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Erotic Art Photography
This Erotic photo art collection presents erotic photographs from the beginning of photography until the years just before World War II. It explores the evolution of the genre and its origins in France, and its journey from public distrust to the large audience it enjoys today.
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Modigliani nude fetches second-highest price ever paid for art at auction
Amedeo Modigliani, the Italian painter and sculptor, died young and led a rather gloomy existence. His birth coincided with the collapse of his father’s once-thriving business enterprises, and health problems plagued him from a young age. At 35 years old, he passed away from tubercular meningitis. It was in this state of financial and physical frailty, during the later stages of his illness, that Modigliani painted “Nu couché,” — in English, “Reclining Nude.” The work was one of a series of several dozen nudes that were shown during the only solo exhibition of the artist’s life, an occasion made notorious by the discussions it raised over obscenity in artwork. (So…
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Picasso censored! No more breasts in his paintings
I am not surprised Fox has censored Picasso’s breasts. It is absurd and creepy to blur out the bosoms of his Women of Algiers in a report on the painting that set a new world record this week. But it is not completely impossible to understand, because if you were a puritan or a fundamentalist or just hated women’s bodies, Picasso’s breasts are the kind of breasts you might find shocking. Picasso is definitely one of the all-time great artists of the breast. His only rivals are the 16th-century painter Titian, whose Venus of Urbino certainly has some nice nipples, and the 17th-century adorer of buxom wenches Peter Paul Rubens,…
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Masculine/ Masculine?
When we hear ‘nude’, for most of us the image of a female body would immediately spring to mind. One of Titian’s fleshy, languorous beauties perhaps, or self-possessed Olympia and her hostile black cat. This is unsurprising, considering the proliferation of female nudes dominating art in the recent centuries. Before the 19th century, however, the male nude was considered much more important to artists. The male body was thought more attractive and the more important of the human forms. So much so that looking at many works from the Italian Renaissance, you would be forgiven for seeing men with a couple of breasts stuck on for fun, rather than a…
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The Naked Truth
Art exhibits our fascinations and preoccupations- what we think about, are intrigued by, and want to look at. Ever since the earliest cave paintings, the human body has been a constant subject in art. We might all have one, but that doesn’t stop us from being interested in everyone else’s. But just because it’s natural doesn’t mean there aren’t rules. Society decided (or was it Adam and Eve?) that it just wasn’t on to go around showing off everything that God gave us. And so the fig leaves were slapped on the sculptures, Venus’ flowing locks doubled as a convenient pair of knickers and photographers learnt the art of strategic…
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Olympia in Venice
Remember the first time you went away from home for an extended period of time? Your mother made sure you packed warm socks and clean pants, even if it was going to be 40 degrees Celsius in your final destination. She called and wrote you often, making sure you were eating your vegetables and brushing your teeth. She loved and worried about you. I imagine this is what the Musée d’Orsay is going through at the moment, having sent one of its most precious babies off to Italy for the summer.
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Can (and should) life truly imitate Art?
At first glance I thought this exhibition was about something else entirely – bodies covered in tattoos (to which I am entirely approving). But now that I am well informed, I’ve got some things to say. Are photographs art? Sure, sometimes, certainly not all the time, just have a look at my memory card. But are they Art, capital A, meant to be scrutinised, reviewed, and studied for centuries to come? I’m not so sure. Painting is an expression of one’s mind, heart, and imagination. The colours we interpret, the way things make us feel, whatever happens to be going through our heads at a particular moment in time. Paintings…
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Let’s Be Alone Together
You know what one of my favourite movies of all time is? Closer. It’s dark, it’s dirty, it’s intimate, it’s lonely, it’s sad, it’s beautiful, it’s true. “Anna’s” photography exhibit is one I would have visited again and again – you know, if it had been real – especially the image of “Alice”. What other artist makes me feel all of the same emotions? The Impressionist/Realist, Gustave Caillebotte. Caillebotte’s On the Pont de l’Europe (below), to me anyway, represents a man that has lost something near to him, whether he threw it away or it crumbled into a pile of rubble, the point is that he stands alone on this…
This is an interactive art blog in multi languages, you will find new articles on artists, art history, exhibitions, etc. Contributions welcome.
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