Even if the nude is not a proper iconographic category, it appears in art both in religious iconography and in a variety of artistic topoi ranging from historical, mythological, biblical, allegorical, narrative. Nude figures of both male and female are found in the guises of divinities, heroes, warriors, or mythological beings. Portrayals of the human figure as incarnation of the deity are a fundamental connector through the arts and religious values.
The nude figure is an elemental component of the cultural legacy of human civilization because nudity is a universal human condition. The differences in the reception of the human naked body from the prehistoric to modern, from East to West, deepens the layers of cultural accumulations.
Hercules Killing the Birds on Lake Stymphalus by Edgar Maxence
Hercules Killing the Birds on Lake Stymphalus by Edgar Maxence
