This discussion is going into a very different direction than the drawing of the (clothed
) girl by Joseph, but it's really interesting. It reminds me of the Dejeuner sur l'herbe by Manet. When a naked woman is painted in the appearance of a Venus by someone like Ingres, than it's a nude and completely acceptible. When painted in company of clothed men then it becomes vulgar. It reminds me of the way that baroque painters used to paint pictures of Danae or Bathseba as an excuse to paint a female nude.
It's the context in which something is placed. I think many nudes of the past were created as erotic images in the disguise of art. Many great works of art are early pin-ups. Or could be seen like that. The Ignudi by Michelangelo for example. Or paintings of Venus by Titian. In fact, nude models in the seventeenth century often were whores. The painter/Rembrandt-pupil Govaert Flinck used to manage some kind of brothel, I read somewhere. There are paintings hanging in the great museums of the world that once were, in fact, images to attract clients for certain prostitutes.
I'm not saying that someone who is painting or drawing a nude is doing something with an erotic undertone. But Lon's example of his grandfather's words to the model are really interesting.
Greetings,
Peter
Linear Mode
