''Venus Disrobing for the Bath'' is an

oil painting Oil painting is the process of painting with pigments with a medium of drying oil as the binder. It has been the most common technique for artistic painting on wood panel or canvas for several centuries, spreading from Europe to the rest of ...

Frederic Leighton Frederic Leighton, 1st Baron Leighton, (3 December 1830 – 25 January 1896), known as Sir Frederic Leighton between 1878 and 1896, was a British painter, draughtsman, and sculptor. His works depicted historical, biblical, and classical subjec ...

, first exhibited in 1867.

History

Leighton's five contributions to the

Royal Academy The Royal Academy of Arts (RA) is an art institution based in Burlington House on Piccadilly in London. Founded in 1768, it has a unique position as an independent, privately funded institution led by eminent artists and architects. Its pur ...

of 1867 were marked by an increasing devotion to Greek ideals, and by a refinement of finish.Staley 1906, p. 73. Among the pictures exhibited was ''Venus Disrobing for the Bath'', one of the most debated of all the artist's paintings of the

nude Nudity is the state of being in which a human is without clothing. The loss of body hair was one of the physical characteristics that marked the biological evolution of modern humans from their hominin ancestors. Adaptations related to h ...

Analysis

The paleness of the flesh-tint of this Venus aroused a criticism which has often been urged against his pictures that such a hue was not in nature. In imparting an ideal effect to an ideal subject, Leighton always, however, followed his own conviction that art has a law of its own, and a harmony of colour and form, derived and selected no doubt from natural loveliness, but not to be referred too closely to the natural, or to the average, in these things. The art critic J. B. Atkinson praised the work, declaring that "Mr Leighton, instead of adopting corrupt Roman notions regarding

Venus Venus is the second planet from the Sun. It is sometimes called Earth's "sister" or "twin" planet as it is almost as large and has a similar composition. As an interior planet to Earth, Venus (like Mercury) appears in Earth's sky never fa ...

such as

Rubens Sir Peter Paul Rubens (; ; 28 June 1577 – 30 May 1640) was a Flemish artist and diplomat from the Duchy of Brabant in the Southern Netherlands (modern-day Belgium). He is considered the most influential artist of the Flemish Baroque traditio ...

embodied, has wisely reverted to the Greek idea of

Aphrodite Aphrodite ( ; grc-gre, Ἀφροδίτη, Aphrodítē; , , ) is an ancient Greek goddess associated with love, lust, beauty, pleasure, passion, and procreation. She was syncretized with the Roman goddess . Aphrodite's major symbols include ...

, a goddess worshipped, and by artists painted, as the perfection of female grace and beauty."Smith 1996, p. 146. According to Edgcumbe Staley:

References

Sources

* Ash, Russell (1995). ''

Lord Leighton Frederic Leighton, 1st Baron Leighton, (3 December 1830 – 25 January 1896), known as Sir Frederic Leighton between 1878 and 1896, was a British painter, draughtsman, and sculptor. His works depicted historical, biblical, and classical subjec ...

''. London: Pavilion Books Limited. p. 13. * Gaunt, William (1975). '' Victorian Olympus''. London: Sphere Books Ltd. pp. 78, 79, 175. * Jones, Stephen, ''et al''. (1996). '' Frederic Leighton, 1830–1896''. Royal Academy of Arts, London: Harry N. Abrams, Inc. pp. 27–28, 39, 109, 119, 145, 170, 214. * Rhys, Ernest (1900). '' Frederic Lord Leighton: An Illustrated Record of his Life and Work''. London: George Bell & Sons. pp. 24–25, 110, 124, 143. * Smith, Alison (1996).
The Victorian Nude: Sexuality, Morality, and Art
'. Manchester: Manchester University Press. p. 145–46. * Staley, Edgcumbe (1906). '' Lord Leighton of Stretton''. London: The Walter Scott Publishing Co., Ltd.; New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. p. 73.
"A Pastoral by Frederic Lord Leighton"
''

The Victorian Web The Victorian Web is a hypertext project derived from hypermedia environments, Intermedia and Storyspace, that anticipated the World Wide Web. Initially created between 1988 and 1990 with 1,500 documents, it grew to 50,000 in the 21st century. In ...

''. 2 December 2004. Accessed 2 July 2022. {{Authority control 1867 paintings Mythological paintings by Frederic Leighton Nude art Women in art Bathing in art Paintings of Venus

History

Analysis

See also

References

Sources