Why Nude paintings where so popular during the Renaissance and Baroque eras?

Question

I noticed that back in the days of the Renaissance and Baroque eras artists painted a lot of nudity. What was there infatuation with Nudity?

Answer 1

Nude paintings came to the forefront in the Renaissance largely because the unclothed human figure represents a timeless ideal of humanity. That, at least, was the overarching rationale.

There were also great advances made in anatomical science at the time, so the understanding of how the body works mechanically was better understood and celebrated.

Once you get past these high-minded reasons, the final reason is that patrons (people who buy paintings) are just like other people: They like to look at nudes. Especially beautiful nudes.

Answer 2

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Why Nude paintings where so popular during the Renaissance and Baroque eras?
I noticed that back in the days of the Renaissance and Baroque eras artists painted a lot of nudity. What was there infatuation with Nudity?

Answer 3

As previously mentioned, it has to do with Neoclassicism. Many (actually, most) artists found beauty in the idealized thoughts and artworks of ancient Romans and Greeks and wanted to recreate this.

A noted improvement on the old artworks does include perspective, but the tidbit from Sybil about the ribs is entirely inaccurate. First off, women and men both have 12 sets of ribs; there are a few people who are born with only 11 but that is irrelated to gender. Secondly, if look at any Renaissance, Baroque, or Mannerist artist aside from Michelangelo, the women are very accurately portrayed. A good example of this is Bronzino's Venus, Cupid, Folly, and Time, Titian's reclining nudes, or any of Raphael's Madonna paintings. The only reason a woman may be more "manly" than they are today is because it was more fashionable in those days to be, in today's standards, overweight.

Answer 4

Hi there, I just came back from a trip to Italy (Florence, Rome and Milan), the home of the Renaissance. I would start by saying that there was not that much nudity as a large number of the paintings were commissioned by the church. Therefore they were depicting biblical scenes and there was not much nudity there. I did notice many nude sculptures e.g. statue of David. Many of these were of figures from ancient Greece and Rome.
What I did notice on some paintings which were not religious was that there were many cases where women were painted with one breast showing and the other concealed by their dress or cape... I thought this quite interesting and I would like to understand the reasoning behind this fashion.

Answer 5

During the Renaissance, the male nude form was seen as being a sign of heroism and perfection. Indeed, Michelangelo's statue of David was placed in the center of town as a symbol of civic virtue. This was in line with the Renaissance view of man as "the measure of all things." Prior to this, man was seen as a wretched being. In the Renaissance, the human form, and especially the male form, came to be seen as something to be celebrated. Fully females were less common, unless depicting a Greek or Roman goddess, though bared breasts were more often incorporated. While the public display of women's legs, and in some cases their arms, was seen as indecent, the public baring of the breasts was not considered unusual or shameful. Many dresses of the Renaissance and Early Modern periods, even for queens, often bared the breasts to a great extent, and some queens and noblewomen wore styles that left them fully exposed, including Queen Mary Tudor of England. Queen Maria Henrietta (wife of Charles I of England) was known for her low cut dresses, and there are records of her ordering a dress that, like Mary Tudor's, left the breasts fully exposed. An image of Queen Mary II from a broadsheet or advertisement in 1688, when she was being introduced as the new queen to the people of England, shows her wearing a dress that leaves both breasts completely exposed, and a minister from the period complained in his writings about the distraction of trying to preach with so many bare breasts on display in the church. While some modern people might find this scandalous, and assume this must have been some perversity that only existed among some of the more degenerate elements of the society, the reality is that showing off the breasts at the time could be seen as a sign of chastity. People of the time believed that a high youthful breast indicated a woman who had not yet had a child and was likely still a virgin. Exposing a single breast could even be a symbol of high birth and outstanding moral character. For older women, the breasts were also often seen as a sign of maternity and nurturing. They were not the sexualized objects they are seen as today.

Answer 6

In the Renaissance, the artists were starting to understand perspective and realistic forms. Many of the nudes you see is a result of their experimentation. They not only were trying to paint something realistic and beautiful but they were trying to understand the human body and all it's forms: bone structure, skin tones, anatomy, etc.

One interesting thing to note is when you look at the painting of a woman's figure as opposed to a man's, she doesn't look "feminine". That is because they didn't realize that the rib cage and skeletal structure was different than a man's. A woman's "hourglass figure" is due to the fact that she has one less set of ribs than a man; something unknown to the artists of the time period.

Answer 7

Renaissance women are not "fat." Check Botticelli. Filippino Lippi. Raphael. Mannerist women are not "fat." Check Pontormo. Parmigianino. Rosso. In the Baroque era, especially in the works and atelier of Rubens, women became more full-figured. But in Italy this is not the case. You will need to do some more reading into Rubens and his school.

Answer 8

It is still a very popular subject. The idea is if you know the human body well enough to depict it in artistic materials, you know the human condition. It is a way to understand ourselves and if you can paint the body you can paint anything.

Answer 9

Paintings Of Naked Women

Answer 10

Renaissance came after Middle Age, also known as Dark Age, and it stands for "rebirth". It was rebirth of art that drew its inspiration from antiquity (ancient Greece and Rome). Their works of art existed mostly for their own sake as objects of ideal beauty.