Famous Nude Paintings: A Brief Introduction

Nude painting, mainly depicting the female form, is a phenomenon of Western art. It became particularly prevalent during the Renaissance period when a revived interest in Roman and Greek culture transformed artistic production.

Despite this, representations of the nude human body have been a significant theme in art ever since prehistoric times, when we first learned to make marks and carve objects. The naked body stands for beauty, dreams, and forbidden desire. It also causes scandal and delight in equal measure.

Here is a brief introduction to the history of nude artworks, including some of the most famous nude paintings of all time and artists pushing the boundaries of sexuality, femininity, and cultural norms.

What was the first nude art?

The first nude artwork is a topic of intense scholarly debate. Despite this, early nude creations include objects such as the famed Venus of Willendorf. Sculpted around 30,000 years ago, it depicts a nude female form. Theories abound on its purpose, with suggestions including fertility deities, mother goddesses, or a female self-portrait.

With the advent of Christianity in Europe, nude painting and sculpture (purely for its own beauty) declined. With an emphasis on religious chastity and celibacy, there were few carefully observed nudes in medieval art. While notable exceptions included depictions of Adam and Eve (as well as the nude baby Jesus), Greco-Roman nudes represented sinful desires.

However, this changed in thirteenth century Italy when artists such as Donatello used Greek athletic figures for inspiration. Most famously represented in his celebrated statue of David, Donatello’s work influenced other artists, such as Michelangelo. Michelangelo’s famous frescoes on the Sistine Chapel ceiling imbued the nude male form with hitherto unseen realism and beauty.

Why did Renaissance artists use nudity?

During the Renaissance period (from the 14^th to the 17^th century), female nude forms were a massive inspiration. This was due to increased interest in Greek and Roman mythology.

Italian painters particularly favored depictions of Venus, lying nude amidst landscapes or domestic interiors. For instance, Titian’s Venus of Urbino and Leonardo da Vinci’s Leda and the Swan seductively portray mythological female nude subjects. These paintings develop earlier nudes such as Sandro Botticelli’s Birth of Venus but steer away from more overtly erotic depictions such as Venus, Cupid, Folly, and Time by Agnolo Bronzino.

Despite these new and exciting nude portraits, Renaissance art represented nude bodies as glorified but heavily controlled. They were always mythological or religious subjects (rather than simple nude bodies) with covered genital areas.

In Northern Europe, the female nude also grew in popularity. Akin to Italian painters, Lucas Cranach’s Judgement of Paris similarly takes inspiration from classical sources. Many artists (such as Albrecht Dürer, for example) focused on stricter Christian narratives such as the story of Adam and Eve.

Who painted the Naked Maja?

The increased use of nude models during the Renaissance caused significant controversy. Nonetheless, the tradition of nude oil painting continued, with Spain becoming a particular hotspot of artistic excellence. Francisco de Goya’s Nude Maja (or The Naked Maja, La Maja Desnuda) particularly shocked the Catholic Church.

Banned for its explicit portrayal of the female anatomy (and pubic hair), it didn’t rely on mythological or religious explanations. The painting depicted a naked woman in all her beauty. Dragged into a lengthy legal trial as a result (led by the Spanish Inquisition), Goya was only saved by the intervention of Cardinal Don Luis María de Borbón y Vallabriga.

Other Spanish painters like Diego Velasquez stuck to more classical mythological subjects. His Venus at her Mirror (also known as the Rokeby Venus) was the great artist’s only fine art nude. Despite the mirror held by Cupid, the woman’s face isn’t visible. This allowed Velazquez to ensure Venus (the ultimate personification of female beauty) wasn’t a clearly identifiable woman.

What are Classical nude paintings?

After the pioneering work of Francisco de Goya (pushing nude art into everyday reality), the female nude gained new meaning with the art of Peter Paul Rubens. His fleshy and generous figures (portrayed in paintings such as Ceres and Two Nymphs) personified the new Classical and Baroque approaches to nude artwork.

During the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, Classicism enjoyed a second renaissance. The nude gained new prestige, with traditional art academies and teaching institutions encouraging young artists to study Greek and Roman sculpture and live models. This resulted in works such as Alexandre Cabanel’s Birth of Venus and William-Adolphe Bouguereau’s The Wave, which rely on heavily controlled classical forms.

Nonetheless, painters such as Jean-Auguste Dominique Ingres previously challenged these norms. With a mannerist approach, his nude paintings (such as La Grande Odalisque) deliberately elongated the female form to promote “ideal,” artistically-created notions of beauty.

This, in turn, led to later British painters (such as Frederic Lord Leighton) confidently portraying nude bodies for their beauty alone. Indeed Leighton’s Standing Nude Figure Seen from Behind (1880) depicts an undressed woman, freed from the shackles of reclining Venus tropes.

What are Impressionist nude paintings?

Returning to France, Impressionist, Realist, and Post-Impressionist artists once again drove nude painting forwards.

With the decline of classical and academic approaches, artists such as Édouard Manet enraged public sensibilities with contemporary nudes. In Le Déjeuner sur l’herbe, a naked woman reclines in a distinctly modern setting. Her nudity becomes even more evident in contrast with two smart and fully clothed men.

While Manet kept some vestige of classical approaches, Gustav Courbet engendered bitter criticism for his portrayals of women. He rejected overly smoothed and stylized nudes, priding himself on strict realism. It’s said his shockingly realistic Origin of the World, or L’Origine du Monde (as well as erotic lesbian art such as Le Sommeil), stood for the “hidden parts” of femininity that even Manet didn’t dare show.

Despite this progression, much of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist art used broadly traditional approaches to nude artworks. This includes Renoir’s Bather Series and Edgar Degas’ depictions of women washing. Both followed the long tradition of undressed women near water, unaware of the viewer’s gaze.

Paul Gauguin updated the reclining nude format with paintings such as The Spirits of the Dead Keep Watch, where although the woman reclines in a domestic setting, she confidently and unswervingly gazes out from the pictorial space.

Who painted modern nude paintings?

In the twentieth century, pioneering artists such as Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso, and Egon Schiele depicted nude forms from an entirely new perspective.

In paintings such as Les Demoiselles d’Avignon, Picasso uses Cubist principles to pull apart and reimagine the female form. Indeed, Cubism shattered earlier restrictions, freeing art not only from mythological narratives but also realistic figurative depictions. While more traditional representations continued (for instance, by Ramon Casas or Isaac Israels), the contemporary nude was never the same.

Amedeo Modigliani was another trailblazer of nude painting, reinterpreting classical nudes in his own way. Indeed, Modigliani’s Le Grande Nu plays on Ingres’ Grande Odalisque while incorporating bright, bold shapes and forms. Like Picasso, Modigliani’s nudes exist without allegorical context, moving the female body away from religious and mythological narratives, ever closer to pure sensuality and eroticism.

This trend culminates with the work of Egon Schiele, a painter famed for the raw sexuality of his works. Inspired by prostitutes and lovers, Schiele painted naked, gaunt, and often distorted bodies. Like many artists (including Goya and Modigliani), Schiele almost served time in prison. Drawings such as Naked Girls Embracing insulted “good morals” of the time, leaving the complex links between sex, death, pleasure, and pain bare for all to see.

Fine Art Oil Paintings: Nude Wall Art

If you’re searching for museum quality oil painting on canvas, explore our vast collection of famous nude paintings. With masterpieces from Titian, Cabanel, Schiele, and Manet, you’ll find the most beautiful female nude paintings to enrich your life and your walls.