I know I know… if I promise naked people in the title I shouldn’t make a long boring introduction. Maybe I should go straight to the naked bits. And indeed you guys are going to see some very fit bodies there, I tell you. Sensual poses and pleasures for the eyes.
Let me just tell you how I put this chart together: I looked for beauty and emotions. In some cases, these works have given me emotions. In other ones, I heard comments of other people who were struck by them, so I was curious and researched a bit to see what they were talking about.
If you think that art doesn’t bring anything to your life, think again. Brain regions involved in the experience of emotions and goal setting are activated when watching art. And if you think that you don’t know much about art, think again. People go to museums and post or like pictures on Facebook of famous paintings because they like them and they want to learn more about them. So a quick look at 10 famous masterpieces of naked women might be good to make you curious about one of them, or simply to relax and enjoy their beauty.
The 10 Most Beautiful Naked Women
1.La Maya Desnuda, by Francisco Goya.
The painting is renowned for the unashamed gaze of the model towards the viewer; before this point, nude paintings tended to show shy, modest models with averted eyes. With this work Goya not only upset the ecclesiastical authorities, but also titillated the public and extended the artistic horizon of the day.
La Maya Desnuda. Photo: Wikipedia.com
2.Nude Sitting On A Divan, by Amedeo Modigliani
On November 2, 2010, the painting sold at a New York auction for $68.9 million, a record price for an artwork by Modigliani.
According to the catalogue description from the sale at Sotheby’s, seven nudes were exhibited in the 1917 show, four of them titled Nu; “the present work may have been among these pictures…. the models’ permissiveness and the artist’s accessibility to them implied that these oils were post coital-renderings, the women still flush and basking in the afterglow”.
Amedeo Modigliani’s nude sold for $68 million at a Sotheby’s auction. Photo: wikipedia.com
3.Pauline Bonaparte, by Antonio Canova
When asked how she could pose for the sculptor wearing so little, she reputedly replied that there was a stove in the studio that kept her warm, though this may be deliberately designed by her to stir up scandal.
How can marble be so sensual? It’s possible if it is by Canova. Photo: wikipedia.com
4.Sleeping Hermaphroditus by Lorenzo Bernini.
I put this work into the female ones, but it is actually partly derived from ancient portrayals of Venus and other female nudes, and partly from contemporaneous feminised Hellenistic portrayals of Dionysus/Bacchus.
Bernini sensual marble. Photo: wikipedia.com
5. The Rokeby Venus, also known as Venus At Her Mirror, The Toilet of Venus, or Venus and Cupid, by Diego Velàzquez.
The work shows the goddess Venus in a sensual pose, lying on a bed and looking into a mirror held by the Roman god of physical love, her son Cupid.
She is often described as looking at herself on the mirror, although this is physically impossible since viewers can see her face reflected in their direction. This phenomenon is known as the Venus Effect.
Venus At Her Mirror. Photo: Wikipedia.com
6. Lady Godiva by John Collier.
According to a legend dating back at least to the 13th century, she rode naked in order to gain a remission of the oppressive taxation imposed by her husband on his tenants.
The name “Peeping Tom” for a voyeur originates from later versions of this legend in which a man named Tom had watched Lady Godiva ride and was struck blind or dead.
Lady Godiva. Photo: pinterest.com
7. Woman in front of a Mirror by C.W.Eckersberg.
eckersberg is referred to as the Father of Danish Painting. His best known works are portraits of the Copenhagen middle class. He combines daily life observations with classical, harmonious principles of composition.
Beautiful and calm. Photo: wikipedia.com
8. Danae, by Gustav Klimt
While imprisoned by her father, King of Argos, in a tower of bronze, Danaë was visited by Zeus, symbolized here as the golden rain flowing between her legs. It is apparent from the subject’s face that she is aroused by the golden stream.
Klimt’ Danae – obviously erotic. Photo: gustav-klimt-com
9. The Woman in the Waves, by Goustave Courbet.
Here, Courbet evokes the myth of Venus, the Goddess born of the sea, but subverts convention by depicting the model’s underarm hair – an element of realism that goes well together with the almost palpable quality of the flesh.
Courbet’s realistic Goddess. Photo: wikipedia.com.
10. Andromeda, by Tamara Lempicka
Lempicka’s distinctive and bold artistic style developed quickly, epitomizing the cool yet sensual side of the Art Deco movement. Lempicka was criticized and admired for her ‘perverse Ingrism’, referring to her modern restatement of the master Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres.
Tamara Lempicka’s beautiful portrait. Photo: pinterest.com