Throughout history artists have created erotic art. Defining erotic art is difficult since perceptions of both what is erotic and what is art fluctuate. A sculpture of a phallus in some African cultures may be considered a traditional symbol of potency though not overtly erotic. In addition, a distinction is often made between erotic art and pornography (which also depicts scenes of love-making and is intended to evoke erotic arousal, but is not usually considered art). The distinction may lie in intent and message; erotic art would be items intended as pieces of art, encapturing formal elements of art, and drawing on other historical artworks. Pornography may also use these tools, but is primarily intended to arouse one sexually. Nevertheless, these elements of distinction are highly subjective.
1. Gustave Courbet ‘The Origin of the World’
Thank God ‘Brazilians’ weren’t common in the 19th century! This is by far the most graphic erotic painting ever created. Gustave Courbet’s painting ‘The Origin of the World’ hangs on the wall of the The Musée Orsay in Paris. It is a painting that portrays a woman’s thighs, torso, and, at the centre of attention, her unshaven genitals. The Orsay website celebrate this masterpiece of Art, and describe it as; “Courbet regularly painted female nudes, sometimes in a frankly libertine vein. But in The Origin of the World he went to lengths of daring and frankness which gave his painting its peculiar fascination. The almost anatomical description of female sex organs is not attenuated by any historical or literary device.” This painting was in no doubt privately commissioned by a specialist collector and is by far one of the most graphic depictions of the female anatomy ever painted.
2. Spring Pictures or Japanese Shunga Art
This is one I discovered at the British Museum in the Shunga exhibition ‘Spring pictures’ or shunga, art was produced in Japan between 1600-1900. This sexually explicit work is often tender, funny, beautiful and undoubtedly accomplished. Shunga art was produced by some of the masters of Japanese art, including Utamaro and Hokusai. Shunga were mostly produced within the popular school known as ‘pictures of the floating world’ (ukiyo-e), by celebrated artists such as Hishikawa Moronobu (died 1694), Kitagawa Utamaro (died 1806) and Katsushika Hokusai (1760-1849). Earlier, medieval narrative art in Japan had already mixed themes of sex and humour. Luxurious shunga paintings were also produced for ruling class patrons by traditional artists such as members of the Kano school, sometimes influenced by Chinese examples. This was very different from the situation in contemporary Europe, where religious bans and prevailing morality enforced an absolute division between ‘art’ and ‘pornography’. This piece explores bestiality as only the Japanese can imagine.
4. The Embrace by Egon Schiele
I love the tenderness and passion that Egon Schiele portrayed. This painting is one of the most outstanding of the Vienna Secessionist period. While still studying art in Vienna, Schiele rapidly developed his own, unmistakeable language of form. Starting out from Art Nouveau, he combined ornamental structure with a fractured line and expressive colouring. Egon Schiele was born in Tulln in 1890 and grew up in humble conditions. Despite the protests of his uncle and guardian, Leopold Czihaczek, Schiele took the demanding entrance exam at the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts in 1906. However, he dropped out after only three years, due to fierce controversies with his professor, Christian Griepenkerl, who was opposed to all innovation in the visual arts. In 1909, Schiele founded the New Art Group together with such young artist friends as Anton Faistauer and Franz Wiegele. That same year, the group first presented itself at the Vienna Salon Pisko, but, after several exhibitions that were to follow, remained only loosely connected.
5. Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec “In Bed, the Kiss”
This is so tender and beautiful! Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (24 November 1864 – 9 September 1901) was a French painter, printmaker, draftsman, and illustrator, whose immersion in the decadent and theatrical life of fin de siecle Paris yielded an oeuvre of provocative images of modern life. This picture depicts two women having some downtime after a long night at the brothel.
6. Paul Gauguin Spirit of the Dead Watching
Erotic and exotic! Paul Gauguin, renowned for his paintings of exotic idylls and Polynesian beauties, was a sadist who battered his wife, exploited his friends and lied to the world about the erotic Eden he claimed to have discovered on the South Sea island of Tahiti. This is not to say that he didn’t paint an exquisite and sensual diary of his exploits that remains a lasting legacy of his artistic output.
7. Duncan Grant – The Bathers
Beautiful graphic sensibility and sensual movement. This was painted in the summer of 1911 as part of a decorative scheme for the dining room at the Borough Polytechnic, at the Elephant and Castle, London. The theme of the room’s decoration was ‘London on Holiday’, and Grant responded by painting this idealised panorama of seven male nudes bathing. The nudes also represented the continuous movement of a single figure. Their bodies, like the water, are stylised to heighten the decorative effect of the image. Grant’s depiction of the male body was greatly influenced by Michelangelo’s ink studies and in particular his cartoon ‘Battle of Cascina’. The celebration of the male nude was underpinned by both artists by a personal homoerotic fascination.
8. Nancy Grossman – Head
I was always taken by the S&M qualities of these sculptures by Nancy Grossman. In the 1960s, Grossman began creating her famous sculptures of heads, which she carefully carved from the wood of discarded telephone poles, overlaid with leather, and then adorned with zippers, glass eyes, enamel noses, spikes, and straps. While their size, shape, and facial features suggest masculinity, she refers to them as self-portraits, implying the mutability of gender and demonstrating that all artwork offers something of the artist. Exquisite as they are, the heads threaten to overshadow the rest of Grossman’s art, largely due to sensationalistic interpretations that see the sculptures exclusively in a sadomasochistic frame. But these works also contain the central aspects of Grossman’s art: an embrace of gender ambiguity, an interest in formal contradiction and conflict, an audacious use of leather, and a rich sensuality. Grossman’s sculptures appeal as much to the olfactory and tactile senses as to the visual; they taunt viewers with their invitation to touch.
9. Tom of Finland – Boots
Both men and women love Tom of Finland! Great Touko Laaksonen (8 May 1920 – 7 November 1991) was best known by his pseudonym Tom of Finland, was a Finnish artist notable for his stylized homoerotic fetish art and his influence on late twentieth century gay culture. He has been called the “most influential creator of gay pornographic images” by cultural historian Joseph W. Slade. Over the course of four decades he produced some 3500 illustrations, mostly featuring men with exaggerated primary and secondary sex traits with tight or partially removed clothing.
10. Tracey Emin – Pleasuring Herself
I Have seen a similar animation to this needlework by La Emin. Tracey once said; Thinking about the narcissism behind what I do — the self, self, self — and how difficult it is for me to really share things, even though I think I am sharing all the time. Emin’s art is one of disclosure, using her life events as inspiration for works ranging from painting, drawing, video and installation, to photography, needlework and sculpture. Emin reveals her hopes, humiliations, failures and successes in candid and, at times, excoriating work that is frequently both tragic and humorous.
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