✕ ✕
Turning tips into memories
Login
Signup

You have reached the limit of free articles.


To enjoy unlimited access to Culture Whisper sign up for FREE.
Find out more about Culture Whisper


Sign up by Email or Facebook.

Please fix the following input errors:

  • dummy

Each week, we sent newsletters and communication featuring articles, our latest tickets invitations, and exclusive offers.

Occasional information about discounts, special offers and promotions.


OR
LOG IN

OR
  • LOG IN WITH FACEBOOK

Thanks for signing up to Culture Whisper.
Please check your inbox for a confirmation email and click the link to verify your account.



EXPLORE CULTURE WHISPER
✕ ✕
Turning tips into memories
Login
Signup

Please fix the following input errors:

  • dummy
Forgot your username or password?
Don't have an account? Sign Up

OR
  • LOG IN WITH FACEBOOK

If you click «Log in with Facebook» and are not a Culture Whisper user, you agree to our Terms & Conditions and to our Privacy Policy, which includes our Cookie Use

Turning tips into memories

Get started Login
  • Home
  • Going Out
    • Things to do
    • Food & Drink
    • Theatre
    • Visual Arts
    • Cinema
    • Kids
    • Festival
    • Gigs
    • Dance
    • Classical Music
    • Opera
    • Immersive
    • Talks
  • Staying In
    • TV
    • Books
    • Cook
    • Podcast
    • Design
    • Netflix
  • Life & Style
    • Beauty
    • Fashion
    • Gifting
    • Wellbeing
    • Lifestyle
    • Shopping
    • Jewellery
  • Explore
  • Kids
  • Benefits
  • Membership
  • Get Started
  • Membership
  • Benefits
Get the Best of London Life, Culture and Style
By entering my email I agree to the CultureWhisper Privacy Policy (we won`t share data & you can unsubscribe anytime).
Visual Arts

The Renaissance Nude, Royal Academy of Arts, London ★★★★★

03 Mar 19 – 02 Jun 19, 10:00 AM – 6:00 PM

Royal Academy London explores the importance of the nude in the Renaissance

By Emily Spicer on 28/2/2019

4 CW readers are interested
Raphael, The Three Graces, Royal Collection Trust/ © Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2019
Raphael, The Three Graces, Royal Collection Trust/ © Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2019
The Renaissance Nude, Royal Academy of Arts, London 3 The Renaissance Nude, Royal Academy of Arts, London Lucy Scovell
Beauty may only be skin deep, but where art is concerned there is a huge amount that the naked body can tell us. From antiquity onwards, sculptors and painters have used the human form as a way to arouse sympathy, admiration and lust. As the Renaissance spread throughout Europe, bringing with it the rediscovery and revival of classical texts and art, artists were offered a plethora of reasons to depict the unclothed body, mostly – but not always – in the name of learning.


The Renaissance Nude, in the Royal Academy's Sackler Wing, leads us through this age of the intellectual, a time when our humanness became a subject of debate. It starts with the religious nude – depictions of Christ suffering and Saint Sebastian gazing into the distance, nobly ignoring the arrow in his thigh. Here, the naked body stands in for suffering, vulnerability, but also human dignity.


The next room introduces us to the Renaissance preoccupation with the classical world, but unlike the Christian god, the pagan deities of old were flawed beings. They bickered and drank and lusted after each other – and the mortals whose lives they toyed with. And these stories became the perfect, intellectual, but also pseudo intellectual excuse to add drama and eroticism to art.


Here we have the National Gallery’s Satyr Mourning Over a Nymph (1495) by Piero di Cosimo, a painting inspired, it is thought, by the tale of a jealous wife, which ends in tragedy. Although there is some story telling in this image, the beautiful, but mortally wounded, woman takes centre stage, with her fine clothes falling away to reveal her naked torso.




(Detail) Titian,Venus Rising from the Sea (‘Venus Anadyomene’), c. 1520. Oil on canvas. National Galleries of Scotland.


On the opposite wall, Titian’s Venus Rising from the Sea (c.1520) – on loan from the Scottish National Gallery – details the moment the goddess was born into the world, riding the shell of a clam. But the story, barely hinted at here, is little more than an excuse for Titian to paint a beautiful woman, naturalistically posed, with glowing skin, wringing the water from her long, glossy hair.


Aside from an obsession with antiquity and ideas of beauty and suffering, the Renaissance was also a time of increasing curiosity about what lay inside the body. A room of glorious drawings includes Leonardo da Vinci’s anatomical studies of the shoulder, with every muscle and ligament detailed. There are studies by Raphael, too, but his delicately rendered Three Graces (1517-18) is a far less scientific exploration of the human anatomy.


This exhibition does not only look at the art of the Italian masters. It ventures north of the Alps, too, with engravings by the German artist, Albrecht Dürer, whose highly detailed works are loaded with symbolism. Take his famous Adam and Eve (1504). Look very closely into the far distance, behind the couple pondering the wisdom of eating an apple given to them by a snake, and there is a tiny mountain goat, teetering on the top of a rock. This is the very moment, the very second, before the fall from grace.


There are many beautiful works here, not just paintings and drawings, but sculptures and bronzes, too, some barely larger than a postage stamp, plus intricate illuminations. But, despite the art on offer, this exhibition does nothing new. A focused examination of homoerotic art of the Renaissance would have been more daring – there are a couple of examples here. Instead we are offered a broad sweep without a fresh angle.





What The Renaissance Nude, Royal Academy of Arts, London
Where Royal Academy, Burlington House, Piccadilly, London, W1J 0BD | MAP
Nearest tube Green Park (underground)
When 03 Mar 19 – 02 Jun 19, 10:00 AM – 6:00 PM
Price £16
Website Please click here for more information



Most popular

10 things to do this weekend
Things to do in London this weekend: 15 - 17 January
Keeley Hawes in Finding Alice, ITV (Photo: ITV)
Finding Alice, ITV review
Johnny Flynn in Stardust (Photo: Sky/Vertigo Releasing)
What to watch on TV this week

Editor's Picks

The defining moments of Christian Dior's life and work
The defining moments of Christian Dior's life and work
Gilbert & George in front of their work Handball @ BRAFA 2019 © Fabrice Debatty
Gilbert & George Interview: 'We're the darlings of the lower classes'
Andy Warhol, Tate Modern, Aubrey Beardsley, Tate Britain, Gauguin, National Portrait Gallery
The best art exhibitions in London this March
Sign up to CW’s newsletter
By entering my email I agree to the CultureWhisper Privacy Policy (we won`t share data & you can unsubscribe anytime).

We recommend nearby

  • Sartoria

    Located in the bespoke tailoring district of Savile Row, Sartoria serves up top-quality Italian cuisine all day long in a setting designed by David d'Almada. From mouthwatering risotto to refreshing desserts, Chef Francesco Mazzei's Calabrian roots really come through in this extensive menu. We particularly recommend sitting outside on the heated terrace for a truly atmospheric dining experience.

    Book Map
  • Gazelle

    Walking into Gazelle is like entering a private members' club, discreetly signed, upstairs in an Edwardian Mayfair building with its own elevator. It is perfectly possible to dip inside for pre-dinner cocktail. For a post-dinner moody tryst it is most inviting too.

    Read more...
    Book Map
  • The Araki

    The first Japanese restaurant in Britain to be awarded three Michelin stars, The Araki has a simple premise: one menu, eleven courses, all sushi. This is seriously high-end, gourmet stuff and you won't experience anything else like it. The restaurant itself is breathtaking with Edo period-inspired décor and a counter made from a two hundred year-old Japanese cypress.


    Read more...
    Book Map
4

You might like

  • Christian Dior: Designer of Dreams, V&A

    Christian Dior: Designer of Dreams, V&A review ★★★★★

  • Vincent van Gogh (1853 – 1890) Starry Night 1888. Paris, Musée d'Orsay Photo (C) RMN-Grand Palais (musée d'Orsay) / Hervé Lewandowski

    Van Gogh exhibition, Tate Britain review ★★★★★

  • Don McCullin exhibition, Tate Britain: Detail of Seaside Pier on the south coast, Eastbourne, 1970s

    Don McCullin photography exhibition, Tate Britain review ★★★★★

  • Detail: Tracey Emin, Sometimes There is No Reason, 2018

    Review: Tracey Emin: A Fortnight of Tears, White Cube Bermondsey ★★★★★

  • Olafur Eliasson, Your uncertain shadow (colour), 2010. Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary Collection, Vienna Photo: María del Pilar García Ayensa/ Studio Olafur Eliasson Cour

    Olafur Eliasson: In Real Life, Tate Modern, review ★★★★★

  • Antony Gormley, LOST HORIZON I, 2008.  Cast iron. 189 x 53 x 29 cm (32 elements). Installation view, White Cube, Mason’s Yard, London, England Photograph by Stephen White, London © the artist.

    Antony Gormley, Royal Academy London



  • The Culture Whisper team
  • What is Culture Whisper membership
  • Corporate membership
  • Give a gift membership
  • Retrieve a gift membership
  • Contact us
  • Press
  • FAQ
  • Privacy
  • Terms and conditions
  • Cookies
  • Discover
  • Venues
  • Restaurants
  • Stations
  • Boroughs
Sign up to CW’s newsletter
By entering my email I agree to the CultureWhisper Privacy Policy (we won`t share data & you can unsubscribe anytime).
×