The historical evolution of the nude in art runs parallel to the history of art in general, except for small particularities derived from the different acceptance of nudity by the various societies and cultures that have succeeded each other in the world over time. The nude is an artistic genre that consists of the representation in various artistic media (painting, sculpture, or, more recently, film and photography) of the naked human body. It is considered one of the academic classifications of works of art. Nudity in art has generally reflected the social standards for aesthetics and morality of the era in which the work was made. Many cultures tolerate nudity in art to a greater extent than nudity in real life, with different parameters for what is acceptable: for example, even in a museum where nude works are displayed, nudity of the visitor is generally not acceptable. As a genre, the nude is a complex subject to approach because of its many variants, both formal, aesthetic, and iconographic, and some art historians consider it the most important subject in the history of Western art.According to Francisco Calvo Serraller, "the nude is not only an art form, but it is the explanation or the very raison d'être of Western art: that dramatic point or intersection between the natural and the celestial, between the ideal and the real, between the carnal and the spiritual, between the body and the soul" (). Javier Portús, curator of the Museo del Prado, also believes that "for centuries the nude has been the artistic form par excellence in the West, the one capable of expressing better than any other the values of color and pictorial matter". ()

Although it is usually associated with eroticism, the nude can have various interpretations and meanings, from mythology to religion, including anatomical study, or as a representation of beauty and aesthetic ideal of perfection, as in Ancient Greece. Its representation has varied according to the social and cultural values of each era and each people, and just as for the Greeks the body was a source of pride, for the Jews—and therefore for Christianity—it was a source of shame, it was the condition of enslaved people and the miserable.

The study and artistic representation of the human body has been a constant throughout the history of art, from prehistoric times (Venus of Willendorf) to the present day. One of the cultures where the artistic representation of the nude proliferated most was Ancient Greece, where it was conceived as an ideal of perfection and absolute beauty. This concept has endured in classical art to the present day and largely conditioned Western society's perception of the nude and art in general. In the Middle Ages, its representation was limited to religious themes, always based on biblical passages that justified it. In the Renaissance, the new humanist culture, of a more anthropocentric bent, promoted the return of the nude to art, generally based on mythological or historical themes, while religious themes remained. It was in the 19th century, especially with Impressionism, when the nude began to lose its iconographic character and to be represented simply for its aesthetic qualities, the nude as a sensual and fully self-referential image. In more recent times, studies on the nude as an artistic genre have focused on semiotic analyses, especially on the relationship between the work and the viewer, and on gender relations. Feminism has criticized the nude as an objectual use of the female body and a sign of the patriarchal dominance of Western society. Artists such as Lucian Freud and Jenny Saville have elaborated a non-idealized type of nude to eliminate the traditional concept of nudity and seek its essence beyond the concepts of beauty and gender.

Theoretical Distinction: Nude vs Naked The nude as an artistic genre has been shaped not only by historical and cultural values but also by evolving theoretical interpretations, particularly regarding the distinctions between "nude" and "naked." While "nude" and "naked" are often conflated, they represent distinct concepts in art history. British art historian Kenneth Clark in his book, The Nude: A Study in Ideal Form, argued that "to be naked is to be deprived of our clothes, and the word implies some of the embarrassment most of us feel in that condition. The word 'nude,' on the other hand, carries, in educated usage, no uncomfortable overtone." Clark asserted that "the nude is not the subject of art, but a form of art," suggesting that the human body becomes a "nude" when the artist idealizes and perfects its depiction, rather than simply reproducing it as seen in life.

John Berger later critiqued this distinction in Ways of Seeing, arguing that "a naked body has to be seen as an object in order to become a nude." For Berger, the "nude" reflects a cultural framework that positions the body as an object of display and power dynamics, particularly in relation to gender. Frances Borzello expanded on these ideas in The Naked Nude, introducing the concept of the "naked nude," which combines vulnerability with aesthetic traditions. Some examples that illustrate a "naked nude" includes Chantal Joffe's, Alice Neel's and Lucian Freud's self-portraits; these works highlight the intersection of vulnerability and aesthetic tradition, showcasing the body as both personal and political. This redefinition emphasizes the body as a site for personal, political, and emotional expression, moving beyond traditional notions of idealized perfection.

Prehistory

Prehistoric art is the art developed from the Stone Age (Upper Paleolithic, Mesolithic, and Neolithic) to the Metal Age, periods where the first manifestations that can be considered artistic by humans appeared. In the Paleolithic (25,000– 8000 BC), humans hunted and lived in caves, producing cave paintings. In the Neolithic (6000– 3000 BC), humans developed agriculture, which promoted increasingly complex societies where religion gained importance, and the production of handicrafts began. In the Metal Age (3000–1000 BC), the first protohistoric civilizations emerged.

In Paleolithic art, the nude was strongly linked to the cult of fertility, represented by Venus figurines. Most of them come from the Aurignacian period, and are generally carved in limestone, ivory or steatite. The Venus figureines of Willendorf, Lespugue, Menton, Laussel, etc. stand out. At the male level, the representation of erect phalli in isolated form or in full body was also a sign of fertility, as in the Cerne Abbas Giant (Dorset, England). In cave paintings—especially those developed in the French-Cantabrian and Levantine—hunting scenes are common, or scenes of rites and dances, where the human figure, simplified to stick figures, is sometimes represented highlighting sexual organs. Some examples are found in the caves of El Cogul, Valltorta and Alpera.

Ancient art

This is the name given to the artistic creations of the earliest stage of history, especially those of the great civilizations of the Near East: Egypt and Mesopotamia. It would also include the earliest artistic manifestations of most peoples and civilizations across all continents. One of the great advances in this era was the invention of writing, generated primarily by the need to keep records of an economic and commercial nature.

In the first religions, from the Sumerian to the Egyptian, the ancient cult of Mother Earth was related to the new anthropomorphic deities, linking the feminine form with nature, insofar as both are generators of life. Thus, the Egyptian twin gods Geb and Nut represented the earth and the sky, from whose union all the elements were born. In other cases, the gods are related to cosmological elements, such as the goddess Ishtar with the planet Venus, generally represented naked and winged, with a crescent moon on her head. Other representations of the Mother goddess are usually more or less clothed figures, but with bare breasts, such as the famous Snake Goddess (Heraklion Archaeological Museum), a Minoan statuette from around 1550 BC. These representations were the starting point for the iconography of Greek and Roman goddesses such as Artemis, Diana, Demeter and Ceres.

In Egypt, nudity was seen naturally, and abounds in representations of court scenes, especially in dances and scenes of feasts and celebrations. But it is also present in religious themes, and many of their gods represented in anthropomorphic form appear nude or semi-nude in statues and wall paintings. It also appears in the representation of the human being himself, whether pharaoh or slave, military or civil servant, such as the famous Seated Scribe of the Louvre. Undoubtedly due to the climate, the Egyptians used to wear little clothing, loincloths and skirts for men, and transparent linen dresses for women. This is reflected in the art, from the scenes that show the festivities and ceremonies of the court to the more popular scenes, which show the daily work of peasants, artisans, shepherds, fishermen and other trades. Likewise, in the war scenes appear the pitiful naked bodies of slaves and captives, treated with the same hieratic style and lack of dynamism typical of Egyptian art, where the law of frontality prevails, the body constrained to rigid static postures and lack of realism. The painting is characterized mainly by presenting figures juxtaposed in superimposed planes, with a hierarchical criterion. The profile canon predominated, which consisted of representing the head and limbs in profile, but the shoulders and eyes from the front. Among the works that have come down to us from Ancient Egypt, the nude, partial or complete, is perceptible both in painting and sculpture, whether monumental or in small statuettes, such as the Louvre's Offeror or the British Museum's Girl Playing a Harp; we have statues such as those of Rahotep and Nofret, the King Menkaure (Mycerinus) and queen or Louvre's Lady Touy that, although dressed in linen, the transparency of the fabric shows her nudity; in painting, the murals of the tomb of Nath, accountant of Thutmose IV, or the Tomb of the Physicians in Saqqarah. In the tomb of Tutankhamun was found a statue of the pharaoh naked, representing Ihy, son of the goddess Hathor.

On the other hand, in Mesopotamia, geographically and chronologically close to Ancient Egypt, the nude is practically unknown, except for some Assyrian reliefs such as Lion Hunt of Ashurbanipal (British Museum), where the king appears with a naked torso, or some scenes of torture of prisoners, while on the female side we only find the naked breasts of a Chaldean bronze representing a young Canaephora, present in the Louvre. Nor do we find nudes in Phoenician or Jewish art, where the Mosaic law forbade human representation.

Classical art

Classical artDerived from the Latin classicus ("first class"), the term "classical" referred to the period of Greek art between the Archaic and Hellenistic periods, valued as the most creative in the history of Greek art. Thus, the term became synonymous with creativity, excellence, the best period of any artistic style, so that many styles over time have had a phase called "classical". Heinrich Wölfflin, for example, referred to classical art when speaking of the Italian Renaissance (). is the art developed in ancient Greece and Rome, whose scientific, material and aesthetic advances contributed to the history of art a style based on nature and the human being, where harmony and balance, the rationality of forms and volumes, and a sense of imitation ("mimesis") of nature prevailed, laying the foundations of Western art, so that the recurrence to classical forms has been constant throughout history in Western civilization.

Greece