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 is left in little doubt and shows an enormous python-like creature passing between the legs of a nude woman. The serpent’s head rests on the woman’s right shoulder; both the serpent and the woman gaze at the viewer. There are obvious connections to the tentacle eroticism trope.
Previous entries in Icons of Erotic Art here, and in a Wiki format here.
I discovered Franz Von Stuck in the Van Gogh Museum years ago and became a fan immediately! Of course I added him to the sensOtheque!
Personally, I like his image of Sin best, because it’s not so overdone. More safely removed from kitsch.
Did you ever see his villa in Munich?
I don’t know if Stuck was as mediocre as you make him out to be–he could certainly portray personality and gesture better than almost any painter alive today. Though his subjects may have been hidebound, he personally was not–he acted as a teacher & mentor for a number of avant garde painters in the generation after his own.