A fig leaf cast in plaster used to cover the genitals of a copy of a statue of David in the Cast Courts of the Victoria and Albert Museum. Today, the fig leaf is no longer used, but it is displayed in a case at the back of the cast's plinth.
In culture, a "fig leaf" or "fig-leaf" is a literal or figurative method of obscuring an act or object considered embarrassing or distasteful with something of innocuous appearance. The use of an actual fig leaf for the purpose originates in Western painting and sculpture, where leaves would be used by the artist themselves or by later censors in order to hide the genitalia of a subject. Use of the fig plant in particular came about as a Biblical reference to the Book of Genesis, in which Adam and Eve used fig leaves to cover their nudity after eating the forbidden fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.[2][3]
Ancient Greek art was dominated by the tradition of heroic nudity and a more general normalization of male nakedness, including the genitals, although the female vulval area was generally covered in art for public display. This tradition continued in Ancient Roman art until the conversion of the Roman Empire to Christianity, when such practices vanished entirely. During the Middle Ages, only the unfortunate (most often the damned) were usually shown naked, although the depictions were then often rather explicit.[4] Adam and Eve were often shown wearing fig or other leaves, following the Biblical description. This was especially a feature of Northern Renaissance art.
From about 1530, the growing response of the Catholic church to the Reformation ideologies that swept Europe and that led to the Council of Trent also led to a number of artworks, especially in churches or public places, being altered to reduce the amount of nudity on display.[5] Often, as in the famous case of Michelangelo's The Last Judgement, drapery or extra branches from any nearby bush was used. This has been dubbed the "fig leaf campaign".[5] For free-standing statues this did not work well, and carved or cast fig leaves were sometimes added, such as with the plaster copy of Michelangelo's David displayed in Victorian eraLondon.[6] In the reign of Queen Victoria, display of male nudity was contentious and the Queen herself was said to find it shocking. The museum commissioned this fig leaf and kept it in readiness in case of a visit by the Queen or other female dignitaries: the fig leaf was then hung on the figure using a pair of hooks.[7] Historian Daniel J. Boorstin said that:
The age of the rising middle class in Victorian England was, or course, the age of the fig leaf. "The fig leaves of decent reticence" which Charles Kingsley described were applied not only to statuary but to literature as well.[8]
The Adam and Eve panels on the Ghent Altarpiece, already equipped with fig leaves by Jan van Eyck, were simply replaced with 19th-century panels copying the figures but clothed. Many of these alterations have since been reversed, damaging some of the statues.
Eugen Sandow, often considered the first modern-day bodybuilder, was an admirer of the masculine physique, encapsulated in a Greco-Roman musculature he termed the Grecian Ideal. In addition to strongman sideshows, he performed "muscle displays" by posing in the nude—save for a fig leaf that he would don in further emulation of statues he described seeing in Italy as a boy.[9]
Modern era
The expression fig leaf has a pejorativemetaphorical sense meaning a flimsy or minimal cover for anything or behaviour that might be considered shameful, with the implication that the cover is only a token gesture and the truth is obvious to all who choose to see it.[10]
A metaphorical fig leaf is something visible but innocuous, as against a coverup in which the existence of something may be entirely hidden. In the context of negotiation, an offer might be characterized as a "fig leaf" if that offer is actually a ploy to conceal a sinister plan.[citation needed]
The Creation of Adam, also known as The Creation of Man, is a fresco painting by Italian artist Michelangelo, which forms part of the Sistine Chapel's ceiling, painted c. 1508–1512. It illustrates the Biblical creation narrative from the Book of Genesis in which God gives life to Adam, the first man. The fresco is part of a complex iconographic scheme and is chronologically the fourth in the series of panels depicting episodes from Genesis.
In Jewish mythology, forbidden fruit is a name given to the fruit growing in the Garden of Eden which God commands mankind not to eat. In the biblical story, Adam and Eve eat the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and are exiled from Eden:
And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat:
But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.
The Sistine Chapel ceiling, painted in fresco by Michelangelo between 1508 and 1512, is a cornerstone work of High Renaissance art.
The Apollo Belvedere is a celebrated marble sculpture from classical antiquity.
In film, nudity may be either graphic or suggestive, such as when a person appears to be naked but is covered by a sheet. Since the birth of film, depictions of any form of sexuality have been controversial, and in the case of most nude scenes, had to be justified as part of the story.
The Cast Courts of the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, England, comprise two large halls. Unusually for a museum, the Cast Courts house a collection not of originals, but copies. Here are to be found reproductions of some of the most famous sculptures in the world. Most of the copies were made in the 19th century and in many cases they have better resisted the ravages of time, 20th-century pollution and over-zealous conservation than the originals. In a few cases, such as the late 15th century Lübeck relief of Christ washing the Apostles' feet, the original has been destroyed and the cast is a unique record of a lost work.
The Expulsion from the Garden of Eden is a fresco by the Italian Early Renaissance artist Masaccio. The fresco is a single scene from the cycle painted around 1425 by Masaccio, Masolino and others on the walls of the Brancacci Chapel in the church of Santa Maria del Carmine in Florence. It depicts the expulsion of Adam and Eve from the garden of Eden, from the biblical Book of Genesis chapter 3, albeit with a few differences from the canonical account.
Depictions of nudity include all of the representations or portrayals of the unclothed human body in visual media. In a picture-making civilization, pictorial conventions continually reaffirm what is natural in human appearance, which is part of socialization. In Western societies, the contexts for depictions of nudity include information, art and pornography. Information includes both science and education. Any ambiguous image not easily fitting into one of these categories may be misinterpreted, leading to disputes. The most contentious disputes are between fine art and erotic images, which define the legal distinction of which images are permitted or prohibited.
Christian naturism is the practise of naturism or nudism by Christians.
The Last Judgment is a fresco by the Italian Renaissance painter Michelangelo covering the whole altar wall of the Sistine Chapel in Vatican City. It is a depiction of the Second Coming of Christ and the final and eternal judgment by God of all humanity. The dead rise and descend to their fates, as judged by Christ who is surrounded by prominent saints. Altogether there are over 300 figures, with nearly all the males and angels originally shown as nudes; many were later partly covered up by painted draperies, of which some remain after recent cleaning and restoration.
Nudity in religion deals with religious beliefs as the basis for modern attitudes and behaviors regarding nudity.
The Sistine Chapel ceiling, painted by Michelangelo between 1508 and 1512, is one of the most renowned artworks of the High Renaissance. Central to the ceiling decoration are nine scenes from the Book of Genesis of which The Creation of Adam is the best known, the hands of God and Adam being reproduced in countless imitations. The complex design includes several sets of individual figures, both clothed and nude, which allowed Michelangelo to fully demonstrate his skill in creating a huge variety of poses for the human figure, and have provided an enormously influential pattern book of models for other artists ever since.
Nude photography is the creation of any photograph which contains an image of a nude or semi-nude person, or an image suggestive of nudity. Nude photography is undertaken for a variety of purposes, including educational uses, commercial applications and artistic creations. The exhibition or publication of nude photographs may be controversial, more so in some cultures or countries than in others, and especially if the subject is a minor.
The nude, as a form of visual art that focuses on the unclothed human figure, is an enduring tradition in Western art. It was a preoccupation of Ancient Greek art, and after a semi-dormant period in the Middle Ages returned to a central position with the Renaissance. Unclothed figures often also play a part in other types of art, such as history painting, including allegorical and religious art, portraiture, or the decorative arts. From prehistory to the earliest civilizations, nude female figures were generally understood to be symbols of fertility or well-being.
Heroic nudity or ideal nudity is a concept in classical scholarship to describe the un-realist use of nudity in classical sculpture to show figures who may be heroes, deities, or semi-divine beings. This convention began in Archaic and Classical Greece and continued in Hellenistic and Roman sculpture. The existence or place of the convention is the subject of scholarly argument.
An expurgation of a work, also known as a bowdlerization or fig-leaf edition, is a form of censorship that involves purging anything deemed noxious or offensive from an artistic work or other type of writing or media.
Michelangelo's David have been made replicas for numerous times, in plaster, imitation marble, fibreglass, snow, and other materials. There are many full-sized replicas of the statue around the world, perhaps the most prominent being the one in the original's position in the Piazza della Signoria in Florence, Italy, placed there in 1910. The original sculpture was moved indoors in 1873 to the Accademia Gallery in Florence, where it attracts many visitors. Others were made for study at art academies in the late nineteenth century and later, while the statue has also been replicated for various commercial reasons or as artistic statements in their own right. Smaller replicas are often considered kitsch.
Adam and Eve is the title of two famous works in different media by Albrecht Dürer, a German artist of the Northern Renaissance: an engraving made in 1504, and a pair of oil-on-panel paintings completed in 1507.
Gianluigi Colalucci was an Italian Master Restorer and academic most known for being the chief restorer of the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican City from 1980 to 1994.
The historical evolution of the nude in art runs parallel to the history of art in general, except for small particularities derived from the different acceptance of nudity by the various societies and cultures that have succeeded each other in the world over time. The nude is an artistic genre that consists of the representation in various artistic media of the naked human body. It is considered one of the academic classifications of works of art. Nudity in art has generally reflected the social standards for aesthetics and morality of the era in which the work was made. Many cultures tolerate nudity in art to a greater extent than nudity in real life, with different parameters for what is acceptable: for example, even in a museum where nude works are displayed, nudity of the visitor is generally not acceptable. As a genre, the nude is a complex subject to approach because of its many variants, both formal, aesthetic and iconographic, and some art historians consider it the most important subject in the history of Western art.
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The Expulsion from the Garden of Eden , by Masaccio, before and after restoration. It was painted in 1425, covered up in 1680, and restored in 1980.
Adam is Tempted by Eve by James Tissot
