The Female Nude in the Guise of a Myth or Otherwise

Interesting online lecture from the National Gallery exploring the female nude in paintings.

Fiona Alderton took us on a tour of female nudes in the galleries collection raising questions for us to think about when viewing them such as who they were painted for, where would they have hung and whether we felt they were an honest view of the female form. We talked about how body types had changed over the centuries, or I suppose the ideal of the female form had changed.

Her choice of works ranged from a Mary Magdalene by Corregio as the earliest work to pictures by the Impressionists. She talked in some detail about the Titian mythological works and this Judgement of Paris by Rubens and how the chosen subject allowed the artists to combine pictures of women from a range of viewpoints.

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