No More Venuses – The Nude in 20th Century with Lydia Bauman

Ever since the rediscovery of Greek mythology in Italian Renaissance, there has been a tendency to represent woman as Venus – as the goddess of love and beauty, her main job was to recline and look seductive and beautiful. The canon had become so entrenched that centuries passed before artists began to cast a more objective eye on the woman’s body and role. With the advent of the 20th century, women were no longer idealised but also became the subject of new art experimentations – from Picasso’s Demoiselles d’Avignon whose African sculpture inspiration led to the creation of Cubism to Alice Neel whose naked Self Portrait at the age of 80 subverted all accepted norms regarding what is a fit subject for art. Manet, Courbet,

In the series:
Jan. 20: The Nude in Art History
Feb. 17: No More Venuses – the Nude in the 20th Century