Art

The three paintings included in this art analysis of female nudes are Venus and Adonis from the Italian Baroque style of painting, Grande Odalisque from the French Neo Classical style, and Le Dejeuner sur lHerbe from the 19th Century European Modern style.  Venus and Adonis is an oil painting on canvas by Flemish artist Peter Paul Reubens from the mid or late 1630s about 78 x 96 inches in size.  Here, the nude goddess Venus, assisted by Cupid, tries to restrain her mortal lover Adonis from setting off for the hunt, knowing that if he goes, he will be killed by a wild boar.  Grande Odalisque is an oil painting on canvas by French artist Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres from 1814 about 36 x 64 inches in size.  Here, the nude harem woman and the accessories around her invoke a sense of the sensuous Orient.  Le Dejeuner sur lHerbe is an oil painting on canvas by French artist Edouard Manet from 1863 about 82 x 104 inches in size.  Here, a nude woman and two fully clothed men are taking lunch on the grass together.  By comparing analyzing the varying styles of these paintings, one is able to gain insight to the significant similarities and differences between the paintings as well as the overall progression of art across time and cultures.

Style
These three paintings are good examples of each of the three art styles in question, namely Italian Baroque, French Neo Classical, and 19th Century European Modern.  Venus and Adonis exemplifies Italian Baroque painting in that there is a continuing fascination with classical antiquity, yet the nude female is actively seductive. The female nude took on fresh meaning in the art of Rubens, who, with apparent pleasure, painted his nude with generous figure and radiant flesh.  The Baroque taste for allegories based on classical metaphors also preferred undraped figures, which were used to personify ideals such as Love and Truth.  Grand Odalisque exemplifies French Neo Classicism in that Ingres rejected the classicism and lays the foundation for personal emotive expressiveness.  Here, an elegant female is lounges in a luxurious interior, creating a cool aloof eroticism accentuated by an exotic context.  Le Dejeuner sur LHerbe exemplifies the 19th Century Modern European style in that Manet has painted a nude woman among clothed men, as she tranquilly stares out to the audience (424).  During this time, many people were scandalized by the subject matter, which illustrates two men in contemporary cloths seated casually on the grass for lunch in the woods with a nude woman.

Similarities
There are significant similarities between the three works, which aim to link them together within a certain broader era and style.  All three female nudes share the enjoyment of being the central focus of each painting.  Their bare and brightly painted skin radiates light and catches the eye, while other aspects of the paintings are darker and less attractive.  As the central points of the paintings, the women serve to tell tales about their own personal sexuality as well as their broader cultural environments.  Following a time period when women were more reserved and took a sideline presence to the idea of male domination, these three paintings empower women in the sense that the females are presented as bold, erotic, and fascinating subjects who enjoy the spotlight of the intentions of the artists and the messages conveyed to the audience.  Each woman is painted with specific attention to the light which falls on her skin, making them all warm, vibrant, and strong characters within each work.
 
Differences
The differences between the three works are in the slight ways in which intensions of the artists and the messages to the audience shift in the ways in which each of the women is captured and illustrated within her unique environmental context.  The female nude from Venus and Adonis is a classical goddess, undraped and spotlighted because of her personal divine nature and allegorical embodiment of Love.  Her fleshy body is generous in curves, and her eroticism is slightly guarded by the fact that she represents a divine creature.  Moving from the classical divinity of Venus and Adonis is the honest emotionality of the nude woman of the harem in Grande Odalisque.  The exotic nature of the Oriental surroundings hints at a woman who is one woman of many to choose from.  She peers out to the audience with cool sensuality and a kind of guarded invitation.  Her mortality is a given and her Christianity is more than questionable, lending her an otherworldly and earthy allure.  Le Dejeuner sur LHerbe is even more scandalous than what is hinted at with Grande Odalisque.  Here, the naked woman is sitting between two men among a scattered luncheon in the woods.  One gets the impression that the men have just engaged in sexual play with her together.  Boldly, she looks out to the audience with no shame as to what has occurred between her and her male counterparts.

Assessment
Through the analysis of these three paintings, one is able to get an idea about the cultural shifts which occurred in Europe across the latter half of the last millennium.  Generally speaking, there was a certain shift from females being heralded as pure goddesses to female being heralded as mortal women with tendencies toward openness in sexuality.  There is an altering in the depiction of the female nude from a devoted and chaste image of classical divinity to a fresh and modern female nude who is self assured and unashamed of her earthy mortality.  While all three women in these paintings are central to the whole image and story being told, illuminated in light as the focal point of each painting, the core of each tale shifts from painting to painting, with an evolution of woman being increasingly regarded as more of a personally sexual and emotional individual, with daring tenacity in her desire to be seen and appreciated in her earthy sensuality.