Earlier this week The Swedish Bed launched a search for the hottest girl in the history of painting. We loved the idea, but when it came time for us to place our vote, the options left us feeling rather uninspired. Not only did most of the women in the selected paintings look too much alike for our taste, but they were also clothed. How not hot is that? To remedy the situation, we’ve collected ten of our favorite nude painted ladies after the jump for your viewing pleasure (as John Berger says, “Nakedness reveals itself. Nudity is placed on display. The nude is condemned to never being naked. Nudity is a form of dress.” ). Drop a link in the comments sharing yours.
Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres, Le Grande Odalisque, 1814. Oil on canvas. Courtesy of the Louvre, Paris, France.
Edouard Manet, Le Déjeuner sur l’herbe (Luncheon on the Grass), 1863. Oil on canvas. 81 x 101 cm. Courtesy of the Musée d’Orsay, Paris.
Edward Munch, Madonna, 1894-95. Oil on canvas. 91 x 70.5 cm. Courtesy of the National Gallery, Oslo.
Edward Degas, After the Bath, Woman Drying her Nape, 1898. Courtesy of Musée d’Orsay, Paris, France.
Paul Gauguin, Two Tahitian Women, 1899. Oil on canvas. 94 x 72.4 cm. Courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
Gustav Klimt, Danae, 1907. Oil on canvas. 77 x 83 cm. Private collection, Graz.
Henri Matisse, Odalisque with Red Pants, 1921. 65 x 90 cm. Courtesy of Musée Nazional d’Art Modern Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris.
Edward Hopper, Reclining Nude, 1924 – 1927. Originally Watercolor on paper. 35.18 x 50.42 cm.
Lucian Freud, Kate Moss, 2002. Oil on canvas.
Marlene Dumas, Stripper, 1999. Oil on canvas. Stephen White/Courtesy the artist and Frith Street Gallery, London.
Comments (31)
“Suzanne Valadon” by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. End.
I think that “Danae” by Gustav Klimt is so beautiful, so fragil but also so sexy. It´s sublime…
Courbet’s “The Origin of the World”
“Madame X” by JSS
Apparently the history of art is all about ta-tas…
http://www.theonion.com/articles/a-complete-history-of-art,16871/#1
couldn’t agree more with you on that, flavorwire.
my choice would be munch’s madonna, although i would still rather see some schiele here.
I can’t believe you missed Boucher’s “Nude on a Sofa”!
http://www.sai.msu.su/cjackson/boucher/p-boucher9.htm
um, this is all quite safe for work. where are the obese japanese albinos transexuals wearing each other as hats?
I’d say you’re missing Lizzie of Dante Gabriel Rosetti fame.
Chloe
http://www.youngandjacksons.com.au/chloe.html
Yes, Klimt’s “Danae” is totally hot. I love redheads with fat, meaty thighs.
Gave you a mention (+ my pick) here: http://snaporaz.posterous.com/miss-painted-lady
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Um, I’m a lady myself, but this lady gets me hot:
http://www.wga.hu/art/c/cabanel/b_venus.jpg
It’s “The Birth Of Venus” by Alexandre Cabanel
These are all trash….what goes as art is lost on me. Most of these could be duplicated in Art I class.
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Olympia, by Manet
http://www.insecula.com/oeuvre/photo_ME0000053734.html
The Naked and the Nude
Robert Graves
For me, the naked and the nude
(By lexicographers construed
As synonyms that should express
The same deficiency of dress
Or shelter) stand as wide apart
As love from lies, or truth from art.
Lovers without reproach will gaze
On bodies naked and ablaze;
The Hippocratic eye will see
In nakedness, anatomy;
And naked shines the Goddess when
She mounts her lion among men.
The nude are bold, the nude are sly
To hold each treasonable eye.
While draping, by a showman’s trick,
Their dishabille in rhetoric,
They grin a mock-religious grin
Of scorn at those of naked skin.
The naked, therefore, who compete
Against the nude may know defeat,
Yet when they both together tread
The briary pastures of the dead,
By Gorgons with long whips pursued,
How naked go the sometime nude!
“Mary Magdalene In The Cave”‘ by Jules Joseph Lefebvre
http://www.bible-art.info/images/1876_Jules_Joseph_Lefebvre_Mary_Magdalene_In_The_Cave.jpg
no Modigliani, come on now…
http://www.poster.net/modigliani-amedeo/modigliani-amedeo-nude-lying-on-the-back-2407627.jpg
Courbet’s ‘Origin of the World’!!
“The Fisherman and the Siren” (c. 1858) by Frederic Leighton
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ef/Leighton-The_Fisherman_and_the_Syren-c._1856-1858.jpg
super disappointed. i thought this was going to be an article about the history of women artist PAINTERS…not models. Don’t we celebrate female models enough already?
No Schiele or Cecily Brown?
Tame! Agree with others – where are the female artists’ representing females? “Come” on…
i find klimt’s judith very sexy. instead of completely nude, only a seductive suggestion. and we all know how teasing can be sexier than the whole thing out there. http://sofachayenn.files.wordpress.com/2009/01/gustav_klimt_039.jpg
None of these classics is very attractive. Almost the opposite, Very few people look good without their clothes. These artists should stick to landscapes. The Pre-Raphaelites had a stronger sense of form.
absolutely nothing by alphonse mucha? seriously? wow.
also very surprised not to see either of goya’s maja paintings. he painted the same woman in the same pose clothed and nude to prove he could make a clothed woman more erotic than in the nude. (and was fired from the royal court for doing so!)
ps odalisque is somewhat famous for the being disproportionately illusory. look at the length of her full torso. is that even possible?
Aside from these all being lovely pieces of art… what struck me the most by your choices is that they are Natural Women in the true sense of the word, not annorexic skinny, not airbrushed or perfect… just women, and appreciated for being who they are. Thank you.
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Sports Illustrated’s series on painted ladies … does that count?
Else Brett Whiteley’s best friend Wendy.
http://www.artquotes.net/masters/whiteley/whiteley_wendy1984.htm
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