The Voluptuous Libertine

Two months ago, the Guardian UK published a story about a new exhibit in the Museum of Cycladic Art in Athens, Greece of Eros, the God of Love and son of Aphrodite. I would love to see this exhibit or other similar exhibits in museums around the world. I think it would go a long way toward creating a world that sees sex as something positive instead of, at best, a necessary evil, that sees sexual expression and sensuality as skills to be learned and honed and practiced by well-trained professionals. **ahem**I love the unabashedly erotic art of antiquity and how the ancients so carefully balanced the obscene and the elegant in the realm of sexuality, though they did not always succeed. Of course, it is important to remember that not every nude* or depiction of uncovered genitalia means it was seen by the ancients as erotic art because for them nudity did not always mean sex was to follow. In our Puritanical society nudity is equated with sex. Also, this art begins to destroy the rather false, high-brow division between erotic art and pornographic art because, as my art history professor declared, “It’s all about sexuality and it is all fantastic! It is the same thing.” I absolutely adore that woman.

Naturally, this interests me as a Companion, a woman, an intellectual and an art history student. Erotic art and fertility art is what I want to specialize in during my career as an art historian. It’d be appropriate, after all, to the other career path I have chosen for myself and indeed they compliment each other. To that end, I am posting some of my favorite erotic art, most of it from the Renaissance masters Titian and Peter Paul Rubens as they capture voluptuous and seductive women like myself with such beauty and sensuality as has not been seen since, really. What a shame the idea that a woman with buxom curves is unworthy of being depicted in such alluring loveliness these days. Of course the fact that courtesans were often models of these masters for their most sensual and celebrated works makes it even more apropos:

Pompeiian fresco found in a suburban bath, which could have doubled as a brothel

Another Pompeiian fresco, this one from a brothel.

Callipygian Venus by François Barois. Originally without drapery but added later for "decency" reasons.

The Union of Earth and Water by Peter Paul Rubens

Kandariya Mahadeva Hindu Temple

Venus in the Mirror- Peter Paul Rubens

Venus at the Mirror- Titian

Danae by Titian

Pompeiian fresco of a satyr and a nymph frolicking as they were wont to do.

*As this has been drilled into all art history majors, there is a difference between naked and nude. Naked is the body uncovered in shame and degradation, not the position you want to be caught in. Nudity, however, is a celebration of the human body in all its adorned and very adored glory and beauty. Sometimes erotic, sometimes merely nude but always sensual.