zlacker

Nudity and sexual content was always subject to suppression and censorship, it's just that "fine art" got a free exception for nudity for reasons that I've never seen adequately explained but are almost certainly to do with class.

(The nude-but-not-sexual viewpoint is pretty valid, but some of the fine art is definitely sexual once you know the context, and some of it was controversial in its time e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_D%C3%A9jeuner_sur_l%27herbe )

>>pjc50+(OP)
> Nudity and sexual content was always subject to suppression and censorship

Source? To my reading, this is a decisively late Christian/Puritan perspective on sex and the human body.

>>pjc50+(OP)
> Nudity and sexual content was always subject to suppression and censorship, it's just that "fine art" got a free exception for nudity for reasons that I've never seen adequately explained but are almost certainly to do with class.

This is true only for very unusual definitions of “always” and/or “fine art”; history is more than Victorian England.

>>pjc50+(OP)
He knew in his heart that spinning upside down around a pole wearing a costume you could floss with definitely was not Art, and being painted lying on a bed wearing nothing but a smile and a small bunch of grapes was good solid Art, but putting your finger on why this was the case was a bit tricky.

“No urns,” he said at last.

“What urns?” said Nobby.

“Nude women are only Art if there’s an urn in it,” said Fred Colon. This sounded a bit weak even to him, so he added: “Or a plinth. Best is both, o’course. It’s a secret sign, see, that they put in to say that it’s Art and okay to look at.”

“What about a potted plant?”

“That’s okay if it’s in an urn.”

— Thud (2005), Terry Pratchett

>>JumpCr+jb
As far as I can tell, every human culture has some taboos about these things. In my readings, I've never heard of a culture where the base state is nudity and this is unremarkable. Even in cultures where we think they're nude, they're still working their own modesty standards. I am reminded how in some traditional New Guinean cultures, the males wear nothing but a gourd to cover the genitalia. But they're very shy without the gourds. Similarly, there isn't a single culture ever documented (to the best of my knowledge) where lovers don't usually seek some degree of privacy.

Of course, exactly what counts as nude (or public lovemaking) and just how draconian the repercussions for transgression are, varies greatly.

>>retrac+xj
Also noteworthy, humans seem to be the only species concerned with privacy of sexual matters.

>>teddyh+gh
"The Ankh-Morpork Fine Art Appreciation Society, hem hem. It's just men paintin' pictures of young wimmin in the nudd. Some of them don't even have any paint on their brushes, you know. Shameful." — Guards! Guards! (1989)

>>JumpCr+jb
I knew I shouldn't have made a categorical statement, but it's been the rule rather than the exception everywhere with a printing press. Even the much vaunted US freedom of the press ran into the Comstock laws.

>>pjc50+(OP)
Boring interpretation: Artists are really good at drawing human bodies and it turns out that human bodies are naked unless you draw them clothes.

>>ummwha+Mu
Hmm, define privacy.

Some snails mate while hanging down from a tree branch by a thread of slime. That's about as private as a snail can get.

>>pjc50+(OP)
"it's just that "fine art" got a free exception for nudity for reasons that I've never seen adequately explained but are almost certainly to do with class."

Because otherwise art is impossible.

If you are a painter, and you need to draw people, you learn to draw naked people because you need to learn how human anatomy works, where various muscles and wrinkles are. In your careers you won't be just asked to draw dudes in T-shirts, you will have to draw or animate people in various clothes and state of dress or undress, torn clothing, gladiator games, etc.

There is great deal of knowledge that they actually have to learn, how to draw realistic deltoids in different body positions, or under stress to show that a person is putting in a great effort to support a great weight, or is in a fight. A drawing by a great artist should make a medical professional happy.

That's why they hire nude models to stand around in various posses, and they aren't all pretty, some of them are old people because they have to learn how to draw wrinkles and old skin.

>>dragon+Rf
Can you name a culture where people don't have some taboo or restrictions about sexuality in art or drawings? It may he more loose or less loose, but it always exists somewhere.