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These are the user uploaded subtitles that are being translated: 1 00:00:00,208 --> 00:00:02,876 (upbeat music) 2 00:00:28,862 --> 00:00:31,447 - The nude is the most enduring subject in art. 3 00:00:31,447 --> 00:00:35,701 For more than 20,000 years, images of the naked human body 4 00:00:35,701 --> 00:00:39,455 have been at the very center of a long and complex saga. 5 00:00:39,455 --> 00:00:42,417 It's hard to understand any of the major developments in art 6 00:00:42,417 --> 00:00:44,377 without an understanding of the key role 7 00:00:44,377 --> 00:00:47,756 played by changing depictions of naked men and women. 8 00:00:49,841 --> 00:00:51,759 In this series, I'm going to explore 9 00:00:51,759 --> 00:00:54,012 the ongoing significance of the nude, 10 00:00:54,012 --> 00:00:56,723 what it tells us about various civilizations, 11 00:00:56,723 --> 00:00:58,932 and what it tells us about ourselves 12 00:00:58,932 --> 00:01:00,434 and the world in which we live. 13 00:01:00,434 --> 00:01:03,146 (upbeat music) 14 00:01:06,524 --> 00:01:09,985 Today, nudity in art seems sexy because for most of us, 15 00:01:09,985 --> 00:01:12,404 nudity is associated with sex. 16 00:01:12,404 --> 00:01:14,907 But that's not always been the case. 17 00:01:14,907 --> 00:01:16,493 In the past, the function of art 18 00:01:16,493 --> 00:01:18,953 and artist changes dramatically. 19 00:01:18,953 --> 00:01:21,331 And in order to understand nude images, 20 00:01:21,331 --> 00:01:24,042 we need to look at them very carefully. 21 00:01:24,042 --> 00:01:27,544 Sometimes they have a symbolically religious function. 22 00:01:27,544 --> 00:01:31,215 They evoke gods or ancestors or fertility, 23 00:01:31,215 --> 00:01:34,301 or sometimes even a way of warding off evil. 24 00:01:34,301 --> 00:01:35,929 And the first example of this 25 00:01:35,929 --> 00:01:38,055 can be dated back to the Stone Age. 26 00:01:40,224 --> 00:01:43,019 The origins of the nude in art as we now understand it 27 00:01:43,019 --> 00:01:45,437 was only revealed about a hundred years ago 28 00:01:45,437 --> 00:01:47,399 in the Austrian town of Willendorf 29 00:01:47,399 --> 00:01:51,361 where this curious female figure was uncovered. 30 00:01:51,361 --> 00:01:53,238 She's from the paleolithic period, 31 00:01:53,238 --> 00:01:56,240 so she's at least 25,000 years old. 32 00:01:56,240 --> 00:01:57,742 There's no facial details, 33 00:01:57,742 --> 00:02:00,411 but what we notice are voluptuous breasts 34 00:02:00,411 --> 00:02:02,329 where her hands point to them, and in fact, 35 00:02:02,329 --> 00:02:04,290 her arms seem to be resting on the top, 36 00:02:04,290 --> 00:02:08,253 and a distended stomach that could show that she's pregnant. 37 00:02:08,253 --> 00:02:10,838 Apart from that, there's very little else known about her. 38 00:02:10,838 --> 00:02:13,133 There are other figures like this that have been discovered 39 00:02:13,133 --> 00:02:15,592 from the paleolithic period all over the world. 40 00:02:15,592 --> 00:02:16,970 But for various reasons, 41 00:02:16,970 --> 00:02:20,015 this piece has assumed a huge power. 42 00:02:20,015 --> 00:02:22,683 It currently resides in the Natural History Museum 43 00:02:22,683 --> 00:02:24,853 in Vienna, but the British Museum have a copy 44 00:02:24,853 --> 00:02:26,854 that they use for educational purposes, 45 00:02:26,854 --> 00:02:29,273 and it's that, that I'm holding now. 46 00:02:29,273 --> 00:02:30,567 There's all sorts of speculation 47 00:02:30,567 --> 00:02:32,693 about what it might've been used for. 48 00:02:32,693 --> 00:02:35,404 The image of fertility is very powerful, 49 00:02:35,404 --> 00:02:37,365 and others have said that she's a goddess. 50 00:02:37,365 --> 00:02:38,783 There's also interesting speculation 51 00:02:38,783 --> 00:02:40,743 that it might well have been made by a woman, 52 00:02:40,743 --> 00:02:44,204 that this presents a woman's eye view of the female body, 53 00:02:44,204 --> 00:02:46,833 which if it's true is a really neat twist 54 00:02:46,833 --> 00:02:49,710 on what's otherwise a male-dominated history of art. 55 00:02:50,836 --> 00:02:53,006 She's a very mysterious object. 56 00:02:53,006 --> 00:02:54,507 And she comes from a time 57 00:02:54,507 --> 00:02:57,552 when the very story of art itself begins. 58 00:02:57,552 --> 00:02:59,887 And in some ways, the history of the nude in art 59 00:02:59,887 --> 00:03:04,516 can be traced to this simple enigmatic, powerful, 60 00:03:04,516 --> 00:03:07,479 crude, but lovingly made little object. 61 00:03:07,479 --> 00:03:10,981 (slow percussive music) 62 00:03:14,485 --> 00:03:16,361 Over the next 20,000 years, 63 00:03:16,361 --> 00:03:19,948 numerous cultures emerged, the greatest and most influential 64 00:03:19,948 --> 00:03:22,242 as far as Western art, and therefore the nude 65 00:03:22,242 --> 00:03:24,620 is concerned came from Egypt. 66 00:03:24,620 --> 00:03:28,083 (slow percussive music) 67 00:03:29,208 --> 00:03:31,378 In Egyptian art, much centers on the idea 68 00:03:31,378 --> 00:03:33,712 of preservation for posterity. 69 00:03:33,712 --> 00:03:35,840 That's why human bodies were mummified, 70 00:03:35,840 --> 00:03:39,093 and also why sculptures were deemed to be so important, 71 00:03:39,093 --> 00:03:41,970 as a way of keeping the soul alive through an image. 72 00:03:41,970 --> 00:03:44,348 In fact, one Egyptian word for sculptor 73 00:03:44,348 --> 00:03:46,643 translates as he who keeps alive. 74 00:03:50,938 --> 00:03:54,275 In Egypt itself, nudity was considered pretty abhorrent 75 00:03:54,275 --> 00:03:56,735 and not part of day-to-day life. 76 00:03:56,735 --> 00:03:59,364 Therefore, not a large part of art. 77 00:03:59,364 --> 00:04:01,782 Throughout history, the nude has of course 78 00:04:01,782 --> 00:04:04,243 reflected the society from which it emerged. 79 00:04:06,745 --> 00:04:08,748 The importance of Egypt to our story 80 00:04:08,748 --> 00:04:10,959 lies more with its technique. 81 00:04:10,959 --> 00:04:13,544 In sculpture, relief carving, and painting, 82 00:04:13,544 --> 00:04:16,214 the human form was depicted in a standardized 83 00:04:16,214 --> 00:04:19,883 even formulaic way, almost like painting by numbers, 84 00:04:19,883 --> 00:04:22,594 so the representation could be repeated anywhere. 85 00:04:25,764 --> 00:04:28,016 In Egyptian daily life, only children 86 00:04:28,016 --> 00:04:29,935 appeared naked in public. 87 00:04:29,935 --> 00:04:34,398 Likewise in art, adults remain clothed, with two exceptions. 88 00:04:34,398 --> 00:04:37,693 One, in rare and furtively erotic carvings. 89 00:04:37,693 --> 00:04:40,697 And secondly, in certain sculptures where fishermen, 90 00:04:40,697 --> 00:04:44,533 laborers, and other workers or servants are portrayed naked, 91 00:04:44,533 --> 00:04:48,662 with nudity used as a device to show social inferiority. 92 00:04:55,003 --> 00:04:57,756 Here's another nude statue from around the same period, 93 00:04:57,756 --> 00:05:00,424 highly abstracted and seemingly religious 94 00:05:00,424 --> 00:05:02,718 rather than erotic in function. 95 00:05:02,718 --> 00:05:07,347 It has no real personality or energy or emotion, 96 00:05:07,347 --> 00:05:08,641 but it clearly tells us a lot 97 00:05:08,641 --> 00:05:10,809 about the world in which it was produced. 98 00:05:11,894 --> 00:05:14,354 Around the third millennium BC, 99 00:05:14,354 --> 00:05:17,066 a very significant culture emerged in the Cycladic Islands 100 00:05:17,066 --> 00:05:18,985 in the Aegean basin. 101 00:05:18,985 --> 00:05:21,154 And although their function remains a mystery, 102 00:05:21,154 --> 00:05:25,325 numerous small stone female nude sculptures 103 00:05:25,325 --> 00:05:28,577 were subsequently discovered, like this one. 104 00:05:28,577 --> 00:05:30,996 This one actually dates from about 2,000 years 105 00:05:30,996 --> 00:05:32,748 before the birth of Christ. 106 00:05:32,748 --> 00:05:36,085 But what we see is a work of art in stark contrast 107 00:05:36,085 --> 00:05:37,754 to the Venus of Willendorf. 108 00:05:37,754 --> 00:05:40,464 It's a female figure, but instead of the voluptuous 109 00:05:40,464 --> 00:05:43,635 fertility of the Venus, what we see here 110 00:05:43,635 --> 00:05:46,596 is something much more pared down. 111 00:05:46,596 --> 00:05:50,224 Her face is a simple disk with a protuberance for a nose. 112 00:05:50,224 --> 00:05:53,395 Her breasts are barely emerging bumps. 113 00:05:53,395 --> 00:05:57,106 And her pudendae here is a simply incised triangle. 114 00:05:57,106 --> 00:06:00,694 Turning it round, we see that there's very little detail. 115 00:06:00,694 --> 00:06:02,903 Where the legs end, the back begins. 116 00:06:02,903 --> 00:06:05,823 And it seems to me that this is emphatically a work 117 00:06:05,823 --> 00:06:08,200 that was produced to be viewed from the front. 118 00:06:09,910 --> 00:06:13,831 It's a work that seems to adhere to certain rules. 119 00:06:13,831 --> 00:06:16,626 It's geometric, it's almost a series 120 00:06:16,626 --> 00:06:19,378 of interlocking or simplified shapes. 121 00:06:19,378 --> 00:06:23,006 And Cycladic art, like Egyptian, seems to be the result 122 00:06:23,006 --> 00:06:26,511 of a very carefully calculated or worked out formula. 123 00:06:26,511 --> 00:06:29,805 And also seems to be the result of a rigid, 124 00:06:29,805 --> 00:06:31,641 very ordered society. 125 00:06:31,641 --> 00:06:34,352 (gentle music) 126 00:06:45,112 --> 00:06:47,907 About 500 years before the birth of Christ 127 00:06:47,907 --> 00:06:51,036 comes the crucial moment in the history of the nude, 128 00:06:51,036 --> 00:06:53,538 because Greek traders who've been to Egypt, 129 00:06:53,538 --> 00:06:55,623 who've seen freestanding sculptures, 130 00:06:55,623 --> 00:06:58,584 come back to the Greek islands and start to produce 131 00:06:58,584 --> 00:07:02,046 a brand of art that is much closer to the naturalism 132 00:07:02,046 --> 00:07:03,839 that we would recognize today. 133 00:07:03,839 --> 00:07:06,134 And pieces like this here at the British Museum, 134 00:07:06,134 --> 00:07:09,596 it's a korous, which is Greek for young boy or young man, 135 00:07:09,596 --> 00:07:14,016 from about 475 BC, and perfectly emblematic of that idea. 136 00:07:15,142 --> 00:07:16,310 Now, I'm not saying for a minute 137 00:07:16,310 --> 00:07:17,645 that this is totally naturalistic. 138 00:07:17,645 --> 00:07:19,939 The face in particular is very stylized, 139 00:07:19,939 --> 00:07:22,441 but the body, well, it's almost sublime. 140 00:07:22,441 --> 00:07:24,735 There's a sense of muscle and sinew, 141 00:07:24,735 --> 00:07:28,447 of a dynamic, vibrant, pulsating, living body 142 00:07:28,447 --> 00:07:33,286 buried somewhere close to the surface of the stone itself. 143 00:07:33,286 --> 00:07:34,661 And instead of as the Egyptians had done 144 00:07:34,661 --> 00:07:37,749 of producing stylized images where there are amalgamated 145 00:07:37,749 --> 00:07:40,585 views of a body condensed into one, 146 00:07:40,585 --> 00:07:43,546 what we have here is a body as if seen 147 00:07:43,546 --> 00:07:46,716 from a fixed perspective, but it's a real natural body. 148 00:07:48,885 --> 00:07:50,679 The maleness is crucial. 149 00:07:50,679 --> 00:07:53,847 What this sculpture proclaims and what Greek sculpture 150 00:07:53,847 --> 00:07:56,975 of this period in general proclaimed was the superiority 151 00:07:56,975 --> 00:08:00,437 both of the male, this was a male-dominated society, 152 00:08:00,437 --> 00:08:02,440 and of the Greeks themselves. 153 00:08:04,149 --> 00:08:05,984 Why? What's happening? 154 00:08:05,984 --> 00:08:08,697 Well, Greece at this time, and Athens in particular 155 00:08:08,697 --> 00:08:11,657 was creating the first golden urban age. 156 00:08:11,657 --> 00:08:15,452 In a single century from 500 BC to 400 BC, 157 00:08:15,452 --> 00:08:18,372 Athens gave us democracy, philosophy, history, 158 00:08:18,372 --> 00:08:20,417 science, drama, and art. 159 00:08:20,417 --> 00:08:22,961 To be precise, humanist art. 160 00:08:22,961 --> 00:08:24,671 Unlike the Egyptians, the Greeks 161 00:08:24,671 --> 00:08:27,382 experimented and improvised. 162 00:08:27,382 --> 00:08:29,508 And they created these statements of their own 163 00:08:29,508 --> 00:08:32,428 racial and cultural superiority. 164 00:08:32,428 --> 00:08:35,682 Thucydides talks of nudity as a mark of progress 165 00:08:35,682 --> 00:08:38,475 that distinguishes the modern from the old-fashioned, 166 00:08:38,475 --> 00:08:40,769 the Greek from the non-Greek. 167 00:08:40,769 --> 00:08:42,563 This is crucially important. 168 00:08:42,563 --> 00:08:45,858 For us, nudity is often only acceptable in art, 169 00:08:45,858 --> 00:08:48,610 though discouraged in society at large. 170 00:08:48,610 --> 00:08:52,198 In Greece, male nudity was acceptable, at the gym, 171 00:08:52,198 --> 00:08:54,658 at athletics meetings, and at the baths and so on. 172 00:08:54,658 --> 00:08:57,119 And therefore its portrayal is a reflection 173 00:08:57,119 --> 00:08:59,872 of the society rather than of eroticism. 174 00:09:04,002 --> 00:09:07,130 The Greek city-states were militaristic societies 175 00:09:07,130 --> 00:09:09,299 despite their arts and sciences. 176 00:09:09,299 --> 00:09:12,468 And it was on warfare that their success depended. 177 00:09:12,468 --> 00:09:15,555 Soldiers and their physical prowess were key. 178 00:09:15,555 --> 00:09:18,974 Statues glorified that male militaristic strength 179 00:09:18,974 --> 00:09:20,434 and put it on a pedestal. 180 00:09:23,729 --> 00:09:26,523 We can see that even more clearly with the discus thrower 181 00:09:26,523 --> 00:09:28,693 by the Greek sculptor Myron. 182 00:09:28,693 --> 00:09:31,613 This Roman copy of his original captures the attempts 183 00:09:31,613 --> 00:09:33,614 to depict the man of action, 184 00:09:33,614 --> 00:09:36,409 a sculpture naked and taught with athleticism, 185 00:09:36,409 --> 00:09:39,746 energy, vitality, and dynamism. 186 00:09:39,746 --> 00:09:41,789 It's another example of the developing craft 187 00:09:41,789 --> 00:09:45,459 and technique of the period, five centuries before Christ, 188 00:09:45,459 --> 00:09:49,047 but also a consistent subject matter, to make beautiful, 189 00:09:49,047 --> 00:09:52,258 to glorify a healthy body of a fit young man. 190 00:09:53,510 --> 00:09:55,886 The great philosopher Socrates, himself trained 191 00:09:55,886 --> 00:09:58,472 as a sculptor, said that artists should represent 192 00:09:58,472 --> 00:10:01,935 the workings of the soul by accurately observing 193 00:10:01,935 --> 00:10:04,269 how feelings affect the body in action. 194 00:10:05,480 --> 00:10:07,899 Such statues were then placed in public arenas, 195 00:10:07,899 --> 00:10:10,776 such as gymnasiums, where the male clients, 196 00:10:10,776 --> 00:10:13,822 working out with their dumbbells, could gaze in awe, 197 00:10:13,822 --> 00:10:16,198 and perhaps feel just a little inferior. 198 00:10:17,241 --> 00:10:18,867 - I think inevitably they were a form 199 00:10:18,867 --> 00:10:21,078 of "Men's Health" for their time. 200 00:10:21,078 --> 00:10:24,958 And I think possibly, you know, the man looking 201 00:10:24,958 --> 00:10:27,334 at those images may well have felt slightly insecure 202 00:10:27,334 --> 00:10:30,587 about their kind of ever-growing mid-rift, 203 00:10:30,587 --> 00:10:32,381 post-age of 30 or whatever, 204 00:10:32,381 --> 00:10:35,676 and being inspired to get back there in the gym 205 00:10:35,676 --> 00:10:38,346 or on the running track again maybe. 206 00:10:38,346 --> 00:10:39,764 Because obviously for that culture, 207 00:10:39,764 --> 00:10:42,474 they were idealized body forms. 208 00:10:42,474 --> 00:10:44,185 And anyone looking at them would probably 209 00:10:44,185 --> 00:10:46,645 have compared their own body with those ideals. 210 00:10:46,645 --> 00:10:49,481 (dramatic music) 211 00:10:51,567 --> 00:10:56,405 - The rise of the classic male nude in the fifth century BC 212 00:10:56,405 --> 00:10:59,158 brings together a number of elements. 213 00:10:59,158 --> 00:11:02,661 Firstly, it's about the rising self-confidence of an Athens 214 00:11:02,661 --> 00:11:05,372 that's just defeated Persia. 215 00:11:05,372 --> 00:11:09,752 Secondly, it's also about that military force, 216 00:11:09,752 --> 00:11:12,504 and it's certainly true that the musculature 217 00:11:12,504 --> 00:11:15,383 and the modeling of the figures in the fifth century 218 00:11:15,383 --> 00:11:19,387 recall armor, recall the military youth 219 00:11:19,387 --> 00:11:21,764 that had won that victory. 220 00:11:21,764 --> 00:11:25,060 I think there's a very strong way in which the Greeks nudes 221 00:11:25,060 --> 00:11:27,936 of the Classical period do represent a form 222 00:11:27,936 --> 00:11:31,316 of what we might call body fascism, in the sense 223 00:11:31,316 --> 00:11:36,403 that they represented the ideal form of a human being. 224 00:11:36,403 --> 00:11:39,032 And that's very strong in a culture which conceives 225 00:11:39,032 --> 00:11:42,826 of its gods also taking on human form. 226 00:11:42,826 --> 00:11:47,081 So this form of a man also carried with it 227 00:11:47,081 --> 00:11:48,583 the print of a god. 228 00:11:51,336 --> 00:11:53,754 - A fantastic example is Alexander the Great 229 00:11:53,754 --> 00:11:56,007 in the fourth century before Christ, 230 00:11:56,007 --> 00:11:58,675 for the nude had become supremely political. 231 00:11:58,675 --> 00:12:02,846 Man naked, unafraid, perfectly toned, strong, 232 00:12:02,846 --> 00:12:06,850 showing self-mastery, and implying mastery over others. 233 00:12:06,850 --> 00:12:10,354 Nakedness is complete freedom, and so complete power. 234 00:12:12,314 --> 00:12:15,192 Here we see Alexander the Great, the Macedonian king 235 00:12:15,192 --> 00:12:17,277 who conquered all of Greece and Persia, 236 00:12:17,277 --> 00:12:20,447 asserting his personal power, with his portrait head 237 00:12:20,447 --> 00:12:23,868 placed on a semi-nude and godlike body. 238 00:12:23,868 --> 00:12:26,412 Ironically, however, it wasn't a male nude 239 00:12:26,412 --> 00:12:29,748 that rocked the classical art world, but a female one. 240 00:12:33,752 --> 00:12:36,630 Tucked away in the corner of the Louvre in Paris 241 00:12:36,630 --> 00:12:38,258 is probably the most famous sculpture 242 00:12:38,258 --> 00:12:41,886 of the ancient world, this one, the Aphrodite of Knidos, 243 00:12:41,886 --> 00:12:44,805 produced 350 years before the birth of Christ. 244 00:12:44,805 --> 00:12:47,057 And so famous was it that copies were made 245 00:12:47,057 --> 00:12:49,811 and it was seen all over the ancient world. 246 00:12:50,728 --> 00:12:52,564 Now, we've seen that for the Greeks, 247 00:12:52,564 --> 00:12:54,274 male nudity was no problem. 248 00:12:54,274 --> 00:12:56,526 It was widespread, socially acceptable, 249 00:12:56,526 --> 00:12:58,445 and very much a reflection of the age 250 00:12:58,445 --> 00:13:00,238 in which the art was produced. 251 00:13:01,321 --> 00:13:03,532 But female nudity had a much more moral 252 00:13:03,532 --> 00:13:06,911 and religious problem, and in fact, women and goddesses 253 00:13:06,911 --> 00:13:09,288 were rarely if ever shown fully nude 254 00:13:09,288 --> 00:13:11,957 until about the fourth century BC. 255 00:13:11,957 --> 00:13:15,419 And this is reputedly the first full-length female nude. 256 00:13:16,712 --> 00:13:18,464 It shows the goddess Aphrodite, 257 00:13:18,464 --> 00:13:21,050 and was intended for religious purposes. 258 00:13:21,050 --> 00:13:22,634 But when it was presented to the people 259 00:13:22,634 --> 00:13:24,763 of the Island of Kos, they refused it 260 00:13:24,763 --> 00:13:26,346 because she was fully nude, 261 00:13:26,346 --> 00:13:28,640 and this was deemed to be immoral. 262 00:13:28,640 --> 00:13:30,017 Attitudes to the female nude 263 00:13:30,017 --> 00:13:32,227 were clearly different to those of the male. 264 00:13:32,227 --> 00:13:35,065 In fact, Greek societies held that the female nude 265 00:13:35,065 --> 00:13:38,859 was the male nude incomplete, and therefore inferior. 266 00:13:38,859 --> 00:13:41,363 But this is the beginning of a kind of eroticism 267 00:13:41,363 --> 00:13:43,323 that we can now recognize. 268 00:13:43,323 --> 00:13:45,908 This is a highly idealized view of beauty 269 00:13:45,908 --> 00:13:47,911 and a highly controlled and submissive image 270 00:13:47,911 --> 00:13:49,453 of female sexuality. 271 00:13:50,662 --> 00:13:53,082 The Island of Kos found it too hot to handle, 272 00:13:53,082 --> 00:13:56,085 so another island, Knidos, said we'll have it. 273 00:13:57,628 --> 00:14:00,006 And such was its fame that sailors from all over 274 00:14:00,006 --> 00:14:02,926 the Mediterranean would come and stop off on the island 275 00:14:02,926 --> 00:14:05,386 apparently to see this statue. 276 00:14:05,386 --> 00:14:07,554 She was visible in the round. 277 00:14:07,554 --> 00:14:08,806 She was visible from all angles. 278 00:14:08,806 --> 00:14:11,725 And again, there's a rumor passed down that the caretaker 279 00:14:11,725 --> 00:14:14,061 of the shrine used to open up the back view 280 00:14:14,061 --> 00:14:16,481 so that her splendid buttocks could be seen 281 00:14:16,481 --> 00:14:17,773 from a long way off. 282 00:14:18,941 --> 00:14:21,695 The other reason for the fame or celebrity of this sculpture 283 00:14:21,695 --> 00:14:24,114 is because of the artist who produced it, 284 00:14:24,114 --> 00:14:27,282 a man called Praxiteles, an Athenian by birth, 285 00:14:27,282 --> 00:14:28,909 who in some ways is the father 286 00:14:28,909 --> 00:14:31,496 of classical and modern sculpture. 287 00:14:31,496 --> 00:14:34,289 There are very few named or celebrated or famous artists 288 00:14:34,289 --> 00:14:37,293 in the ancient world, and plenty write of Praxiteles's 289 00:14:37,293 --> 00:14:39,587 legendary skill of being able to turn marble 290 00:14:39,587 --> 00:14:41,840 into something very close to human flesh. 291 00:14:41,840 --> 00:14:43,257 And that's evident here. 292 00:14:47,053 --> 00:14:48,929 Originally, of course, this sculpture would've had a head 293 00:14:48,929 --> 00:14:51,640 and arms, and we know that the model for it 294 00:14:51,640 --> 00:14:53,058 was a woman called Phryne, a courtesan 295 00:14:53,058 --> 00:14:55,644 with whom Praxiteles fell in love. 296 00:14:55,644 --> 00:14:58,021 So not only is this a sculpture that commemorates 297 00:14:58,021 --> 00:15:00,608 the goddess of love, but in some ways it's a monument 298 00:15:00,608 --> 00:15:02,192 to individual artist's love, 299 00:15:02,192 --> 00:15:05,363 and there's a personalized expression to a certain extent. 300 00:15:06,905 --> 00:15:10,493 But in the end we're left with an idealized view of beauty. 301 00:15:12,746 --> 00:15:16,082 And such is Praxiteles's reputation and skill 302 00:15:16,082 --> 00:15:17,959 that in fact the Louvre have a whole room 303 00:15:17,959 --> 00:15:20,210 devoted to his work. 304 00:15:20,210 --> 00:15:22,087 And looking around it, you realize 305 00:15:22,087 --> 00:15:24,049 that the nude is the major vehicle 306 00:15:24,049 --> 00:15:26,634 through which that reputation is spread. 307 00:15:26,634 --> 00:15:29,511 (mystical music) 308 00:15:47,237 --> 00:15:50,240 The most famous classical sculpture now in the world 309 00:15:50,240 --> 00:15:53,702 is this one, the Venus de Milo, here at the Louvre, 310 00:15:53,702 --> 00:15:56,705 and alongside the Mona Lisa, the must-see works 311 00:15:56,705 --> 00:15:57,748 for the millions of visitors 312 00:15:57,748 --> 00:16:00,043 who come to this place every year. 313 00:16:00,043 --> 00:16:01,543 Why is it so famous? 314 00:16:01,543 --> 00:16:02,753 Well, when we first look at it, 315 00:16:02,753 --> 00:16:04,755 there is something that's arresting about it. 316 00:16:04,755 --> 00:16:07,466 There's no doubt it's sensual, that the lessons 317 00:16:07,466 --> 00:16:09,386 of Praxiteles have been learnt, and in fact, 318 00:16:09,386 --> 00:16:12,346 scholars initially thought that this was by Praxiteles. 319 00:16:12,346 --> 00:16:14,348 Then they thought it was the fifth century BC, 320 00:16:14,348 --> 00:16:17,394 then the third, and then maybe the first century BC. 321 00:16:17,394 --> 00:16:19,144 And that's roughly where they've got it now, 322 00:16:19,144 --> 00:16:20,563 but they're still counting. 323 00:16:20,563 --> 00:16:22,689 And that elusiveness I think in some ways 324 00:16:22,689 --> 00:16:24,650 contributes to the sculpture's appeal. 325 00:16:26,360 --> 00:16:28,905 The drapery, which is a symbol I think in Greek art, 326 00:16:28,905 --> 00:16:31,740 very much of skill, is rather beautifully done. 327 00:16:31,740 --> 00:16:35,328 And there's a sense of a live sensual body emerging out. 328 00:16:37,664 --> 00:16:40,082 The face is key, too, it's rather formulaic 329 00:16:40,082 --> 00:16:42,627 in the way that it's produced, as a lot of Greek art was. 330 00:16:42,627 --> 00:16:45,254 But the fact that she has a face in some ways 331 00:16:45,254 --> 00:16:48,424 means that the public can get closer to her. 332 00:16:48,424 --> 00:16:50,760 And those eyes, unlike the Mona Lisa's, which are meant 333 00:16:50,760 --> 00:16:52,219 to follow you all the way around the room, 334 00:16:52,219 --> 00:16:54,054 they stare off into the distance. 335 00:16:54,054 --> 00:16:55,807 So there's always a sense of a woman, 336 00:16:55,807 --> 00:16:59,810 a nude woman that can't quite be possessed. 337 00:16:59,810 --> 00:17:02,396 (upbeat piano music) 338 00:17:02,396 --> 00:17:04,440 So what we're seeing is the eroticization 339 00:17:04,440 --> 00:17:05,567 of the female nude. 340 00:17:05,567 --> 00:17:07,444 For the first time in history, 341 00:17:07,444 --> 00:17:11,239 the nude is becoming more openly and deliberately sexual. 342 00:17:11,239 --> 00:17:14,241 This was accentuated by the painting of some statues, 343 00:17:14,241 --> 00:17:16,369 known to be the faces of what we see 344 00:17:16,369 --> 00:17:19,455 as white marble sculptures, which were boldly colored 345 00:17:19,455 --> 00:17:22,292 with our eyes tinted blue and lips made red. 346 00:17:25,211 --> 00:17:27,337 Bronze statues were likewise altered 347 00:17:27,337 --> 00:17:30,090 and would've had eyes made of bone and glass paste, 348 00:17:30,090 --> 00:17:33,218 simulated eyelashes, lips, and nipples of copper, 349 00:17:33,218 --> 00:17:34,387 and silver teeth. 350 00:17:36,556 --> 00:17:38,558 It's uncertain whether large parts of flesh 351 00:17:38,558 --> 00:17:40,184 would also have been painted. 352 00:17:40,184 --> 00:17:42,312 They may have been left free to show the natural beauty 353 00:17:42,312 --> 00:17:45,440 of the marble, as is so apparent on the Venus de Milo. 354 00:17:46,815 --> 00:17:49,568 She was found in 1820 on the Greek Island of Melos, 355 00:17:49,568 --> 00:17:52,947 that was then being run by the Turks, by a French boat 356 00:17:52,947 --> 00:17:54,949 that was looking for classical sculptures. 357 00:17:54,949 --> 00:17:57,284 And they found her on a pile with a load of others 358 00:17:57,284 --> 00:17:59,661 about to be melted down for limestone. 359 00:17:59,661 --> 00:18:02,790 The arms seemingly had already gone at that stage. 360 00:18:02,790 --> 00:18:05,292 And so that sense of her vulnerability, 361 00:18:05,292 --> 00:18:06,627 the fragmentation of her, 362 00:18:06,627 --> 00:18:08,837 the fact she was saved from obliteration, 363 00:18:08,837 --> 00:18:11,965 I think contributed to the mystery of her and to her fame. 364 00:18:13,343 --> 00:18:15,969 It also gives the work a sense of classical aging. 365 00:18:15,969 --> 00:18:18,889 And for some, it fetishizes or concentrates us 366 00:18:18,889 --> 00:18:20,433 on the torso itself. 367 00:18:21,393 --> 00:18:25,312 Also in the 19th century, the French, an aspiring 368 00:18:25,312 --> 00:18:28,649 imperial nation at that time, wanted a Greek art 369 00:18:28,649 --> 00:18:31,777 to reinforce that sense of the imperial. 370 00:18:31,777 --> 00:18:34,948 The British had just got Elgin's Marbles from the Parthenon. 371 00:18:34,948 --> 00:18:36,824 The French needed classical sculptures. 372 00:18:36,824 --> 00:18:39,869 And so this work was brought back, put here in the Louvre, 373 00:18:39,869 --> 00:18:42,871 which was already the most famous celebrated 374 00:18:42,871 --> 00:18:44,957 and large-scale museum in the world. 375 00:18:44,957 --> 00:18:48,293 And so she became an icon, a symbol of French identity, 376 00:18:48,293 --> 00:18:50,254 and was promoted in that way. 377 00:18:50,254 --> 00:18:53,216 Also given the fact that the great neoclassical sculptor 378 00:18:53,216 --> 00:18:55,301 Auguste Rodin praised her to the hilt 379 00:18:55,301 --> 00:18:57,928 when he first saw her, and subsequently Salvador Dali, 380 00:18:57,928 --> 00:19:00,932 the surrealist maverick, parodied her by producing a work 381 00:19:00,932 --> 00:19:03,600 in wood where her body was a series of drawers. 382 00:19:03,600 --> 00:19:06,478 She then started to gain a sense of notoriety. 383 00:19:06,478 --> 00:19:08,564 And it's that as much as anything else 384 00:19:08,564 --> 00:19:10,190 that makes this work so powerful. 385 00:19:10,190 --> 00:19:14,696 In some ways, this is the nude as a symbol of museum power. 386 00:19:14,696 --> 00:19:18,366 (upbeat percussive music) 387 00:20:01,075 --> 00:20:03,286 The Greek Empire waned, to be replaced 388 00:20:03,286 --> 00:20:06,331 by the power of the emerging Roman Empire. 389 00:20:06,331 --> 00:20:08,291 But the idea of Greek art, 390 00:20:08,291 --> 00:20:10,960 and the nude in particular, didn't diminish. 391 00:20:10,960 --> 00:20:13,380 In fact, the Romans were totally enthralled 392 00:20:13,380 --> 00:20:17,383 by the Greek ideal nude and made slavish copies of it. 393 00:20:19,718 --> 00:20:23,055 And as Roman legions went to Gaul, to the Balkans, 394 00:20:23,055 --> 00:20:26,392 to North Africa, all over the Western world in fact, 395 00:20:26,392 --> 00:20:30,354 they took with them Greek nudes to put in public places, 396 00:20:30,354 --> 00:20:32,023 wanting to exploit both images 397 00:20:32,023 --> 00:20:34,900 of male strength and female eroticism. 398 00:20:37,362 --> 00:20:39,822 - The Romans I think adopted Greek culture 399 00:20:39,822 --> 00:20:42,242 for two principal reasons. 400 00:20:42,242 --> 00:20:44,911 Firstly, Greek, and particularly Greek art, 401 00:20:44,911 --> 00:20:47,621 offered them a language which Roman 402 00:20:47,621 --> 00:20:50,125 republican sculpture didn't. 403 00:20:50,125 --> 00:20:53,377 It offered them a language of individual power, 404 00:20:53,377 --> 00:20:58,466 the naked male nude as ruler, as individual, as king. 405 00:20:58,466 --> 00:21:01,135 That was very attractive for Roman emperors, 406 00:21:01,135 --> 00:21:05,264 offering them a way of expressing their power and supremacy. 407 00:21:05,264 --> 00:21:08,518 That really wasn't available in Roman art. 408 00:21:08,518 --> 00:21:11,813 The Romans I think collected Greek sculpture 409 00:21:11,813 --> 00:21:16,067 partly as an expression of their own superiority. 410 00:21:16,067 --> 00:21:19,862 In a sense, it's the way in which American art galleries 411 00:21:19,862 --> 00:21:22,573 collect British or European art, 412 00:21:22,573 --> 00:21:27,035 because it's an expression of American cultural superiority 413 00:21:27,035 --> 00:21:30,582 over an old world, which is partly finished, 414 00:21:30,582 --> 00:21:32,667 but whose use is to be collected 415 00:21:32,667 --> 00:21:35,085 and displayed in the new. 416 00:21:35,085 --> 00:21:38,505 To display Greek sculpture in Rome was partly 417 00:21:38,505 --> 00:21:42,426 to assert Roman superiority over Greece. 418 00:21:42,426 --> 00:21:46,555 Greece was now good for a museum, but it was no longer 419 00:21:46,555 --> 00:21:49,808 politically active or a military threat. 420 00:21:49,808 --> 00:21:54,022 (slow percussive music) 421 00:21:54,022 --> 00:21:56,774 - Subsequent cultures, often for religious reasons, 422 00:21:56,774 --> 00:21:59,778 considered it a pious duty to smash any statue 423 00:21:59,778 --> 00:22:01,321 of the heathen gods. 424 00:22:01,321 --> 00:22:04,157 The sculptures in our museums are for the most part 425 00:22:04,157 --> 00:22:07,077 only secondhand copies made for travelers and collectors 426 00:22:07,077 --> 00:22:09,454 as souvenirs, and as decorations 427 00:22:09,454 --> 00:22:11,748 for gardens or public baths. 428 00:22:11,748 --> 00:22:14,334 But Roman copies of Greek statues do show us 429 00:22:14,334 --> 00:22:18,171 some of the skill and the amazing naturalism and detail 430 00:22:18,171 --> 00:22:20,715 which we know characterized the original works. 431 00:22:24,593 --> 00:22:27,180 What we also know is that nude art remained 432 00:22:27,180 --> 00:22:29,515 more or less unchanged while the Romans conquered 433 00:22:29,515 --> 00:22:32,686 the Western world and founded their empire. 434 00:22:32,686 --> 00:22:35,188 Most artists who worked in Rome were Greeks, 435 00:22:35,188 --> 00:22:37,148 and most Roman collectors bought works 436 00:22:37,148 --> 00:22:38,816 of the great Greek masters. 437 00:22:41,276 --> 00:22:43,695 Based on their art, there's a common misconception 438 00:22:43,695 --> 00:22:47,032 that the Greeks and Romans fought, ate, and slept naked, 439 00:22:47,032 --> 00:22:48,618 which of course they didn't. 440 00:22:48,618 --> 00:22:50,829 But it's fair to say that their attitudes to nudity 441 00:22:50,829 --> 00:22:53,039 were very different to ours. 442 00:22:53,039 --> 00:22:54,832 Often, however, we miss the point 443 00:22:54,832 --> 00:22:57,127 because we're so influenced by our own definitions 444 00:22:57,127 --> 00:22:59,837 of art, eroticism, and pornography. 445 00:23:01,046 --> 00:23:03,967 Nevertheless, in first and second century Rome, 446 00:23:03,967 --> 00:23:06,635 there was a relaxed attitude to nudity. 447 00:23:06,635 --> 00:23:09,097 There was mixed public bathing, for example. 448 00:23:09,097 --> 00:23:12,099 And these statues, frescoes, mosaics, and paintings 449 00:23:12,099 --> 00:23:15,394 were all around, in public as much as in private. 450 00:23:16,813 --> 00:23:19,982 Some were uncomfortable though with such imagery. 451 00:23:19,982 --> 00:23:22,526 The debate within Roman society about the invasion 452 00:23:22,526 --> 00:23:24,862 of all things Greek provides the first 453 00:23:24,862 --> 00:23:27,531 clearly attested instance in European history 454 00:23:27,531 --> 00:23:29,992 of debates over censorship. 455 00:23:29,992 --> 00:23:32,077 Greek art, it was argued by some, 456 00:23:32,077 --> 00:23:34,163 had a corrupting influence. 457 00:23:34,163 --> 00:23:36,833 The fact that the pro-Greek lobby won the debate 458 00:23:36,833 --> 00:23:38,751 had enormous implications for the course 459 00:23:38,751 --> 00:23:41,588 of European culture, and specifically, 460 00:23:41,588 --> 00:23:43,338 for the nude in Western art. 461 00:23:44,924 --> 00:23:47,135 Images of the ideal nude human body 462 00:23:47,135 --> 00:23:50,429 were widely disseminated throughout the Western world. 463 00:23:50,429 --> 00:23:52,223 They were reflections of and emblems of 464 00:23:52,223 --> 00:23:54,725 Greek and Roman civilizations. 465 00:23:54,725 --> 00:23:57,936 But those classical civilizations were about to be overtaken 466 00:23:57,936 --> 00:24:00,273 by a new force throughout the West, 467 00:24:00,273 --> 00:24:02,359 which was to change everything. 468 00:24:02,359 --> 00:24:03,526 Christianity. 469 00:24:03,526 --> 00:24:06,237 (upbeat music) 38481

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