Il nudo maschile

Speranza

The male nude had so far LOST ITS EROTIC CONNOTATIONS by the closing years of the 18th century that Jacques-Louis David was actually able to use it as a manifesto against all kinds of eroticism in art.

The revulsion did not last, though Gericault continued some of David's pre-occupations.

INGRES and DELACROIX reinstated FEMALE nudes as a central part of the 19th century painter's subject matter, and one can trace most of the shifts of taste and doctrine in French painting during the rest of the century through different images of the female.

One only has to cite Ingres, Delacroix, Courbet, Mant (his "Olympia" in particular), Degas, Renoir, Seurat ("Les Poseuses") and Gauguin to demonstrate the truth of this assertion.

It is almost impossible to trace a similar sequence of representations of the MALE nude.