The Eroticism of Black Knee-High Stockings

Eroticism in art has never been solely about nudity. Often, the most charged images rely on partial concealment, a glimpse, a gesture, a fold of fabric. Knee-high stockings, especially black knee-high stockings hold a unique position among the garments that carry this symbolic weight. They appear simple but are definitely provocative and visually commanding. From the boudoirs of Rococo to Belle Époque cabarets, from early photography to contemporary fashion imagery, stockings have served as a visual device that shapes the viewer’s desire while simultaneously expressing the wearer’s agency. To trace the eroticism of stockings through art is to explore how artists use contrast, liminality, and the language of fabric to represent the complexity of the feminine body. In these paintings we will see how the motif of black stockings has been transformed by artists such as Gustave Courbet, Egon Schiele, Bonnard, Toulouse-Lautrec, Kees van Dongen and many others into symbols of seduction, performance, intimacy, and power.

Fig.1  Egon Schiele, Woman With Black Stockings, Gouache, 1913

Fig.2  Egon Schiele, Woman in Black Stockings, 1913.

Fig.3   Egon Schiele, Nude, 1918

Fig.4  Egon Schiele, Two Nude Girls with Black Stockings, 1910.

Fig.5  Egon Schiele, Woman with Blue Stockings, 1912

Transgressive Body

To understand the erotic charge of stockings, we must first understand the nature of eroticism itself. Bataille wrote that eroticism begins when the body becomes taboo and then transgressed. Clothing, especially partial clothing, becomes the medium of this transgression. The black stocking is therefore not merely an accessory; it is the membrane between the visible and the forbidden. It marks the line the eye is allowed to follow, and the line it is prevented from crossing. In this sense, its eroticism is architectural: it shapes how desire moves.

Fig.6   Egon Schiele, Crouching Female Nude, 1910

Fig.7  Miroslav Kraljević, Odmor, 1912

Fig.8  Miroslav Kraljević, Paris, 1912

Fig.9  Egon Schiele, Standing Woman in Red, 1913

Stockings Preserve Secrecy

In visual art, stockings are often treated as lines. They draw attention to the leg much like contour lines in drawing. By accentuating the natural taper of the calf or the elongated shape of the shin, stockings communicate femininity as elegance, geometry, and rhythm. The leg becomes a series of ascending curves and vertical directions, and direction is key. The verticality of knee-high stockings creates a sense of movement, an invitation upward.

Fig.10   Egon Schiele, Female Nude with Black Stockings, 1917. Charcoal and watercolor

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