Opening the Camera: The Fine, Blurred Lines (Editor’s Note)
“If you want, compare Goya’s Naked Maja to a Playboy centrefold and tell me the line is not blurred.” — Hans Maes
1. Milla Jovovich, photography by Mario Sorrenti showcased nude in Purple Magazine France—F/W 2009 issue 12, via Flickr
2/3 Blue Period, unknown. Polaroid by Sam Haskins via Artsy / Miles Aldridge (after Botticelli), Study XIV, 2017 Unique Polaroid print via SOL LDN
Art historian Hans Maes has pointed out the obvious problem. Pornography is generally understood as sexually explicit material whose purpose includes sexual arousal. But plenty of celebrated artworks throughout history have been sexually explicit—and presumably capable of producing an erotic response.
4/5 Rizzoli Nudes, 2008, C-Print by Michel Comte, Preiss Fine Arts Vienna Credits: Artsy / Nude__Art, nudephotography NSFW #nudephotography r/nudebodyinarts Nudity&Arts on Reddit
6/7 Rihanna going nude for LUI Magazine pictorial, photoshoot by Mario Sorrenti, 2014 / Prasca, NSFW #nudeart #nudephotography on Reddit
Pompeian imagery, erotic sculptures, explicit drawings by Gustav Klimt, Japanese shunga, and countless paintings of naked bodies have never stopped being discussed as art simply because somebody might have found them sexy.
As Maes puts it, compare Goya’s Naked Maja with a Playboy centrefold and try to tell us exactly where the line runs. Good luck.
8/9 Flower Lines, Photographs by Alva Bernadine – Scene360 / Nude__Art, nudephotography NSFW #nudephotography r/nudebodyinarts Nudity & Arts on Reddit
A body photographed in grainy black and white, surrounded by deep shadows, may be presented as existential inquiry. Put essentially the same body into a glossy magazine with a provocative headline and suddenly we have something else.
Or do we?
10/11 Kolesnikov Art Photo, photographer NSFW #nudephotography on Reddit / David LaChapelle, Naomi Campbell: Bon Appetit, 1999 C-Print via Artsy
The Power of Framing
Art history has traditionally been remarkably inventive when it comes to explaining why a naked woman is lying around doing absolutely nothing. She is supposedly asleep. She is bathing. She has just been “caught” undressing. She is a goddess. She is an allegory. She is a symbol of beauty.
12/13 Modestino Baldinetti - Building an Empire in the Fascist age a Bilen girl, 1936 photography (via Meister Drucke) / Frankfurt Portrait Ilford 2 Photography by Jens Kohlen via Saatchi Art
Apparently, she is almost never simply naked because somebody wanted to look at a naked woman. This is precisely the uncomfortable territory explored by classicist Mary Beard in her discussions of the nude. The art-historical tradition has often developed elaborate intellectual justifications for images whose visual appeal is, at least partly, erotic.
14/15 Fashion model Loulou Robert photograph by David Bellemere / Lin Zhipeng (aka n°223), Suspense of Flower Color, 2021 © Lin Zhipeng in-the-dusk-2025
Her observation that classical nudes can function as “soft porn for the elite” caused predictable outrage - and that reaction tells us something.
People are often perfectly comfortable discussing erotic imagery as long as the eroticism belongs to somebody else's century, somebody else's culture, or somebody else's museum. Put the same image on a website and suddenly the vocabulary changes.
16/17 Gisele Bündchen for Pirelli Calendar 2006. Photoshoot by Mert & Marcus / Milla Jovovich, nude for Purple Magazine #12 FW 2009 photograph by Mario Sorrenti via Reddit
The boundary between art and pornography is therefore not merely visual. It is social. Mary Beard's answer is suitably inconvenient: anyone who thinks they have a definitive answer should probably think harder.
Because an image can be aesthetically sophisticated and still exploit its subject. It can be politically interesting and sexually explicit.
Become a Premium member now and check out the complete version of this publication (which is more than 6 times longer and includes 101 additional pics!)
Click HERE for Volume I: The Camera Discovers Desire or here for the erotic grammar of Tyler Shields’ Provocateur series
Let us know your thoughts about this article in the comment box below...!!