scantly clothed (Boardman 276).

In the Renaissance period women are almost invariably shown as completely passive and as an object for contemplation. The reclining female nude in the Renaissance raises questions of the male gaze more often than any other artistic stereotype. Female nudes were only an open acknowledgement of not only male desire but also the right males had to express that desire. A woman’s feelings when looking at such images of members of their own gender were never discussed or asked until recently.

In this era, nudity was unclean, savage and unappealing due to extensive spread of Christianity teachings as well as westernization. Nudity in this era did not appeal as it showed lack of respect for one’s body in accordance to Christian teachings backed also by westernization that viewed nudity as downright savage. A man’s beauty was in well-polished environment with beautiful clothes showing wealth and

The paintings of Michelangelo had figures that were nude and caused an uproar. The Bible states that Adam and Eve were naked until they knew sin, then they were ashamed. The nakedness of the bodies could have been a scene of a time before sin. It helped to open the minds of some of the church members. To show them that the Bible should be the authority to which they live by and not the church. Michelangelo's painting went against what the church wanted, however it still stayed within the realm of the Bible. By doing this, it showed how the church would try to overstep its boundaries, while trying to place itself above the Bible.

The old woman is an representation of an ordinary being seen a lot on the street as well as a depiction of everyday scene in Ancient Greece, as the Greeks started to acknowledge the fact that there are always the bad and the good, and nothing is prefect in this world. All Hellenistic artworks indicate this cruel truth. On the other hand, the naked man aka the athlete is of a noble one, for the male was considered “the measure of all things” and the beauty, the good and true. There was a gender inequality in Ancient Greece – men gained much more high respect and position within the society and women were less worthy. This might explain the fact that no female nude was shown until the Late Classical

Even though some artists, as Berger claims, tried to resist this tradition, they couldn’t overcome the cultural tradition of female objectification that has continued to the present. These artists failed to create a different view in culture because of the media and how the perception wouldn’t change in the eyes of men. One famous artist who tried to resist this awful trend was an artist name Rubens. In his portrait of his second wife, the painting named Helene Fourment in a Fur Coat, he tried to portray the same message with a different image.The image is of a women with no other clothing other than a fur coat looking shameful. The middle-aged looking women in the painting was wearing a big brown fur coat. The difference between a regular “nude”

The reading claims that nudes throughout artistic history have been an important source of beauty and controversy. Nudes began to spike during the Baroque period as they were used for the more expressive and emotional arts of the time. In the nineteenth century, nudes became more common, yet became more sensitive. Artists would train by drawing nudes of ancient Greek statues and figures from myth. However, many artists would then move on to create works depicting prostitutes or peasant naked women. This would not please patrons as they were extremely societally taboo. However, this did not start artists from making them, as they moved into the twentieth and twenty-first century. This shows the importance of artistic nudes and their impact

Nude figures have been featured in art works since around 30 to 25,000 B.C. And throughout the history of art, we can see a lot of artists being inspired and influenced by great talents before them, in one way or another they would carry the style or ideas of those previous artists into their own art and create new masterpieces. One particular example is Édouard Manet’s Olympia from the Realism period, and Yasumasa Morimura’s Futago. The two paintings share great similarities in their composition, but the content and purpose of the paintings, and style wise the two pieces are very different.

The Archaic period lasted from 700 to 500 BCE and the sculptures haven’t yet mastered in sculpting showing realism. Their style of sculpting was similar to the Egyptians in the way that they made the bodies of the sculptures rigid with both arms on their sides and with a foot stepped forward (Greek Archaic Art). By the end of the Archaic period in ca 500 BCE, the sculpture’s features started to look more realistic rather than rigid bodies. “The ancient Greeks also had the young, nude male called a kouros and the young, clothed female called a kore. Of course, later on in the Classical period of Greek art, females would become nude subjects as well” (Greek Archaic Art). There are some possibilities mentioned by people in why they started to change by showing more musculature and one of those could be that they started to create a new warfare in the Archaic period. They started to build hoplite armies and the battles where hoplites were used were really physical which created more muscle on the army. Being a hoplite meant power and also their ranking in ancient Greek society. The hoplite fighters were idolized and artisans liked it and attributed it into their works. “This idealization also springs from the Homeric poems being composed at his time, also mentioned in Ancient Greece and the artists, or perhaps the

While the human form has always been acceptable in art, the nude female form continues to stir

In the ancient Near East, human depictions in art varied over time and distance; as

wall painting survive most of the art work that survives is there pottery. The late

Artist and people viewing the art work have always had a fascination with the female nude. Even when I was a child my attention was captured by the nude art not because I was a kid and I saw a nude lady , but it forced me to wonder more about why the female nude was so amazing as a tool for art and why this is repeated so many times throughout the centuries. One female nude painting in particular was the subject of controversy and exposed the syncretism and or the power of the female nude painting.

Marble, limestone, bronze, terra-cotta, wood and a combination of gold and ivory known as chryselephantine were mediums of ancient Greek sculptures used in the fifth century BCE. Statues were often adorned with pearl, gold, jewels and accessories to give them a more vivid appearance. Most statues were of male men athletes (naked), entities and mythological creatures such as centaurs. Many statues of significant figures were created after their death. Interest in the female nude body (divinity) later became more popular amongst Greek sculptors. In the fourth century, characterization came into play. Characterization focused on creating sculptures that were of no real person.