The Naked Nude

Nudes that deliberately behave provocatively and pose awkward questions: how artists portray the body in contemporary art

The representation of the nude in art remained for many centuries a victory of fiction over fact. Beautiful, handsome, flawless, its great success was to distance the unclothed body from any uncomfortably explicit taint of sexuality, eroticism, or imperfection. Here Frances Borzello contrasts the civilized, perfected artistic nude of Kenneth Clark’s classic, The Nude: A Study in Ideal Form (1956), with today’s depictions: raw, uncomfortable, disturbing. Grittier and more subtle, the new nude—both male and female —confronts us with the hidden issues and contradictions of the body and our relationship to it. Borzello’s story of the nude begins with a tale of life, death, and resurrection, exploring how and why the nude has survived and flourished in an art world that prematurely announced its demise. Subsequent chapters take a thematic approach, exploring the nude in painting, portraiture, sculpture, performance, and body art; in the work of female artists; and in extreme and graphic expressions that intentionally push the boundaries of both art and our comfort zone. 130 illustrations, 116 in color