Fine art nudes. This image is 'Nymphaeum' by the 19th-century French Academic painter William Bouguereau.
My Favorite Nudes
  Fine art nudes. This image is 'The Wave' by the 19th-century French Academic painter William Bouguereau.
'The Wave' by William Bouguereau
Fine art nudes. This image is 'Biblis' by the 19th-century French Academic painter William Bouguereau.
'Biblis' by William Bouguereau
  

Sensual nudes
in classic art

   The human body has had universal appeal for artists at least since "The Willendorf Venus" was carved 24,000 years ago. That earliest female nude featured prominent breasts, buttocks and vulva and has obvious sexual significance.
   Art is complex, but it's clear that nude sculpture and painting can have a sexually arousing effect, besides its less physical appeal.
   These are some examples of work by renowned artists from previous eras who saw naked women as I do: As a feast for the eyes and an endless source of delight to the libido.
 

Painters who loved naked women

 

William Bouguereau

This French "Academic" painter of the late 19th Century was out of fashion for many years, because he resisted the innovations of the Impressionists and other modernists. As the advent of photography spurred artistic pioneers to move toward abstraction, ultra-realistic painters like Bouguereau refined their technical skills to create ever more lifelike pictures. Few have ever equalled his mastery of the tones and textures of human skin. As these examples show, we lovers of the female nude still thank him.

  
Fine art nudes. This image is 'Woman with Shell' by the 19th-century French Academic painter William Bouguereau.
'Woman With Shell'
  
Fine art nudes. This image is 'Bather' by the 19th-century French Academic painter William Bouguereau.
'Bather'
  
Fine art nudes. This image is 'The Lost Pleiad' by the 19th-century French Academic painter William Bouguereau.
'The Lost Pleiad'
  
Fine art nudes. This image is 'The Return of Spring' by the 19th-century French Academic painter William Bouguereau.
'The Return of Spring'
  

Click on images to view larger versions of these paintings.   Fine art nudes. This image is 'Seated Bather' by the 19th-century French Academic painter William Bouguereau.
'Seated Bather'
   Fine art nudes. This image is 'Venus' by the 19th-century French Academic painter William Bouguereau.
'Venus'
   Fine art nudes. This image is 'The Pain of Love' by the 19th-century French Academic painter William Bouguereau.
'The Pain of Love'
   Fine art nudes. This image is 'Bathers' by the 19th-century French Academic painter William Bouguereau.
'Bathers'
  

  Fine art nudes. This image is 'Girl Defending Herself Against Love' by the 19th-century French Academic painter William Bouguereau.
'Girl Defending Herself Against Love'
   Fine art nudes. This image is 'Nymphaeum' by the 19th-century French Academic painter William Bouguereau.
'Nymphaeum'
   Fine art nudes. This image is 'Nymphs and Satyr' by the 19th-century French Academic painter William Bouguereau.
'Nymphs and Satyr'

  

 

Gustave Courbet

Active a generation earlier than his fellow Frenchman Bouguereau, Courbet was the "bad boy" of the Paris art world in his time. He shocked the establishment with the frank eroticism of his paintings, including the undisguised lesbianism of "Sleep." Some of his best works no longer exist; at least one was bought by a pious prude so it could be destroyed! Courbet's most scandalous works were openly pornographic, notably "Origin of the World." This remarkable work of art was produced for a private client and never exhibited publicly in Courbet's lifetime.

Click on images to view larger
versions of these paintings.

1884 nude photos
    A great resource for artists
is stop-motion photographs
made by the researcher
Eadweard Muybridge in
the mid-1880s.
   We have animated many
of these sequences, which can be considered the very first nude motion pictures.

Go to Victorian nudes
  
 
Fine art nudes. This image is 'Sleeping Nude' by the 19th-century French painter Gustave Courbet.
'Sleeping Nude'
Fine art nudes. This image is 'Sleep' by the 19th-century French painter Gustave Courbet.
'Sleep'
Fine art nudes. This image is 'Woman With Parrot' by the 19th-century French painter Gustave Courbet.
'Woman with Parrot'

  

The artist as pornographer

   If we define pornography as material intended to create sexual arousal, Courbet's painting of an open and inviting pair of labia is certainly pornographic. There is unmistakable fondness in his rendering of the buttocks' curves, the cushiony thighs, the aroused inner lips peeking through the unruly nest of pubic hair, the erect nipple. There's no doubt he wanted us to know this woman is sexually excited.
   Courbet's model is said to have been the mistress of James McNeill Whistler, the expatriate American painter. So we might think of an alternative title for this pleasant scene as "Whistler's Lover."

Fine art nudes. This image is 'Origin of the World' by the 19th-century French painter Gustave Courbet.
'Origin of the World'

   For me, this picture represents an artistic precedent for one of my basic ideas. That is, it's legitimate to honor and admire the sex organs that are, in fact, the origin of everything alive. Sex, in essence, is the life force. Pornography that respects that fact is life-affirming.
  
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One special lady
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Go to our personal photo gallery.


     

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