In the history of 20th century erotica, Walter Sickert kicks off the era with a series of oils known as the The Camden Town Nudes. Nuit dété (Summer Night) [above] is one of them. Sickert’s erotica is exemplary of the cult of ugliness. Nevertheless, I like his nudes better than Lucian Freud’s, which belong to the same ‘cult of ugliness’ category. […]
After ending a brief survey of medieval erotica, I’ve come upon Renaissance erotica, where I must tell you of Venus and Nini. Sleeping Venus (c. 1510) Giorgione Venus of Urbino (1538) by Titian Venus and Nini are two terms of art to denote the female nude, the first is divine, the second is a mere […]
Clemente Susini’s wax Venus “Venus (or a Nymph) Spied On by Satyrs” by Poussin In a recent post [1], on a perceived likeness between a Poussin painting and a wax anatomical model, Evan, a friend of Morbid Anatomy notes: “I was taking in the wonderful “Poussin and Nature: Arcadian Visions[2],” exhibition currently up at the […]
Study of a Seated Nude Woman Wearing Mask (c. 1865–66) by Thomas Eakins This drawing by American artist Eakins is a testament to the aphrodisian qualities of sensory deprivation. Central to this drawing are the breasts, ripe and heavy, surreal and unreal, proof that the most beautiful of women are not to be found in […]
The illustration Artist and Model in the Studio by Albrecht Dürer, first published in The Painter’s Manual in 1525, is a woodcut that has been readily used to illustrate the dominance of the male gaze in Western visual culture, as well as the general consequences of mechanizing the relationship between the viewer and the viewed. […]
Consider me: my hands can not cover my breasts, I cling to them tightly to hide my shame. But also consider this: sunlit windows gaze down upon me like undeniable eyes, millions of bronze eyes; and shame turns into pride. Jeune fille en buste 1794 by Pierre-Narcisse Guérin, a typical illustration for the blog Femme, […]
Venus (1532) by Lucas Cranach the Elder From March 8 until June 8, 2008, the London Royal Academy of Arts will hold a retrospective of Cranach’s work. This advertising poster for the Cranach expo (which displays the Venus painting) was recently considered offensive to the officials of the London Underground, who banned it and stated […]
Via the newly discovered blog aileron comes the film The Lost Secret of Catherine the Great by Peter Woditsch and Sophie Schoukens. I had first heard about the erotic furniture of Catherine the Great a couple of years ago and even traced the existence of the documentary by Woditsch, but had never actually seen the […]
Sensuality (1891) – Franz von Stuck Although a mediocre painter at best and deservedly one of the minor figures in European fin de siècle Symbolism, there are two paintings by Franz Von Stuck that I like: Salome, which I “exhibited” here, and Sensuality (pictured above) . In Sensuality, the image of the serpent as phallus […]
Frontispiece by Fernand Khnopff for Joséphin Péladan’s Istar (1888) Istar is a novel by Joséphin Péladan first published in 1888 with a frontispiece by Fernand Khnopff, depicting a woman, head thrown back in ecstasy and completely devoid of surrounding except for a phallic tentacled plant that grows toward her pubic area. Eroticism 4/5, because of […]