Have you heard about any art that can seduce you? Okay, relax. This is not the case that either it is an art or it is erotic. Yes, both are two different things but sometimes they have been combined to create the effect. Let us look at the philosophical part of it. The art is not just for art’s sake but it serves a purpose. It always did. The point is can we call it good art? Let us not go deep into the philosophical topic. There have been several debates over this issue. With the growth of modernism the erotic art got to vent and flowed with immense velocity through every sphere of life.
Moreover, you must not be surprised to know that art like that of a phallus is considered as sacred and treated as a spiritual symbol in many cultures. The art of the sex positions crafted to educate the masses in sex education books is not considered to be erotic. The diagrams of the images that we see in the children’s biology book are also not erotic art. The art that is done with some intensions of arousing a feeling of sexuality and the art whose effects are more sensual that can inspire people into fantasy are termed as erotic art.
There have been several great artists, Picasso himself, that had given up to their erotic arts and had gained ill fame all around the world. But at some time and even today, we talk about their art. Let us try to know about a few great artists who have created masterpieces in erotic art.
Beardsley
He is known for the portrayal of the erotic figures. He was also the one who has made the illustrations in the second edition of the Alexander Pope’s Rape Of The Lock, with his drawings. He was practicing art in the Victorian Age. He had made several controversial arts in his lifetime. He was inspired by the surrealism of the Decadents. He was also a poet and prose writer along with a great painter. He borrowed themes from various artistic movements in Europe and made them fit into his art and his style.
His essay, The Art Of Hoarding, that came also with a poster, changed the attitudes of people. The way they looked at art changed from thence. He revolutionised poster art. He might be called the first erotic poster artist in the world. The two-faced beauty of his art made him the most drafted artist of Europe. He was suffering from tuberculosis. He is known for his brevity. He made paintings of his school teacher and also of his elder sister. These two paintings were later published in his essays by him. He was very notorious from his childhood itself.
Tom of Finland
He is said to be one of the great artists of the twentieth century that gave birth to the gay culture through his art. He depicted the homosexual fetish lust in his paintings. He has been famous for his erotic art most of which was homoerotic. He has been the inspiration for the gay pornographic images. He has produced paintings and images in large numbers. Around 3500 illustrations that show the male sexual organs in erotic stature and also the male sexuality being revealed through semi-nude or completely nude illustrations. His original name is Touko Valio Laaksonen. His work has been kept in the New York Museum. He is the artist with great popularity today. He has been mocked by several artists worldwide.
Nancy Grossman
She has very well played with her ideas of sex and violence in her sculptures. She uses wood for her art and then she covers it with leather. She uses so many things like telephone poles, human busts, human heads, and alike base for her art. She adorns her art with uncanny things like spikes, glasses, enamel noses, zippers, straps and many more similar sorts of things. She began her famous works in the 1960s. She made human heads with a leather covering that looked erotic in some sense.
The shape and sizes of the Heads that she sculpted points towards masculinity. She refuses to accept her art to be erotic or sensual. She takes it as self-portrayal. The fact is that her arts are capable of affecting our tactile as well as olfactory senses in addition to our visual stimulation. This leads us to carry forward her art as being erotic. It is highly erotic. It serves the purpose of erotic art even if it is not meant for that. This is the magnificence of Grossman. She was born in America.
Antonio de Correggio
The famous painter of the Pharma School of Renaissance Italy known for his sensuous depiction of the Greek myth of Zeus seducing Leda. Though he’s typically known for his religious scenes, he’s also famous for his Love for Jupiter scenes. According to the Greek myth, Zeus transforms into a Swan and rapes Leda. Leda then lays the eggs which contain her children with Zeus, Helen, and Pollux and with her husband, Clytemnestra, and Castor. Leda is seen playing with the Swan and it also portrays the sexuality of Leda as she enjoys and gets satisfied with her encounter. Correggio’s depiction shows the sexual willingness in. Leda. The picture is skillfully crafted with precise and minute details. All the figures are undressed and Leda is embracing the Swan. This myth of seduction of Leda is so famous that many painters have attempted to recreate it. But Correggio’s Leda and the Swan is the most memorable and a magnificent example of his skill with a literal accuracy and gentle delight which is, at once, tenderly amused and erotically compassionate.
Sarah Lucas
She emerged as a young English painter in the late 1990s is famously known for her irreverent humour and vulgar puns in her depictions. She often uses things of our day to day life as newspapers, tights, toilets, furniture as a substitute for the human body. She established herself abruptly in London with ‘Penis Nailed to a Board’. Some of her early works will make one wonder if they’re art or some dirty joke. But their challenging attitude is their strength. Ms. Lucas’ work tends to be raw, sexually hilarious and heartily skeptical in their outlook. She has a blunt and ambiguous meditation on gender, class, and sexuality which makes her stand apart from other contemporary British sculptors of the time.
Her ‘Sexy Baby Bed Base’ shows her fondness of using daily amenities like fruits, vegetables, raw chicken for the depiction of human body parts. Similarly, Au Naturel shows a mattress, water bucket melons oranges and cucumber stacked in such a manner depicting a penis and breasts. Her self portrait with fried eggs kept on her breasts shows that photographic self-portraits have been an important element of her work. Through these series of 12 photographic self-portraits, Ms. Lucas challenges the stereotypical representations of gender and sexuality. Posing simultaneously as tough and macho but female, she creates an image of defiant femininity.
Jeffrey Koons
Jeffrey Koons, known for his oversized sculptures of souvenirs, toys, and ornaments, is one of the most popular contemporary artists. He has been controversial for his series of sexual posters and sculptures which are often termed as mere pornography rather than pieces of art. His ‘Made in Heaven’ series made headlines as it depicted him with an Italian pornstar Cicciolina in various sexual postures. Many artists are known for letting their private lives crash with their work but none has done it as much as Mr. Jeff. He, to make the photographs more credible married Cicciolina. Apart from various sexual posters, he produced a series of glass sculptures depicting them in various sexual postures. The explicit pornographic imagery erases the line between porn and art, proving that pornography can undisputedly be a part of contemporary art.
Every artist once in his or her lifetime passes through a certain phase that inspires him or her to create the art that is sensual and erotic. A good artist is successful in arousing the same feeling in the onlooker. A great artist and critic, the father of modern literary criticism, Mathew Arnold, believed that art is made for the purpose. The artist who can communicate his experiences and make the audience or the reader or the onlooker feel the same on observing the art can be said to be the best artist in the world. We must agree to the communicative theory of Arnold. There happened to be and still are, many great painters and artists who redefined the art. The erotic art serves a purpose not just of arousing a sensuous feeling in you but also allowing you to feel the spirituality within you. This is the best thing about these arts. Erotic arts are more expensive, more appreciated and more impactful than any other arts in the world – throughout the Ages.