Mary Beard's Shock of the Nude (2020) - full transcript

There are an awful lot of naked
bodies in Western art.

And they are often causing trouble,
even now.

Whether it's demonstrating
against sexual violence...

We're here to stop rape!
We're here to stop rape!

...or a case of concealment
to preserve diplomatic relations...

Boxed up so as not to offend,

ancient nude statues
in Rome's Capitoline Museum

were covered up during a visit
by Iran's president.

...or simply being taken down...

An art gallery in Manchester

has removed a Victorian painting
of naked, adolescent girls.



...the nude stands on some
of the deepest fault lines running

through society now,

speaking directly to issues
of men and women,

gender and sex.

Actually, that's nothing new.

For centuries, naked bodies,
especially female ones,

have been wrapped in high-minded
talk of

beauty and the ennobling effects
of art.

But I don't think you can talk
about the nude

unless you also talk
about male desire.

In this, the first of a pair
of programmes on the naked

body in Western art, I'll be looking
at how, for so long,

men got away with it!

Just in this gallery, there's loads
of female breasts,



just a particular
concatenation of them here.

And we'll be looking at how women
artists have tried to tackle

this tradition head on.

Seeing you from behind,
in your stripper shoes,

you look quite vulnerable.

I wasn't really prepared
for how powerful this thing

of being a naked woman... is.

Rest assured, I'll also
be sizing up

how artists have seen naked men...

...getting a grip on works
from the ancient past...

I think that's perfect!

...as well as today.

Oh, blimey.

And I'll be try my hand at a bit

of reconstructive surgery

of some VERY private parts.

Ah!

Don't expect a straightforward
history of the nude

in these programmes.

I'm going to be exploring
the problems, the anxieties

and the scandals surrounding
the image of the naked body,

ever since the ancient Greeks.

I'll be asking quite why Western art

has been so obsessed with nudity.

I hope

that after this, you'll never
look at a nude painting or sculpture

in quite the same way again.

I'm starting my deep dive
into the history of the nude

in an Aladdin's cave of sculpture.

It's full of replicas from all
periods, but the one I'm here to see

goes back to an ancient Greek city
on the coast of the Mediterranean,

and I've been thinking and talking
about her for almost 50 years.

It may not stand out now,

but actually, it has been one of
the most contentious

nudes in Western art.

The statue of the goddess Aphrodite,
if we're talking Greek,

or Venus to the Romans.

We rather coyly tend to call her
the Goddess of Love,

but I think Goddess of Sex
would be a better title.

This one goes back 2,500 years

to a sculpture by the Greek artist
Praxiteles,

and that sculpture is particularly
famous

because it's supposed to be
the very first sculpture,

full-size, of a naked woman
in the Greek world

and probably in the West.

She wasn't an instant success.

The town she was first offered to
said "no, thanks".

She's now known as the Aphrodite
of Knidos

after the city who said yes.

A canny move, as she soon became
a tourist attraction and was riffed

on by sculptors over and over again.

The original is long gone,
but reconstructions, including

pristine versions of how it
once might have looked,

are still in demand.

The big point, though, is quite
how controversial it was.

In the 4th century BC,
this was shockingly new.

It was close to unacceptable.

But there are signs that Praxiteles
has been pretty careful

about how he presents
the goddess to us.

She's not blatantly exposing
herself.

I think the giveaway is this
water pot and this towel -

or perhaps her clothing -
that she's holding in her hand.

We have to imagine we've just come
across her by chance

as she's getting ready for
or finishing her bath,

and she modestly covers herself up.

Praxiteles is giving us
a kind of alibi

for looking at the naked deity.

The first large-scale representation
of the naked female form

amounted to a revolution in art.

Frustratingly, we have no idea of
why it happened when it did.

But we do know that the many
sculptors who followed and imitated

Praxiteles in the classical world,
all of the men, I'm sure,

adopted similar pretexts for
displaying the woman

or goddess as both demure and naked,

giving every viewer
an excuse for gawping at her.

When centuries later,

male art-lovers
from the Renaissance onwards

praised the achievements
of the ancients,

they were captivated
by these coy Venuses.

But not everyone was always
entirely seduced by her charms.

You can see this very clearly

with another ancient statue,
now known

as the Venus de Medici, after
the family who once owned her,

and a highlight of the Uffizi
Gallery in Florence.

For centuries, she's resided in the
room known as the Tribuna,

where the most special masterpieces
were displayed.

Visitors now are not allowed
beyond the door,

but I've been given permission
to pad about in my socks.

She's pretty clearly a version of

or descended from

that first female nude
by Praxiteles.

It's true that she doesn't have
her bathing equipment -

she's got a little dolphin here
instead - but she is covering

herself up, modestly,
as if she's been surprised.

Although some cynics say
that she's actually pointing

to the bits that matter.

Now, she called forth the most
extravagant praise from visitors,

both male and female,
in the 18th and 19th centuries.

Travellers wrote in their diaries
about how many times

they'd visited her

or how long they
had spent looking at her,

and others
scrutinised her bodily parts

as if she was almost
like a race horse.

The art historian Johann Winckelmann
looked at her navel, said

it was really a bit deep.

Others thought her ankles
a bit thick.

But scratch the surface,
and you find certain anxieties.

In particular, they have a sense
that those expressions

of great, erotic desire
for this statue

might somehow be
undermining their elite

art appreciation.

It's almost as if they felt
they were being dragged down by her,

to the base level
of the common herd.

No wonder that some of them
called her

a dangerous goddess.

And dangerous
these female nudes certainly were.

Praxiteles's first version
set the tone.

It was even said that one young man
made love to her marble form,

then went mad and threw himself
off a cliff.

In fact, throughout history,
desire has shaped the way we see

and respond to the nude.

You can't really escape it.

One important twist on this came
in Renaissance Italy,

with the creation of what is now
another of the greatest hits

of the Uffizi,

a painting by Titian,

Venice's most celebrated
16th-century artist.

It's called the Venus of Urbino,

after its first known owner,
the Duke of Urbino.

Though there's no evidence
that either he or Titian actually

gave her the title, Venus.

In contrast to those ancient
statues, this lady looks

like she's definitely been
expecting us,

and though her pose
is familiar now,

this is one of the very first
reclining nudes in Western art.

But there's more to her than that.

In a way, she looks a bit
like a classical Greek nude

turned on her side.

In which case, that hand
is really in a gesture of modesty.

But quite a lot of people
have looked at this painting

and seen it as a bit less innocent
than that.

They've wondered if she wasn't
actually playing with herself.

Some critics have seen this
as a painting

celebrating a marriage,

which would make the naked woman an
idealised version

of the bride.

But, in that case,

isn't the hand still a problem?

Well, it isn't,

if it reflects popular 16th-century
scientific views

about fertility,

which claimed
that female orgasm aided conception

and so, the production of children.

But, for me, it's hard to forget
that this is a naked woman

painted by a male painter
for a male buyer

or commissioner.

You have to imagine him standing
here, meeting her gaze,

probably titillated
by whatever the hand is doing.

It's hard, really, not to see
this painting, like so many other

similar European nudes,

as one of a passive, naked woman

being the object of
an erotic male gaze.

But the idea of paintings like this
being the expression

of a male viewer's fantasy
raises another problem.

Where does it leave a female artist

or female viewer, like me?

Let me just say that I enjoy
this painting

in a slightly subversive way.

In MY fantasies,

I'm with this naked lady,

and we're both giggling

at those blokes who are leering
at us.

There is, though, an extra layer
of intriguing complexity here.

If it was male desire that fashioned
the female nude,

there have always been male artists

who recognised and satirised
exactly that.

In the 1770s,

one work by a very shrewd
German painter nailed it better

than anyone before or since.

Never mind its risky theme,

today, it's held at the heart
of the British establishment,

in the Royal Collection
at Windsor Castle.

But the scene it captures
is back in Italy,

in the Tribuna Of The Uffizi.

This is one of the cleverest
and funniest paintings ever painted

about what it is to look at art.

It's by Johann Zoffany

and he's sexed the Tribuna up a bit.

He's introduced a crowd,

mostly of visiting Brits.

As one later writer said,
"A flock of travelling boys."

Now, one of my favourite scenes
is this group here.

There's a young milord
carefully drawing

this erotic sculpture here.

This lad is looking
over his shoulder

to see what he's doing.

Behind him, a slightly older bloke

seems to me to be rather
enjoying rubbing himself

up against the lad's bottom.

But also, there's a very strong
sense that sexual desire

and sexual proclivity
is guiding their viewing.

Um, if you take this figure here,
Thomas Patch -

now, he was very well-known

to be addicted
to improper practices,

that's to say, he was gay.

Now, he's holding the Venus
of Urbino,

but he's not looking at her.

In fact, he's pointing to the hunk
of male flesh

in the wrestlers towards the back.

And if you go to the crowd of
paid-up heterosexuals

around the Venus de Medici,

you'll find that one is
examining her

really closely
with a magnifying glass,

and this group here are looking
straight up her bum.

Now, it can be no coincidence,
I think,

that although women were perfectly
allowed to go into the Tribuna,

Zoffany has painted
only male viewers here.

It's as if he's trying to give us,
quite literally,

an image of the male gaze.

Zoffany saw right through it,

that the art establishment
always tries to defend itself

from accusations of smuttiness.

Around now, English critics began
to distinguish

between the naked and the nude,
like they still do,

applying "nude" to the body in
painting and sculpture,

elevating it above the lewd world of
the naked -

that's you and me
without our clothes on.

But we come back again to women.

Where does all this leave a woman
who is not a model,

but an artist herself?

That was a predicament faced

by a rare professional female
Italian painter

in the 17th century.

Burghley House in Lincolnshire

is home to a lavish painting
collection,

amassed over the centuries

by several art-loving
and rich earls of Exeter,

including one work that encapsulates
the dilemma I'm talking about.

Of all the painted
flesh in this house,

and there is quite a lot of it,

this painting, for me, stands out.

It's one of the favourite biblical
scenes of the 16th and 17th century.

It's Susanna And The Elders.

The story is that she is a virtuous
married lady

who has gone into her private garden
to have a bath.

And she thinks she's alone,

but actually, these two creepy men

have come in to spy on her and they
insist that she has sex with them.

Now, she resolutely refuses,

even when they utter the most awful
threats.

And it ends up as a story of
virtue triumphant,

sexual virtue triumphant.

But what's particularly
interesting about this painting

is that it's painted by a woman -

in fact, by a woman who herself
had been raped,

Artemisia Gentileschi.

When she was just 17,

she was assaulted by her own
painting tutor

and her father's friend.

Now, that background really adds
something to this painting.

It is a painting by someone

who has been on the receiving end
of sexual violence.

Susanna herself looks terrified.

She's not just modestly
covering herself up.

She's clutching herself.

And the two men are
really, really menacing.

These horrible noses they have.

And what, for me, is striking

is you can't see their eyes,

because actually
they're leering her.

I think I challenge anyone not
to see

that we're being asked to face here
what sexual violence feels like

from the point of view
of its victim.

But there are always different ways
of seeing.

Whatever Gentileschi intended,

this ended up in one
of his lordship's bedrooms,

and I doubt anyone there

saw it as an advert
for sexual restraint.

And maybe, however important it is,

we're oversimplifying things

if we focus only on Gentileschi's
assault.

Gentileschi did at least three
versions of Susanna And The Elders -

one before she'd been raped,

this one just over ten years
later, and another later still.

She was a painter working on the
commercial art market.

She wanted to sell her stuff.

She wasn't in the business
of creating a visual diary

of her own personal trauma.

Now, I can't help but see
her rape in this figure,

but I do wonder if that perhaps says
more about me than about her.

Throughout her successful career,

Gentileschi put strong women
centre frame.

It was no doubt
an ideological choice,

but it was a practical one, too.

For centuries, male art students

were trained
in drawing naked models,

but women students were not allowed
to draw naked men.

One worry among many
was the terrible thought

that under all that female scrutiny,

a male model might get an erection.

Not so now.

Beyond art schools, life drawing
today

is even enjoyed by hen parties.

Would you like a beret?

Have a beret.
It'll suit your outfit.

Oh, blimey.

And one kindly let me join in.

I'm just going to start
by introducing our model.

This is Julian.

A rousing reception.

So, you're going to draw Julian
using just geometrical shapes.

Just to make it fun, OK? So, start.

He's got really good bum cheeks.

There's a perfect crescent there,
isn't it?

Do we get a rubber?

Yes, we get a rubber. Good.

His genitals on this ought
to be here.

But, it's under...

Yes. They're under his arm.

Oh, blimey.

Thank you ever so much for letting
us gate-crash your hen party.

I've never done anything
like this before,

but this kind of arrangement of, you
know,

a group of 12 of us women drawing a
naked man

is something that would
have been unthinkable.

Certainly in the 18th century,

you get, in many places,
not everywhere,

a complete ban on women being
allowed

to draw nude models in art schools.

And you get these wonderful accounts

of, you know, how women are no
good at drawing the human body.

Well, of course, they're no good
at drawing the human body,

cos no-one's ever let them try.

Today, the image of the
full-frontal naked man

can seem more challenging
than a naked woman.

For whatever reason,

and I'm tempted to say
it's about male insecurity,

it's male genitals that cross
the line

of what's allowed to be seen.

That wasn't always so.

The history of our male nude,
like the female,

starts in ancient Greece,

but it begins several hundred years
earlier.

And unlike the women,

the men originally don't appear
to have been controversial at all.

And they were everywhere.

Oh, it goes really well.

God, it's brilliant.

The Museum of Classical Archaeology
at Cambridge University

is an ideal place to explore
just what they meant.

And as I'm a member of staff,

they've let me take a few liberties
moving things around.

We're nearly there. Right.

I think that's perfect. Thank you,
guys. Thank you. Thank you.

I wanted to put these two together

to show you rather different
versions of the Greek male nude.

This one's the earlier one.

He's from the middle of
the sixth century BC.

This guy is about 100 years later,

the middle of the fifth century BC.

And, actually, this is a later copy.

Now, both of them in their different
ways are highly idealising.

Greek men didn't all look like this.

And indeed, this guy,

his musculature is actually
physically impossible.

What these are are images

of a kind of perfect version
of Greek masculinity.

In that context, it's quite
interesting

that the genitals
are noticeably small.

It might be idealising,

but idealising in Greek terms
didn't mean a big penis.

But what's really important is that,

unlike their female counterparts,

these guys don't need a defence
to be shown naked.

This is totally in-your-face,
Greek male nudity.

And then the question is,

given that we find these in their
thousands all over the Greek world,

what does all that acreage
of Greek naked male flesh,

what does it all actually mean?

Firstly, don't assume that there was
a culture of working out,

or that the gymnasia of
Ancient Greece

were packed with men like this.

What we're really dealing with here

is an idea of Greek male citizenship

seen both in terms
of bodily perfection,

but also moral and political virtue.

Now, we get a pointer to that
in a common Greek phrase

used to describe or compliment
the elite male.

You'd say that he was
kalos kai agathos,

that he was beautiful and good.

Good in the sense of moral
virtue,

but also political responsibility.

Now, what these sculptures are doing

is they're making that idea
of the kalos kai agathos visible.

They're bringing us face-to-face
with the combination

of the perfect citizen
as bodily beautiful

and morally,
and politically beautiful.

The ancient Greeks' relationship
with the male form

was very much
a product of their own culture,

but their sculptures hugely
influenced

later male nudes
from the Renaissance on.

One of the most popular now, come
sun or rain,

was made in Florence
in the early-16th century.

It was here that a pushy 29-year-old

sculpted a young giant killer
from the Old Testament

as he'd never been seen before.

Today, it's hard to imagine,

but when it was made, this statue
carried a dangerous charge.

There's never been a more showy

or bravura David
than Michelangelo's.

What we're looking at here
is actually a copy of the original,

but this one stands in exactly the
spot where Michelangelo's stood

for almost 400 years after it was
first put here in 1504.

This was the first colossal figure,
naked or clothed,

to be made
since the age of the Romans.

He's also very clearly in dialogue

with the nudes
of classical antiquity.

In a way, he's recreating
the connection

between the ideal male nude
and the ideal male citizen

in opposition to tyranny.

But times have changed
since the days of the ancients.

And now the male nude was
a much-rarer sight.

The influence of Christianity
had quite a lot to do with that.

And what's certain is that some
viewers

were not at all happy
about David's colossal genitalia.

The first day it was put up, for
example, it was stoned.

And within a few weeks of it
being here,

he'd had a modesty belt fitted.

A little chain of brass with
28 gilt bronze leaves

hanging from it
to cover up his genitals.

And for most of his history,

cover-up was the order of the day.

First, that elegant and, no doubt,
rather nickable belt,

and later, a single large fig leaf.

The fig leaf was for centuries,
and occasionally still is,

the method of choice for concealing
the genitals of men,

and sometimes women,
in sculptures and paintings.

That goes back to, or finds
an excuse in, religion,

specifically the Old Testament story
of Adam and Eve.

They had been living
in the Garden of Eden

in a state of innocent
and naked purity

until, that is,
they tasted the fruit

that is the apple from the Tree
of Knowledge.

And at that point, they became aware
and ashamed of their nakedness.

So they picked some fig leaves,

and sewed them together
into little aprons.

Artists tended to simplify a bit,
like Durer does here,

and instead of a whole apron
of fig leaves,

they'd use just one big one,

or something pretty similar.

The relationship between
Christianity and sex

has never been simple.

But in short, at various times
and places,

depending on how those in charge
interpreted the scriptures,

the church has made sexual desire
a sin.

And the fig leaf,
which, despite its reputation,

was never just a Victorian thing,

was used to hide
what shouldn't be seen

from most of us, who shouldn't see.

Fig leaves now seem a quaint relic
of past prudery.

And they've largely been stripped
away.

That's exactly what's been happening
in the Republic of Ireland

at Cork's Crawford Art Gallery.

Under the knife is a set of
plaster casts originally taken,

we think,
with their genitals intact,

from classical sculptures in Rome.

Given to Cork in the early 19th
century,

it's thought they proved too much
for the local guardians of morality,

who demanded fig leaves
for the protection of the people.

OK, so, I'm going to start gingerly
chiselling away,

delicately chiselling away
the plaster

attaching the fig leaf
to the sculpture.

Looks like a kind of a version
of dentistry, really.

A rather brutal dentist.

I'm not going to go to your dentist,
Mary.

Can I have a go? Sure.

Of course.
How am I going to do this?

Now...

God, this is quite exciting.

I shall be putting this on my CV,
you know?

You see, my hand is taut
with the nerves of it all.

I think I'm going to give it back
to you.

Very good. OK. Thank you.
Thank you.

I'm going to try and see
how firmly that's attached now.

Oh, gosh.
Is this the moment, then?

It could be.

So, here we go.

Are you ready, Mary?
I am ready.

It's coming.

Now...

Ah. Oh, that's relatively intact.

Yes, I mean, he's still got his
balls. He does.

But something has happened
to his penis here.

I reckon so.

A bit of limited castration gone on,
I think.

There's something really ironic

about these things that were sort
of meant to stop you seeing things,

but what it's doing is saying,

"Look at what you can't see.
Look at what you can't see."

Very counterproductive. I think so.

Fig leaves and their like
were mechanisms of control,

an attempt to police
who could see what.

But it was never that simple.

Artists have often painted subjects
who flaunt their virtue,

while at the same time
inciting illicit,

or at least naughty, thoughts.

At Dulwich Picture Gallery
in London, there's a particularly

provocative example.

A painting of Saint Sebastian
tortured by an arrow.

For centuries, the fear was
that images like this

would drive women wild.

There's a nice story from a church
in 16th century Rome,

where they have their own version
of Saint Sebastian,

by Fra Bartolomeo.

And there, the priests reported
that women were turning up

at confessional to fess up
to sinning at the very sight of it.

Now, whatever "sinning"
is a euphemism for -

and I expect we can all guess -

what's surprising for us
about that story is that it does

focus on women.

Because for the last century or so,
Sebastian has very much been

a gay male icon.

Saint Sebastian is not the first
gay nude in Western art.

There was a strongly homoerotic side
to classical Athenian culture.

And you only have to look at, say,
Donatello's David to be struck

by the sensuality of the male body.

But Sebastian was one of the first -
if not THE first -

modern male nude
who was repeatedly eroticised.

How this came about
isn't entirely clear.

I guess it's got something to do
with the connection you could draw

between this soft, sensual,
pierced male body,

and that distinctive Victorian
combination of decadence,

sadomasochism, and the love
of men for men.

And there was also the obvious
connection between the persecution

of the Christians and
the persecution of homosexuals.

And even now, the image of the
naked body of this saint

still holds huge cultural power.

In the hands of more recent artists,
the image of Sebastian has often

explicitly occupied a blurry space
where art meets erotica.

But it's not just a problem
with Sebastian.

That boundary has always
been debated.

Where does art end,
and pornography begin?

In Paris's Musee d'Orsay,

one work in particular challenges
that boundary.

Finished in 1866 by the radical
painter Gustave Courbet,

it's still so edgy that, almost
150 years later, a French teacher

had his account terminated
when he posted it on Facebook.

And it's easy to see why the social
media platform got its, well,

no-knickers in such a twist.

This is a full-on picture
of a woman's genitalia and bushy

pubic hair in an
almost-hyperrealistic style.

It's pretty in-your-face -
and made more so by the fact that

Courbet has cut-off her legs,
her arms, and her head.

This is woman as body,
not woman as person.

Now, for 100 years or so,
it was owned by a series of private

male collectors, including,
towards the end, by Jacques Lacan,

the French psychoanalyst, who wrote
a good deal about sexual desire.

What's even more interesting,
though, are all the little tactics

that are in play to keep this
picture on the right side of the

fuzzy boundary that separates
art from porn.

Its place in a major art gallery
is obviously one of those.

But so, too, is its title -
The Origin Of The World.

Now, we don't know exactly
when it got that title,

and it wasn't necessarily given
by Courbet, but just think

how differently we'd look at it
if it was called,

well, Jeannette's Pussy.

Meanwhile, one critic has called it
the "Mona Lisa of vaginas" -

apparently unaware that this
lady's vagina is well-hidden.

And the museum's own website says
that it is Courbet's virtuosity and

his delicate amber colour scheme,

that means this escapes
the classification of pornography.

To me, this skews things rather.

What I think this painting is doing
is exposing so many other

of those European nudes
for exactly what they are -

they're this, but in disguise.

It's an oversimplification to say
that the point of a nude

is to incite male passion.

But the idea that a work of art
could be an object of desire

goes back to the origin of the
Western nude itself.

Remember that poor lad
who made love to Praxiteles'

very first nude statue?

The ancient tale of Pygmalion
takes it a stage further.

It's been a popular subject for many
artists, but the 19th-century

Pre-Raphaelite painter
Edward Burne-Jones spins it out

over four separate paintings.

In the first one, you're seeing
this rather broody artist lost in

his own thoughts, certainly not
taking any notice of the real women

outside his door, or the sculpted
women in his studio.

In the second painting,
he's in the act of sculpting a nude

figure in marble.

But you can tell from the look
on his face that he's beginning

to fall in love with her.

In the next painting, Pygmalion
prays to the goddess Venus to come

and to make his statue into
a real human woman.

And that's exactly what she's doing.

And you can see the difference
in colour from the grey marble here,

to the fleshy tones here.

And in the last painting,
the boy does get the girl.

She's down off her pedestal,
and he is holding her hands.

Basically, it's a happy ending.

Now, there've been all kinds of
ways of interpreting this story.

For some, it is a celebration
of the absolute triumph of art

and artistic creativity.

Others see it as if, somehow,
the only thing that Pygmalion can

ever love is an object
of his own creation.

This is, kind of,
ultimately narcissism.

For me, it takes the idea
of the male gaze one step further.

It's not just that Pygmalion
is looking, desiring the woman.

Here, Pygmalion has created -
he has made her.

She only exists because of him.

And there's a joke that goes,

"This is not manufacture
that we're seeing here.

"It's woman-ufacture."

I'm torn here.

In a way, I do find myself
seduced by these paintings,

but at the same time,
I'm also put off

by what I think they're saying
about women.

There's no easy answer.

That is certainly what Manchester
Art Gallery discovered in the case

of one of its most popular works.

A 19th-century painting based on a
Greek myth in which a beautiful man

is lured to his death by
supposedly predatory water nymphs.

The Manchester Art Gallery has made
more headlines than normal today

by taking down a Victorian
painting which featured several

naked young women.

The response on social media and in
the gallery has been divided.

Some critics have accused the
gallery of jumping onto the

bandwagon of political correctness.

The painting in question is
Hylas And The Nymphs

by JW Waterhouse.

Its removal is part of a new art
project by the artist Sonia Boyce.

The takedown was part of a night
of disruptive interventions

devised by Boyce in response to the
gallery's 19th-century collection

and the views of people
who worked alongside it.

Back from its stay in the
storerooms -

never meant to be permanent -

Hylas And The Nymphs
is again on display.

And I met with Boyce herself
and curator Hannah Williamson

to ask how its removal
created such a furore.

Why pick on this painting
in particular?

Well, what happened - I was
coming up over a period of a year,

and each time I came to have a
discussion with members of staff,

volunteers, and we'd walk
through the various galleries,

and we would always end up here
in front of this painting.

And we kept returning to this
painting as being kind of symbolic

of some problems.

Symbolic, because...
I mean, they're not actually nude,

these girls, they're topless.

They're topless.

I think it's to do with the age
of the females.

I think that has been
the sticking block, really,

in that... They're girls,
aren't they? They're girls.

And because there are so many
breasts in view,

and that they're of
a very particular type.

And it kind of just says to me,

the female breasts are taken
for granted.

And... I mean, there's lots of them.

Just in this gallery,
there's loads of female breasts.

There's just, you know, a particular
concatenation of them here.

The questions it was raising
in my mind were...

...why are we giving people the
impression that this is a space

where it's normal for breasts
to be out?

And have we really thought
that through?

If the aim was to provoke debate,
then your intervention was...

...a fantastic success, wasn't it?

When the painting came down,
the public were encouraged to give

their reactions on Post-it notes.

And feelings ran very high.

I think there's some good ones here.
There are some good ones.

"Feminism gone mad."
"I'm ashamed to be a feminist."

"Absolutely insane."

Yeah. There were so many, we
couldn't get them all out at once,

so the others are in here.

Some of them are, you know,
the usual kind of -

"Hitler dictated what art
was suitable!

"Are going to burn books next?"

No. No, we're not.

Here, you have a comment saying,

"Waterhouse is my favourite artist -
not to be politicised!"

I mean, it goes back
to this question that I've had about

whether one steps out of
everydayness when one walks

into a museum.

So, you know, how often would
one see naked bodies,

except for coming into a gallery?

There really is a strange disconnect
in the West between the way

we've treated the naked body in
real life, and the way we've often

venerated it as artwork.

Of course, there are thousands
of wonderful representations

of the unclothed body in
other cultures all over the world.

But they don't play quite the same
strange, almost fetishized role

as the Western nude.

In the Horniman Museum in London,

there are a number of works that
help us get this into perspective.

And I was joined at a conservation
room here by Gus Casely-Hayford,

an expert in African art.

We are looking at one of the finest
examples of a southern Nigerian,

a Yoruba Epa headdress...
and it's glorious.

At its centre is this naked woman
who's holding, in one hand,

some kola nuts, and in the other,
a cockerel.

And this was actually worn on
somebody's head?

Yeah - it could be 120 pounds.

And then, it would be danced...
as well.

And so, you could imagine this
coming out of a forest

on a festival day, so that this
would appear as a kind of magical,

mystical figure -
with this right at its apex.

So, why is she naked?

Well, it's not about her nudity.

So, she has a child on her back.

And so, her having
her breasts bare -

that is about her being the mother

of a community,
the centre of a community.

So, if one looks at the figures
that surround,

they are men and women, and they are
carrying out all of the functions

that make this community work.

So, this is part of a societal
ritual, not a kind of male gaze?

Oh, absolutely! It's not sexual.
It's not prurient.

This is about, absolutely,
a celebration of community

through the female form.

But when Western artists come
across objects like this... Yes.

...in the beginning of the 20th
century, they really transform it

into something else.

I mean, the classic example of that
has got to be Picasso's

Demoiselles d'Avignon. Absolutely!

And you can't get a more important
single image,

in terms of the history
of modernism.

But the way in which it draws from
African art, the way in which it

casts women are deeply problematic.

Because he turns some of these
forms, which are non-sexualised,

into the image of the
highly-sexualised prostitutes.

They're sexualised
almost in a predatory way.

They're fairly frightening figures.

It's hard to imagine a kind of
representation that is further in

its significance from these
objects themselves. Exactly.

Which are all about community,
about continuity.

And they're not about the nude.
No, exactly.

The naked human has taken different
forms in cultures across the world.

And there are all sorts
of rewarding and complex stories

to be told about them.

But what they also do is expose
the bottom line

of so many Western nudes.

They show up their insistent
sexuality and a very elite

male way of looking.

Recently, we've seen women
push back,

and female artists directly engage
with this legacy

in all sorts of ways.

From swapping the reclining female
for the reclining male...

...to painting a naked woman
as she might see herself.

But for my money, one of
the most arresting attempts -

and one which explores the power
of the woman as object -

has been Jemima Stehli's.

Throughout her career,
Stehli has featured in her work

her own naked body.

But it was in 2000 that she made
the piece she's probably now

best known for.

She invited a selection of men in
the art world whom she already knew

to watch her taking her clothes off.

It was all photographed -

but only when the men chose
to activate the camera.

It is interesting how the poses
of the men are so very different.

That... the guy at the top -
he's altering his position,

he's kind of engaging with you.

But the middleman...
I mean, to me, looks terrified.

This is a curator, Matthew Higgs.

And I feel like he decided on a way
of managing this situation.

And I thought that was
kind of interesting, that he -

in relation to the others,
who respond and move around as if

they're feeling
slightly uncomfortable -

he's chosen clearly beforehand
not to do that.

But in the end,
it kind of looks more awkward.

But they're doing different things,
as well.

Like Adrian Searle - he's an artist,
you know, first of all.

And I think he took
the most interesting shots,

but then, he was really mortified
afterwards when he had this bit

of his leg showing above the sock!

So, he's got a naked woman in front
of him, and he's worried about

showing a little bit of leg? Yeah.

I mean, it seems to me, in some
of these pictures, seeing you

from behind in your stripper shoes,
you look quite vulnerable.

And you get that feeling that
the woman who's depicted naked

doesn't have the power -
except these are your photographs,

even if they're taken by those guys.

I mean, the point is, to me,
is that nobody is in control,

so that the woman can be powerful
and sexual, and objectify herself...

...and still be interesting,
intellectual, all the other things

that she also wants to be.

I was at art school in the '80s,
and that was a time when the debate

around feminism was very
black-and-white.

And I always felt like I was a
feminist, but I really wasn't

happy with that simplification.

And especially, also, the idea
of demonising men, for instance.

What did they say afterwards?

I think after each time...

...both me and the...whoever it was
just wanted to say "bye" and go.

I mean, there's obviously big,
serious issues here.

But, you know, I'm also tempted to
say, can we take this playfully?

It's just, you know...

I think when I first thought of it,
I woke up in the morning,

I was like, you know, I was
kind of like, "Mm, interesting."

And I think also, that's one of the
reasons why it's had some quite

negative responses as well, because
it's playing those kind of games.

What did people object to?

Well, one thing that was
often asked was,

"Would you do it if you didn't
have a body like this?"

And that was sort of an impossible
question to answer,

because I think...

...probably I made the work because
of having a body that fitted in

with a, kind of, desirous shape,
and feeling like,

"How could I be myself
as a woman the way I am,

"and be taken seriously?"

When, 2,500 years ago,
the sculptor Praxiteles

made that first naked goddess,
he could never have known

that he was bequeathing to the West
a really very weird tradition

that has been enjoyed, manipulated,
debated, and deplored ever since.

And giving it the title "art"
helps us to enjoy it,

and sometimes obscures
what's driving it.

A cover-up, you might say.

The point is not really, though,
about how much flesh is revealed,

or which bits of it.

It's not just about prudery
or permissiveness.

For me, the all-important questions
are how we look at the nude,

who looks at it, and why?

And then, you can't escape other
questions about sex, gender,

and the power of desire.

And those put all of us on the spot.

I, for one, can never be quite sure
whether I want to take that painting

of Hylas And The Nymphs down
or put it back up again,

whether I'm with those guys
peering up the statue's bum,

or whether it's my bum
they're peering up.

And it's those difficult questions
about oneself

that are the real shock of the nude.

Next time - I go beyond the
body beautiful,

looking at the vast range
of naked bodies in Western art

that often go under our radar...

...revealing a great deal more
than you might have seen before...

...and that includes of myself.

This is Body Worlds in
central London.

A display of corpses skinned
and preserved,

then posed to show the inner
workings of the human body.

You might not call it "art,"
but these figures give a sense

of what I'll be doing
over the next hour.

I'm going to be peeling back
the skin to find a glimpse of some

deeper truths about being human,

and some uncomfortable ones.

Just occasionally, I shall be
finding body bits in some

frankly surprising places.

I have to warn you -
it's not always a pretty sight.

When we talk of the tradition of
the nude in Western art,

we often think of images
of the young, perfect,

and conventionally desirable.

But I'm interested in the long
history of naked bodies

that overturn that idea.

Nudes that try and fathom some
of the most difficult but

fundamental issues about who we are.

Nudes that challenge us to
confront mortality.

To ask, "Who's been left out?"

We still don't see lots of images
around the black male body

by black queer artists.

I actually don't think that
there's enough images of

the nude body, period.

To see why the nude matters.

People come up to me at the end of
sessions and say to me, you know,

"That's the first time I've seen
a trans body outside of porn."

And how we think about
being young... and getting older.

I mean, when I say I like that one,
I kind of wonder whether, actually,

that face looks like me when I'm 20.

And so, I feel quite
conflicted here.

This is, in a sense, an alternative
story of the nude,

exploring all sorts of versions
of the naked body.

And it's one that's never been
more relevant or contentious.

It's about a lot more
than mere flesh.

It's about what the nude can
tell us about the complexities

of being human.

Ceremony by New Order

A 12-tonne marble statue of a naked
and heavily-pregnant disabled artist

has joined Lord Nelson and other
military heroes

in London's Trafalgar Square.

Well, over my shoulder,
you can see the new artwork,

Alison Lapper Pregnant.

When this statue by the artist
Marc Quinn was unveiled in 2005,

it shattered many people's idea
of the classical nude,

the so-called ideal human form.

You stare at it slightly aghast.
Then you turn away.

Then your eyes are drawn back,
creeping back to look at it

with a gruesome fascination.

I love it, and I think the
sculpture is brilliant.

And it's so inspired.

So, how had this boundary-breaking
work come about?

This is the original work.

I'd originally made some sculptures
of disabled people after going round

the Louvre and the British Museum,
and looking at everyone

cooing and ahh-ing about
the fragmented classical statues.

You know, people look at
the Venus de Milo, people saying,

"It's so beautiful."

You know, girls standing in front
of it to be almost measured up

next to it, having their photograph
taken next to it.

Then I thought, "If someone whose
real body was shaped like that

"suddenly appeared in the room,
people probably wouldn't know how to

"react to that person."

Because if you look at the
tradition of the European nude,

the Western nude, it's...
There are all kinds of people who

don't get a look-in. Yeah.

And in fact, when I started to think
about the idea of making this series

of work, I looked for images
of disabled people in art,

and they're usually pejorative.
Yeah.

They're not flattering, they're not
treating the person with dignity.

And did people get the sense
that there's a... kind of slightly

edgy conversation going on here
with the classical nude?

I don't know how many people did,
but one of the things I like

is to bring reality into art.

And the one area you could think
you'd never bring reality

into is marble nude statuary.

Yeah, it's terribly,
terribly contrived.

It's very abstract, really.

It might be subversive, but in
some ways, Alison Lapper Pregnant

is still a version of a
conventional classical statue.

But other works by Quinn go further,

literally turning the nude
inside-out.

Monumentalising embryos
in the womb.

What we're seeing here...

Well, it's sort of what we're not
meant to see. Yes.

Except now... we do. We do. Scans.

It's almost a nude becoming,
isn't it? Yeah.

It's - in a way, it's the ultimate
sculpture in the world.

It's a creation of a human being.

And this is what, in some ways,
the artist cannot do. Exactly.

You know? I'll never be able to
make one as good as that. Yeah.

And when you see early foetuses and
you realise that we've all looked

like that, how can anyone say
that anyone else looks weird?

So, your job is to remind us...
Exactly.

...of our...weirdness?
Inherent weirdness.

Inherent weirdness.

But it's not only contemporary art
that challenges us to reflect on

real, rather than idealised, bodies.

In the classical world, the body
bruised and battered was the

inspiration for the exceptional
sculpture of this boxer

resting after a fray.

More recently, there's one anguished
figure in European culture who's

shaped Western thinking about
the body, and who's made it

a lot more complicated.

Someone who's hiding in plain sight
in any number of galleries

or Christian places of worship.

It's Jesus Christ.

We probably find him pictured naked
or nearly naked more often

than anyone else.

But we don't actually talk
about him,

we don't see him as nude.

But I think we really should.

When artists have imagined the naked
Jesus, they've done more than simply

illustrate Bible stories.

They've explored some almost
impossibly difficult theology about

the human and divine body.

And there's no better place to get
the measure of that

than in some prints and drawings
now at the British Museum.

I discussed them with former
director Neil MacGregor,

starting with a particularly
arresting - and for some,

no doubt shocking - one.

This is one of the most
extraordinary images.

This is Christ after he's been
brought down from the cross,

he's dead.

You can see the wounds on the hands.

So, it's the dead Christ, but his
loincloth is gathered in a way

that looks as though he has
an erection.

It would be possible for a sceptic -

I mean, I think wrong, but possible
- to say, "Oh, well.

"The loincloth's just got a bit
gathered-up, a bit tangled".

Some tangle, one would have to say.

You'd have noticed what you'd drawn.
I think so. I think so. Yes.

And that's, of course,
absolutely the point of this image.

Because it's not just showing
that Christ was fully man,

as well as fully God.

It's the fact that this death
will generate new life.

It's to assuage the sceptic that
I went in and picked this one out...

...where I think you can't deny the
stress on the genitalia of Jesus.

Absolutely.

Here, you have the Virgin Mary
holding Jesus Christ.

And his grandmother, Saint Anne,
is pointing out to us, the viewer,

that this is a boy.

Jesus is both fully God,
but fully male -

and that means fully sexually male.

Neil, here you've got two real,
real gems for us.

These are two of the most
valuable drawings -

not just in the British Museum,
but in the world.

They're both by Michelangelo.

And on the left is the study
he makes around 1511

for the figure of Adam on
the Sistine ceiling.

That moment, when God makes
man in his own image,

is the ideal body.

And on the other side,
Michelangelo's late drawing

of Christ on the cross with
the Virgin Mary and Saint John.

This is made about 40 years later.

And the quality of the drawing is
directly matched to the content.

This is the perfect body.

And only Michelangelo, I think,
is able to find expression

in the muscles of the abdomen.

Everybody else wants to put it in
the hands, in the face.

But the body, for Michelangelo,
can carry all that.

Then, look at the later drawing.

Everything about the technique
speaks to the fact that this is

a world dissolving. Yeah.

Dissolving in pain, in grief,
and in bewildered guilt.

"What did we do?
How could we have avoided this?"

So, in a way...

...Christianity is kind of
unthinkable without the naked body

at the centre of it?

You can't - you can't have it.

The body - and the suffering body -
is right at the heart of Western

thinking for 1,000 years.

And so it is that the tortured form
of Jesus has been one of the most

common subjects in Western art.

Painters took up the challenge of
interpreting Christ's mystifying

body - both human and divine -
in different ways,

in different times,
and in different contexts.

In London, around 1800,
one group of artists -

driven partly by contemporary
scientific inquiry -

were determined to make the body
of Jesus as realistic as possible,

and were intent on understanding
how the interior could inform the

portrayal of the outside... with
disturbing results.

Today, this crucified body at the
Royal Academy of Art hangs as one

of a trio of works - all created
in the pursuit of authenticity.

What we see here is actually three
corpses... that have been skinned,

they've been flayed, and then,
they've been cast in plaster

to reveal the structure of the body
underneath the surface.

Their backstories are really
chilling, actually, particularly

the figure in the crucifixion.

He was a criminal by the name
of James Legg,

who was executed in 1801.

And while he was still warm,
they cut him down and they nailed

him to a cross so that his body
would fall as it naturally would

in a crucifixion.

And the other two are also
executed criminals.

They weren't originally intended
to be on public display.

They were intended for the
training of art students here.

Now, for us, they're very hard,
uncomfortably hard to place -

a bit like the bodies in Body
Worlds.

They stand rather awkwardly
on the boundaries between art,

science, and sadism.

And they're still on the borderline
here in the academy.

They're not in the main galleries.

They're displayed
in a connecting corridor.

It's as if they're still
neither one thing, nor the other.

In Bologna, in Italy, there's
another object on that borderline,

which goes out of its way to ape
the canon of Western art

with an even more disturbing effect.

The university museum houses
a very weird woman -

designed in part to give an
18th-century twist to the famous

female nudes of classical antiquity.

She was known as an
"anatomical Venus."

She's one of a series of wax models
that were used in anatomy classes

to demonstrate the internal
structure of the body,

and how the organs fitted together.

And I think what you have to imagine
is that she would be lying on

this bed, looking kind of perfect.

She's got a nice little set of
pearls, she's got a rather sleepy,

almost ecstatic expression
on her face,

long, brown hair,
and actually even pubic hair.

And the instructor would come along
and would remove, in a slightly

sadistic way, the breasts and
the chest, and the belly to reveal

what was inside.

And interestingly,
there's a uterus with a foetus in -

showing us very clearly what the
18th century thought women were for.

Now, seeing her for the first time,
I'm struck much more than I thought

I would be by the visceral messiness
of the internal organs.

It's kind of hard to put out of my
mind the thought that I've come

across a rather nasty crime scene.

Probably our first instinct when we
look at this is to see in it a

slightly odd, slightly distasteful,
and certainly morbid corner

of 18th-century culture.

But we shouldn't be so sure.

When an artist now like Damien Hirst
makes the statue of a man

in which his heart, lungs,
and intestines are clearly visible,

or when Marc Quinn makes a head
out of blood,

they're not making a model for an
anatomy class, that's for sure.

But they are exploring the big
question that is posed and,

in a way, answered by this waxwork.

How do we understand the difference
between the body that we see

and what lies inside?

Many artists, in exploring what
it means to be human,

have honed in on the tension
between the body's outer form

and its inner structure.

But one painter in the early-19th
century used the image of

the ravaged body to focus on
the agonised line

between life and death.

And to suggest that barbarism may
always lie beneath what we like

to think of as civilisation.

He was Theodore Gericault,
and his vast canvas -

now in the Louvre - was inspired
by the true and tragic aftermath

of a shipwreck in 1816,

when the French frigate Medusa ran
aground off the West African coast.

The story was that 150 survivors
were cast adrift on a makeshift raft

with hardly any supplies.

Only ten lived to be rescued.

What had kept them alive
was cannibalism.

It's a moment towards the end of
that ordeal that Theodore Gericault

catches in this picture.

You can see the pallid corpses
trailing in the water.

They haven't been thrown overboard,
because, of course,

they're going to be eaten.

And over on the right-hand side,
there's the telltale axe,

which is going to be used to hack
the bodies to pieces.

Gericault's pushing at
the boundaries of the nude.

These dead bodies are not just dead,
they are...

...dead, beginning to decompose,
and about to be cannibalised.

People said that if you visited
Gericault's studio,

it felt a bit like a morgue,
cos he had body parts there to copy.

But there's something else which
is really striking, and which was

controversial when this picture
was first put on show in 1819.

The figure who sits on top
of that pyramid of human bodies,

who's waving to try to catch the
attention of a ship who might

rescue them on the horizon, the only
figure of hope in this old picture -

that man's black.

It's rare to find naked -
or even partially naked -

black bodies starring in Western art
before the mid-20th century.

Most white viewers could not or
refused to see the common humanity

beneath the black skin.

So, black men and women were usually
either dehumanised,

treated as scientific specimens -

like South African Sarah Baartman,
also appallingly nicknamed

the Hottentot Venus.

Or they were exoticized, cast as
bit players in romantic fantasies

of the decadent East...

...in a style now often called
Orientalism.

So, Gericault's choice in 1818 to
place a black man heroically

centre-frame was bold.

I went to have my own private
seminar with Denise Murrell,

who's researched black models
in Western art.

What do we know about the black
figure who's waving at the top

of that pyramid of bodies?

Well, we know his name is Joseph.

He may have been born in France,
but definitely

of French Caribbean origin.

He was known to be a very
interesting personality.

He had a strong interest in music,
and he took a very professional

approach to his modelling.

And he is portrayed in a heroic way.

Gericault was known to be
an abolitionist.

And he deliberately placed this
black figure as the last, best hope

for everybody on
that slowly-sinking raft.

What other images does
Joseph appear in?

This particular study was
commissioned by the great

French portraitist Ingres.

And he was working on a
large history painting,

or a biblical scene.

And he actually wrote in
his instructions that the Devil

was to be portrayed by a black man.

He chose one of his best students,
Chasseriau, to make this study.

Chasseriau was of mixed racial
heritage, a descendant from an

enslaved Haitian mother.

And Ingres specified that he was not
to be told what the purpose was.

So... He was not to be told that...

...that he was to portray
a black man as the Devil.

And so, what comes down to us
in history is this

gorgeously-rendered, classicised,
non-stereotyped portrayal of a black

male figure by an artist of colour.

Which, at that particular moment
in history, was probably unique.

It was many years before more
Western artists began to cast nude

black figures in a fashion
traditionally associated with

white men and women,

and to put people of colour in
the foreground.

So, while, in the 19th century,
Edouard Manet famously painted the

high-end prostitute Olympia,
attended to by her black maid -

in the 20th, artists swapped
the boss for her servant,

and showed the black woman occupying
the couch, displaying her sexuality

on her own terms.

Romare Bearden,
who was African-American,

is taking this black female figure
from the position of servitude

to being the sole focal point
of interest.

Not as the servant, but as the nude!
Yes, as the nude.

And he is surrounding the black nude
not by scenes of a brothel,

but by a patchwork quilt to evoke

the African-American
popular culture.

This image is one that you
just... you couldn't possibly begin

to understand, unless you put it
back into the context

of Manet's Olympia.
Oh, absolutely.

It's as if Bearden is saying,
"I really like what you do, Manet.

"But I can take it somewhere you
never thought of." That's right.

The empowered, nude black body is a
relative newcomer in Western art.

But there's another kind of person
that's been kept out of the picture.

And that's anyone like me.

When I walk through public parks
in Paris, I see sculptures that are

not just different from me,
but ones I could never in my wildest

fantasies imagine myself to be like.

In my 20s, I might have regarded
this sort of work as a tediously

idealised version of myself and
other young women I knew.

But now, in my mid-60s,

the absence of the older woman's
body in art seems stark.

When artists throughout history
portrayed naked old men,

they sometimes did so with sympathy.

But whenever an old woman revealed
any flesh, she was almost always

a figure on which to project
deep-rooted prejudice.

The late-19th-century sculptor
Auguste Rodin might seem to be

an exception to that.

He's known for his nudes
in the prime of life.

But I'm here to
see his interpretation

of an elderly female body...

...and to ask,
"What's really going on with it?"

Seems to me that this sculpture
is OF an old woman,

but not really ABOUT her.

Sure, she's got a decrepit body,
she's got sunken breasts

and a saggy belly.

And the only positive bit of it,
that very inhabited, old face -

something you can barely see,
as it's pointing down.

Well, Rodin did several versions
and variations of this figure.

But it's the titles that are
often given to those pieces

that so strongly suggest
how we should be reading them.

This one is often called

She Who Once Was The Helmet
Maker's Beautiful Wife.

It's taken from a 15th-century poem.

But there's also Dried-Up Springs,
The Old Courtesan,

or Winter - coming after
Spring, Summer, and Autumn.

I think what those titles are
telling us is that we should be

looking for the young, attractive,
vibrant woman that this

decrepit, old body once was.

We're looking through it
to an earlier time,

the time she's lost.

Now, Rodin isn't by any means alone.

That's a common theme in the
history of mainstream Western art.

But it does mean that within
mainstream tradition,

there's really no space left for
a work of art that depicts

an old woman in her own terms.

Some modern artists
have embraced this challenge.

But I'm still looking for a
naked portrait of an older woman

who looks like I feel.

Hey, Mary. Hi. Great to see you.
Hi - and you.

Catherine Goodman is co-founder
of the Royal Drawing School,

a recipient of the National Portrait
Gallery Portrait Award,

and an expert life-drawer.

And she very kindly agreed
to capture me starkers on paper.

I'm not, like, an actual life model.

In making this programme, I felt
very strongly that I didn't want

to come over as a elderly
academic lady...

...never putting herself
in the position of the people

that she's talking about.

But I do feel a bit
apprehensive about this.

I think, "Oh, hope I don't look
too fat," you know?

It's a terribly kind of... well,
adolescent vanity, really. Yeah.

I mean, when you draw other people,
do you find that they start out

being very apprehensive?

Some people like the gaze of
another person. Yeah.

In a way, it's quite a nice
opportunity just be able to

be ourselves for a short while,
you know? Yeah.

I'm sure there are going to be
some people watching this who are

going to be saying to themselves,

"Did she have to? Couldn't she
just have kept her clothes on?"

I'm sure. "You know, that would've
been so much better."

You know, whereas I feel quite, sort
of, slightly brave about doing this.

Yeah. Yeah. Let's go in.

Shall we go and get this started?
Yeah.

I sat for Catherine three times.

And on my final visit,
I was just a little nervous

when the camera joined us.

Are you OK there?

I'm... very comfy.

I like the way you always do that
with your hand, Mary.

I kind of put it in my mouth?
Yeah, yeah.

Nearly finished. Gosh.

Well, I hope you're not going to be
too horrified by the drawings.

It's funny, not having seen anything
that you've done.

Yeah... exactly. Of me, I mean.
Exactly. That's funny.

Because... I've never looked at how
somebody else sees me. Yeah.

Which is really what it is,
isn't it?

OK. I think that's it.

Is this the moment
when I can have a look at it?

Yeah, you can.

Come and have a look. All right.

Oh, wow!

Wow.

Do you - what - I...
Bit of a shock?

Well, I just think...

...I thought I'd be a bit horrified
by them, and I'm not remotely

horrified by them. Oh, good.

And I think that, you know,
the fleshy, over-60s bits... Yeah.

...kind of work fine.

I don't - it's like, I look at
myself, and I don't think,

"Oh, God, she should lose a bit of
weight," I think, "That's me."

Yeah. Good.

And, you know, to some extent...
I feel happy with it. Oh, good.

I actually feel happy! Yeah, yeah.

That first one of you asleep...

...looks very, kind of,
strange and vulnerable.

I noticed that I wasn't much
looking at you. Mm.

You know, we were chatting quite
a lot, but I wasn't looking.

And I thought - when I saw you
looking at me, I thought you were

actually trying to work out, you
know, how to do my tits, basically.

Hmm.

I'm trying to work out how to make
a good drawing, actually.

So, Mary, tell me which one
particularly do you relate to best?

I... have to say, I think the one
with a beer bottle is the one that I

kind of... most relate to.
Most relate to?

I mean... I wonder how much
I'm kidding myself, because...

...I mean, when I say I like that
one, I kind of wonder whether,

actually, that face looks like me
when I'm 20. Hmm.

So, I feel quite conflicted here,
because I'm wanting to see

old Beard here.

But I suspect my motives
for liking that one so much.

Today, we've become used to
the idea that a successful nude -

like any portrait - should give
an insight into the inner self.

And in Britain over the
last century,

artists from Stanley Spencer to
Tracey Emin have done just that...

...bringing to the surface something
of the subject's hidden psychology.

One of the earliest artists to
infuse the skin with the anxieties

and insecurities of the subconscious
was a young Austrian

in the early 20th century...

...working in Vienna around the time
of the father of psychoanalysis,

Sigmund Freud.

His name was Egon Schiele.

Schiele has been one of the most
tragic victims of our modern

fondness for explaining art as the
agony of the artist genius.

And in his case, I guess it's easy
to see why that's so.

This self-portrait, for example,
shows him slightly desiccated,

truncated in a kind of tortured
pose with a fearful face.

And this really does look like
pain inscribed in painting.

There's also the sense that he was
a genius who was unrecognised

in his time, you know,
he was shunned by the art world.

Now, it's true that he didn't go
down well everywhere.

And even for my taste, there's a bit
too much masturbation around here.

And there are self-portraits
by Schiele himself where

he is enthusiastically wanking.

Really more important, I think,
is a bigger intellectual argument

that Schiele is trying to make
about the naked body,

how it's represented,
and what it means.

Schiele painted his own body
again and again

in an act of repeated
self-reflection.

Almost universally in
Schiele's nudes,

the figures are quite isolated.

They're not part of a story,
they're not part of a social world.

We are meant to focus on them
as body.

And we're not particularly being
asked to look at the face.

That's not the giveaway.

It's the nude flesh.

And here, for example, we have
to puzzle about that hand,

which actually looks like
hand-as-penis.

We don't actually know if Schiele
had studied Freud,

but the questions he's raising here
are what, in general terms,

we'd now call Freudian.

And they're the kind of questions
that artists have raised ever since.

That's to say his project is
to make the interior exterior.

In pursuit of psychological truths.
Schiele rejected artistic

conventions of beauty and modesty.

Around 50 years later,
another artist -

the grandson of Sigmund Freud,
in fact - made a similar choice,

pursuing honesty of a
different sort.

A near obsessive commitment to
revealing the body in

uncompromising, fleshy,
and forensic detail.

Lucian Freud scrutinised,
in his words, the "human animal."

Famously demanding many months
of sittings to complete

a single painting.

But he could put his subjects
under other pressures too.

His female nudes may not be
conventional illustrations

of the desirable body...

...but his mix of art and sex
has long been talked about.

He slept with a number of his
models, one of whom has spoken

openly of his predatoriness.

And he had at least 14 children.

Cozette McCreery sat for the artist
in 2003 when Freud was 80,

and she was in her mid-30s.

An old friend of one of his
daughters, by then she'd known him

for over 20 years.

But she was still not entirely sure
what she was letting herself in for.

In your mind, of course,
you kind of want to look your best.

So, of course, you know, you're sort
of lying there like some sort of

Olympia kind of thing with a
very flat stomach.

And he was saying, "No, sit, like,
sit how you would normally sit."

And then, the sort of rolls
of flesh start.

I always felt very much like he
brought me into the process.

On the painting, there's, like,
a stabbed pillow,

and there's these cherries that
he'd always wanted to paint.

And he actually talked to me
about that and said,

"What do you think?"

And what did you feel about it?
Did you like it?

Erm... did I...?

That's an interesting question.

When he first started
painting my face,

an art critic called Bill Feaver had
been in, and he actually remarked,

"He's painted you as pretty
as you are."

And it was like Lucian had
had an electric shock.

The next day I came for a sitting,
I looked at it and I was like,

"What have you done to my mouth?"

And he'd made my mouth very crooked.

I still - I have a slight slope
on one eye.

And that had been exaggerated.

And he just went,
"I only paint what I see."

And I was like, "Ech, well,
I see Sylvester Stallone, so..."

You must've known something about
Freud's reputation as well?

Sexual predator, you might say.

I mean, basically... did he try to
seduce you?

It, of course, was part of the,
sort of, the myth of Lucien.

And definitely, that was in my
mind whether or not he -

to quote you - ever, you know,
tried to seduce me.

It never... it never came about.

I mean, he was very intense.

And there was definitely this
animal magnetism about him.

In a lot of ways,
I think he played up on that.

But I realised that, actually,
quite a lot of that was to do with

the fact that when he engaged
with you, when he looked at you,

there was - he was completely
focused on you.

I mean, maybe I'm kidding myself
that there wasn't anything sort of

sexual about it.

Yeah, it was quite -
it was quite an odd dynamic.

Cozette's is only one account.

And every model has his or
her own story.

As I suppose I myself found,
modelling is an act of trust.

And for some, it comes with a
risk of exploitation.

It's a concern magnified when
the naked model is not an adult,

but a child.

This is very much
a contemporary anxiety.

In the 19th and early-20th
centuries, unclothed boys

enjoying the great outdoors were
a popular subject.

And some artists took photographs
of semi-clad young girls too.

But today, our own awareness of the
sexual abuse of children means

it's hard not to see something
disturbing in works of this kind.

When images of naked children
present a more complex view of

childhood, the challenges magnify.

In the early-1990s, the American
photographer Sally Mann

faced criticism when she exhibited
pictures and published a book

showing her three young children
naked or semi-clad

around their home in rural Virginia.

This was before
the age of the internet -

so also, before the age of anxiety
about how images of children

could be spread.

But even at the time, critics
denounced some of the works as

"exploitative" and "pornographic."

The collection was hugely
controversial, even though only

about a quarter of the photographs
showed children with no clothes on.

Most of the album was really a
meditation on the visual impact

of kids in different themes.

There were kids wetting the bed,
kids with cuts,

kids with spots, children with
their elderly relatives.

And you get an insight into the
strange texture of the child's body.

I think one of my favourite
photographs is a pair of kids' legs

covered in dried-up flour paste,
almost making the children's legs

look as if they were the legs
of an old person.

I suppose I can see why these naked
photographs might have

been shocking, if you took them
on their own.

A lot of them -
the children seem very knowing.

These aren't kids caught unawares.

They're modelling or posing.

And that puts the viewer in
an awkward position.

You know, have we just come across
somebody's family album here,

or are we being asked to think of
these kids as objects of desire?

And that, of course, is underlined
by the fact that in modern culture,

photography is the prime medium
of pornography.

But begin - you think,
"Well, why shouldn't I enjoy the

"images of children's bodies, and
the beauty of children's bodies?"

Mann let her children veto
any image they did not want shown.

And as adults, they've never
claimed they were exploited.

But not every artist who uses their
own child's body for inspiration

does so innocently.

And that forces us to question
how we then should treat their work.

Eric Gill was an acclaimed sculptor,
typeface designer, and print maker.

His naked version of Ariel
from Shakespeare's Tempest stands

above the entrance to the
BBC's Broadcasting House.

He was also a child-abuser,
raping his two daughters,

Betty and Petra,
when they were young teenagers.

And for that reason, some people
have argued his art should be

removed from public view.

In 2017, when Ditchling Museum
of Art + Craft in Sussex,

once home to Gill's artistic
community, staged an exhibition

of his work, they included
engravings of Petra naked.

And they openly addressed
these issues, asking the question,

"Can we separate the biography of an
artist from the work they produced?"

The sculptor Cathie Pilkington,
who co-curated the show,

thought very, very hard about how
to weigh up the abuse she deplored

versus the art she admired.

One of her ideas was to create
a set of new works,

responding to a wooden doll Gill
had once made for Petra.

And it's a very strange and
potent object.

It's quite ugly as a doll.

I think it's recorded that Petra
really didn't like the doll.

And if I just turn it round, you can
see it's got a very thick neck.

And my immediate response to it
was that it looked...

very like a penis, actually.

I think what's most disturbing about
this is that, really, the only bit

of detail that you get on it is
the genitals. That's right.

When I look at the engravings
he did - what should I do, really,

about my knowledge of his biography?

Yeah, I think a lot of people have
problems with these images because

of the time that they were made -
around the time that Gill

was abusing Petra.

And when he wrote about the abuse,
you know, it's as if he is

conducting an experiment.

Like, this, sort of, odd remove
that he has, as well.

That's the chilling bit, I think.
Yes.

But when we were approaching the
show, I was looking at it as

a practitioner, as a sculptor, as a
woman, as a mother,

and taking all those things into
consideration, but actually saying,

when somebody projects onto
this bathing image,

"Look, she's turning away,
she couldn't look him in the eye,"

I say, "No, he was really interested
in the hair, how the hair falls".

And if there was a face on there,
there would be too much information.

He wanted to look formally
at the beautiful hair.

Do you think there's anything in
there that you'd find unsettling?

No, I really don't.

I really don't.

I... no, I think they're
beautiful images.

You could think about Degas,
Le Tub, couldn't you,

when you look at this?

And you know, I have a daughter,
and I have used her many times

as my model.

Right from when she was born,
I've used her in my work and looked

at her and been fascinated by her
body, by her growth, by her form.

And that is completely normal
and natural for a sculptor.

There are quite a lot of people who
would say we simply should not

show any of Gill's work now,
that you don't display the work

of a paedophile.

So, we'd take this famous statue of
Ariel down from the BBC building.

Yeah, well, where do you
begin and end, once you start

having those conversations?

You know, once you start
removing Gill's work.

It... there's no way to go, is there?

What could we be left with?
Who stands morally pure?

And why should an artist be morally
pure for their work to be fantastic?

Gill is an extreme and
particularly awful example.

But I think Pilkington is actually
bravely facing some of the big

dilemmas about art and morality,
and how we judge art from the past.

Recently, the way artists such as
Pablo Picasso and Paul Gauguin

treated some of the women in
their lives has

been forcefully criticised.

And by today's standards, Schiele's
behaviour around young women

probably crossed a line too.

And though we know that there
have always been questions

about artists' morals,

we have very little idea about
exactly what most of those great

artists before the 19th century
got up to.

There's a long history to these
debates, and I'm pretty sure that

anyone who claims to know what
they think needs to think again.

Last Living Souls by Gorillaz

There's one more discussion
we're right in the middle of

that I think will also impact on
the future of the nude.

And it's about gender.

In the last few decades, we've come
to understand more clearly the

tension between how someone might
appear to the world,

and who they feel themselves to be -
man, woman, or both.

But these conversations are not
as new as you might think.

As I've often found,
the ancients got there first.

Witness this piece of Roman art
at the Louvre.

This is one of my favourite pieces
of ancient sculpture.

You come up to her from this side,
and you see this

gorgeous sleeping woman.

And the temptation to, sort of,
touch her is almost irresistible,

and you can't resist just... taking
a step round her.

It's one of those pieces where,
actually, it turns out,

you only get the point if you get
to the other side.

That's why I like it so much.

Because when we get to the
other side, there's a surprise.

Now you see...

...both breasts and a penis.

Now, they're not the only figure
in the ancient world to do this.

In the centuries after that first
female nude Aphrodite

in the fourth century BC, there are
a number of these hermaphrodites,

they were called,
in sculpture and in paint.

And it's been puzzling to people
what they really mean.

Some people think it's a, kind of,
rich man's dinner party joke.

You bring your guests round here
and they get a surprise, ha-ha.

Er, other people think that
there's a, sort of, outing of the

male gaze going on here.

You come up, you see this
luscious object.

When you come round here, you find
they're a bit more complicated.

But I can't help thinking that there
are bigger questions here too,

that 2,000 years ago...

...the ancients are asking what it
is that genitalia have to do

with gender identity?

What does it mean to be
a man or a woman?

And, in fact, can you be both?

Huarache Lights by Hot Chip

Those questions are still
all questions.

As more people identify
as neither male nor female,

but non-binary - or instead,
reject the gender they were assigned

at birth and transition to
a new one.

And in a society moving to embrace
a more fluid idea of gender

and sexuality, art has
a significant role to play.

Jared, can I ask you how you got
into being a trans life model?

Yeah, so, it was a couple of
different reasons.

Partly for the money.

That was helpful. OK.

Partly because as an artist myself,
I wanted to see what it was like

from the model's experience to
be drawn nude in a room

full of clothed artists.

And partly because I wanted to
increase the diversity of the models

available at the class.

My first experience, I thought,
you know, a lot of people there

didn't necessarily know I was trans.

So, I was kind of expecting,
as soon as the robe dropped,

for them to scream or start shouting
at me, or start throwing questions

at me, or just - I don't know,
I expected big drama,

But really... nothing happened.

You know, maybe some people
were a little bit surprised,

but then, they started drawing,
and it was fine.

Are you pleased with... the impact
it's had?

I - absolutely, yeah.

I've had people come up to me
at the end of sessions say to me,

"You know, that's the first time
I've seen a trans body

"outside of porn."

You know, I wonder how my attitude
towards my transition would've been

if my first experience was,
you know, in a big old frame

in an art gallery.

I feel that if art is meant to be
a conversation with the world

around us and with society,
and with humanity -

if it's not representing the broad
range of humanity that we have,

it's, it's...

...it's not only boring,
it's a bit lazy.

I agree with Jared.

But I can't help wondering what a
more fluid view of gender might mean

for the Western nude.

After all, despite the classical
hermaphrodite, it's almost always

relied on a binary idea
of male and female.

Kiss My Genders at the Hayward
Gallery at London's Southbank Centre

was an exhibition that
explored and celebrated

diverse gender identities.

And there, I certainly found
plenty of naked flesh.

I love to create images around the
black male body that's also very

gentle and intimate and soft.

Because I think that lots of
the images that I see around

of the black male body are around
fear and threat, aggressiveness.

A lot of the images reference
classical art history.

Vaginal Davis is inspired
by Hans Holbein,

with the primary colour backdrop.

But you have this figure who's
coquettish, but with a kind of

lime-green merkin, which sort of
challenges the traditional fig leaf.

It's not so much to cover up, but to
show that the idea of covering up

is something quite redundant.

It doesn't really matter what your
biological make-up is.

Do you think you can ever look
at the traditional nude, with its

very clear apparent certainties
about gender in most cases?

Do you think you ever look at it
in the same way?

I mean, you have unseated it
in a way, haven't you?

For me, I love a lot of... what
you'd call "Western art."

And there will never be a clean cut.

No. And there shouldn't be, neither.

So, hence, actually, it's how
you constantly steal from

that great history.

I think there's ways that bodies
have been, kind of, locked

into something, and I think
artists and activists say,

"Well, actually, what other
kinds of work can I create?"

The nude is nowhere near dead yet.

If it sometimes makes us
feel uncomfortable,

if it still has the power to shock -
well, so it should!

Because all those languid Venuses,
suffering Jesuses,

private parts, folds of flesh -

they all raise awkward but essential
questions about who we are.

The bottom line for me is that
after more than 2,000 years,

the nude is still making us confront
our own bodies, our own selves,

and many different versions of
what it is to be human.

Will it still, in whatever form,
be unsettling people

in another 2,000 years?

Of course, I can't know.

But I wouldn't be surprised.