Tracking Historical Representations of the Female Nude

Tracking Historical Representations of the Female Nude

French painting in the mid-nineteenth century is characterized by the critical transformation from the academic, neoclassical style to more innovative and progressive types. The idealized, nude goddess of the neoclassical tradition was gradually replaced by modern varieties in which avant-garde painters chose the representation of the female nude as a front for their challenge to the accepted standards of the Academy

In French academic art, female nudity was only permissible within the context of a recognizable narrative in an imaginary, mythological or biblical landscape. However, forward-thinking artists portray women in a naturalistic form, engaged in everyday activities, undermining established clichés of femininity and eliminating the voyeurism associated with traditional nudes of the period.

By analyzing the evolving relationship between the fine art of the female nude, its reception, and political movements in nineteenth-century France, we will explore how realist and impressionist representations diverged from the ancient Greek ideal. Painters shifted attention away from the female body as an object of erotic desire and onto artistic concerns of…