The Nude in Western Art and Its Beginnings in Antiquity

See works of art

5
Marble statue of a kouros (youth)
32.11.1
Bronze statuette of Aphrodite
12.173
Marble statue of Aphrodite
52.11.5
Bronze statue of Eros sleeping
43.11.4
Fragments of a marble statue of the Diadoumenos (youth tying a fillet around his head)
25.78.56
Figures with no clothes are peculiarly common in the art of the Western world. This situation might
seem perfectly natural when one considers how frequent the state of undress is in every human life,
from birth to the bath to the boudoir. In art, however, naked figures relate very little to these humble
conditions and instead reflect a very complex set of formal ideals, philosophical concerns, and
cultural traditions. Though meaningful throughout the sweep of Western art, the nude was a
particular focus of artistic innovation in the Renaissance and later academic traditions of the
seventeenth century and after.

The nude first became significant in the art of ancient Greece, where athletic competitions at
religious festivals celebrated the human body, particularly the male, in an unparalleled way. The
athletes in these contests competed in the nude, and the Greeks considered them embodiments of
all that was best in humanity. It was thus perfectly natural for the Greeks to associate the male nude
form with triumph, glory, and even moral excellence, values which seem immanent in the
magnificent nudes of Greek sculpture (25.78.56). Images of naked athletes stood as offerings in
sanctuaries, while athletic-looking nudes portrayed the gods and heroes of Greek religion. The
celebration of the body among the Greeks contrasts remarkably with the attitudes prevalent in other
parts of the ancient world, where undress was typically associated with disgrace and defeat. The
best-known example of this more common view is the biblical story of Adam and Eve, where the first
man and woman discover that they are naked and consequently suffer shame and punishment.

The ancestry of the female nude is distinct from the male. Where the latter originates in the perfect
human athlete, the former embodies the divinity of procreation. Naked female figures are shown in
very early prehistoric art, and in historical times, similar images represent such fertility deities as the
Near Eastern Ishtar. The Greek goddess Aphrodite belongs to this family, and she too was imagined
as life-giving, proud, and seductive. For many centuries, the Greeks preferred to see her clothed,
unlike her Near Eastern counterparts, but in the mid-fourth century B.C., the sculptor Praxiteles
made a naked Aphrodite, called the Knidian, which established a new tradition for the female nude.
Lacking the bulbous and exaggerated forms of Near Eastern fertility figures, the Knidian Aphrodite,
like Greek male athletic statues, had idealized proportions based on mathematical ratios. In addition,
her pose, with head turned to the side and one hand covering the body, seemed to present the
goddess surprised in her bath and thus fleshed the nude with narrative and erotic possibilities. The
position of the goddess’ hands may be meant to show modesty or desire to shield the viewer from
too full a view of her godhead. Although the Knidian statue is not preserved, its impact survives in
the numerous replicas and variants of it commissioned in the Hellenistic (12.173) and Roman
(52.11.5) eras. Such images of Venus (the Latin name of Aphrodite) adorned houses, bath buildings,
and tombs as well as temples and outdoor sanctuaries.

Since the nudes of ancient Greece and Rome became normative in later Western art, it is worth
pausing to consider what they are and are not. They express profound admiration for the body as the
shape of humanity, yet they do not celebrate human variety; they may have sex appeal, yet they are
never totally prurient in intent. The nudes of Greco-Roman art are conceptually perfected ideal
persons, each one a vision of health, youth, geometric clarity, and organic equilibrium. Kenneth Clark
considered idealization the hallmark of true nudes, as opposed to more descriptive and less artful
figures that he considered merely naked. His emphasis on idealization points up an essential issue:
seductive and appealing as nudes in art may be, they are meant to stir the mind as well as the
passions.
L'incapacità da parte di Fb di distinguere tra il nudo dell'arte e il nudo pornografico tout court deriva
dalla sciatteria e dall'ignoranza di chi ha programmato il famoso algoritmo seguendo una bigotta idea
secondo cui il nudo di per sé è immorale. Ma il nudo nell'arte non è né morale né immorale perché
non è realtà, ma arte, cioè linguaggio ed elaborazione di una visione del mondo. Fin dal 1952
Ragghianti rispondeva a chi aveva criticato la redazione della rivista da lui diretta "Selearte" per aver
messo nella stessa pagina un dipinto a soggetto erotico e un dipinto di soggetto sacro: allo storico
dell'arte non interessa il nudo in sé, ma il linguaggio dell'artista che nel nudo si esprime. Ora, è
possibile che fb sia schiavo di pregiudizi del genere nel 2018? Questo significa che nel "Saper vedere"
siamo ancora al raso terra più assoluto. E questo modo di censurare i nudi artistici, questa incapacità,
o meglio mancanza di volontà, di creare un sistema diverso che possa distinguere ciò che è
pornografia da ciò che è arte, rivela solo una cosa: che fb è un mezzo del tutto ingiusto e
inappropriato a qualunque discorso serio; che fb è quel mondo in cui ad esempio razzisti e misogini
possono sparare le cose peggiori, e in cui un nudo di Picasso viene buttato via come immorale.
Meditiamo!