Only ART fans Episode 2 – In the Beginning There Was Lust: When Art First Met Porn
Editor’s Note: Before there was internet porn, there was ink and parchment. Before clickbait thirst traps, there were woodcuts of forbidden fantasies, etched in shadows and slipped between the holy pages of early printed Bibles. Long before OnlyFans and AI-generated nudes, there was the original erotic disruptor: the printing press.
This episode of OnlyARTfans takes us back to the very beginning — to a time when art first got horny in public, and the West found itself seduced by its own reflection. It’s a story of popes and painters, naughty monks and naked muses, of sacred texts giving way to profane images — and how Gutenberg’s invention unleashed not just the Reformation, but also a quiet, delicious revolution of the gaze.
From the birth of the printed nude to the secret history of smut smuggled in plain sight, we’re decoding the lustful lineage of Western visual culture — one bite-sized, blasphemous breakthrough at a time. Turn the page. The dirty history lesson starts now.
Fig.1 Achille Devéria, erotic art illustration La bibliothèque des romans (1840), Leonide
Fig.2 A gallant scene between the painter and his model, engraving by Jean Frederic Schall, France, late 18th century. Private Collection, (photo credits Bridgeman Images)
Fig.2a
Fig.3 A woman using a dildo in the form of a root vegetable suspended from the branch of a tree.
Fig.4 Achille Devéria, erotic art illustration for Gamiani (1833)
Fig.5 Painting by Helen Beard
Fig.6 Erotic illustration late 19th century
History BITE-SIZE: How the West Got Turned On. Gutenberg, God, and the Gaze
In the West, the first step toward mass-market pornography came not with a moan but a mechanical clunk: Johannes Gutenberg’s printing press. Invented in 1440 to democratize access to books—most notably the vernacular Gutenberg Bible—it inadvertently ushered in a visual revolution. Once text was freed, images soon followed. Engraved illustrations began to circulate widely, including those with erotic intent. The press opened the door to new ideas—and to explicit imagery that challenged both the Church and society.
As artists revived the nude in painting—invoking Greco-Roman antiquity and "humanizing" saints—prestigious commissions for sensual artworks flourished during the Renaissance. Raphael, Botticelli, and others created illicit female nudes reserved for elite male patrons. Erotic inspiration flowed not only from paint brushes but from rediscovered ancient texts: Ovid’s tales of divine desire were back in vogue, lending mythic legitimacy to lust. The Greeks had cast their gods as sexual beings—now the Renaissance did the same.
Fig.7 John Currin, Malmö (2006)
Fig.8 Les Sonnets Luxurieux (1892) de Pietro Aretino, art illustrations by Paul Avril
Fig.9 Milo Manara, ca 2008. (Credits Cultura Inquieta magazine)
Fig.10 Peter Fendi, Vierzig Erotische Aquarelle in Faksimilereproduktion, Austria Vienna, C. W. Stern, 1910
Print, Porn, and Papal Panic
But while Renaissance art celebrated the sensual, the Church became deeply uneasy with mass-distributed titillation. Erotic paintings could stay hidden in a duke’s chamber; prints could be passed around like holy contraband. The tipping point came with I Modi ("The Ways"), an illustrated sex manual based on the frescoes of Giulio Romano—Raphael’s own student—painted for Duke Federico II Gonzaga at the Palazzo Te in Mantua.
Romano’s explicit images of 16 couples in various positions inspired Marcantonio Raimondi, Raphael’s master engraver, to reproduce them as engravings in 1524. The project, quickly dubbed The Sixteen Pleasures, made history as the first work of pornography banned by the Catholic Church. Raimondi was jailed for gross indecency; all known copies were ordered destroyed. Romano, tellingly, got away unscathed. What passed in private was one thing—public dissemination was quite another.
Still, I Modi survived, despite the Pope’s best efforts. The poet Pietro Aretino, a master of lewd literary elegance, even penned a series of dirty sonnets to accompany the images. In the second edition (1527), Aretino welcomed readers with a provocatively modern line: ‘Come view this, you who like to fuck.’
Fig.11 The Ancients, Erotic Print early 19th century by Thomas Rowlandson
Fig.12 Tsutakazura (Ivy and vines), 36 Personal Views of Mount Fuji, 2023. Shunga print series by Senju Shunga (Matti Sandberg)
In the (very) extended Premium version of this article among other things:
- Sex, Sonnets, and the Renaissance Playboy
- From Antiquity to Empire: East Meets Lust
- Libertines, Lust, and the French Enlightenment
- Pornography’s Photographic Revolution
- The Art of Tease—and Censorship
- 51 additional examples of arousing erotic prints
- teaser for the upcoming episode
- and MUCH more...
Click HERE for episode 1 or HERE for the ancient ways of lovemaking in “I Modi” by Agostino Carracci
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