Is The Renaissance Nude Religious or Erotic?

BBC NEWS
By Cath Pound

Christ, Mary, and Saints (detail), Michelangelo, Last Judgment, Sistine Chapel, altar wall, fresco, 1534-1541 (Vatican City, Rome)

Renaissance artists transformed the course of Western art history by making the nude central to artistic practice. The revival of interest in classical antiquity and a new focus on the role of the image in Christian worship encouraged artists to draw from life, resulting in the development of newly vibrant representations of the human body. The Renaissance Nude at the Royal Academy in London explores the development of the nude across Europe in its religious, classical and secular forms – revealing not only how it reached its dominant position, but also the often surprising attitudes to nudity and sexuality that existed at the time. [More]