Art and the outrageous pose - "Le Nu esthétique - L'Homme, la Femme, L'Enfant," French magazine, 1902-07

 

First issued in October of 1902, and sold by subscription, Le Nu esthétique - L'Homme, la Femme, L'Enfant : album de documents artistiques inédits d’après nature was the first "nude magazine." Published by Émile Bayard, "The Aesthetic Nude" was dedicated to William-Adolphe Bouguereau and contained a preface by Jean-Léon Gérôme, both highly respected academic painters of the period. 

For the next five years, Bayard published twenty-five separate fascicles - A discrete section of a book issued or published separately - containing a large selection of photographed nude studies of men, women, and children in various poses, alone or in groups. And the models were frequently given props to wield and gathered into fully composed decorative tableaux. Occasionally, photographic "special effects" were employed. 

The images strove to align with and exemplify academic principles, and models were photographed in poses that specifically recalled the long line of western art, from the Greeks and Romans all the way forward to the aforementioned contemporary academic artists, Bouguereau and Gérôme. 

Several publications quickly followed suit, though most frequently their poorly disguised raison d'etre was erotic rather than aesthetic. Insulted by comparisons with his far less noble competitors, as well as harried by the legal battles launched against the nude magazines by offended moral crusaders, Bayard chose to close down the publication in 1907.

(By far, the majority of the models pictured in the publication were female; I've focused here on the male. Also, I've removed any images of children that may have been included in the pages that I've chosen. I don't think any of them would actually be considered erotic in any way... but in this day and age...?!)

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There is a very interesting article in French - easily translatable to English on most browsers - about this publication.

Portraits des dames - a selection of females, painted

 

Emilie Henriette Massmann, the fiancée of Frederik Wilhelm Caspar von Benzon, by Christoffer Wilhelm Eckersberg, 1820.

Susanna van Meckema, Dutch School, circa 1600-25.

The Kavos sisters, by Alexander Mikhailovich Lyubimov, 1906.

Joséphine Baker, by Jean-Gabriel Domergue, circa 1936.

Unknown sitter, Cuzco School, circa 1780s-90s.

Kopfstudie, by Franz Wiegele, 1919.

Dame einen Papagei fütternd, by Anna Rosina de Gasc, née Lisiewska, 1747.

Unknown sitter, Circle of Jacques-Henri Sablet, circa 1800.

Princess Louisa Maria Stuart, by François de Troy, 1705.

Elizabeth Jane Gardner, by William-Adolphe Bouguereau (her husband), 1879.

Unknown sitter, by Thomas Desangle, 1785.

 Ludwika Karolina Radziwiłł, Margravine of Brandenburg and Electress Countess Palatine of Neuberg, Polish School, 1681.

Miss Jane Woode, British School, circa 1750.

Le Turban Vert, by Tamara de Lempicka, 1929.

Isabelle Depestre, comtesse de Seneffe, by Antoine Vestier, circa 1785.

Hermine Gallia, by Gustav Klimt, 1903-04.

Study, study, work - Scène romaine / La Charité romaine, by Bouguereau, 1855

 

Oil and graphite study.

La Charité romaine, watercolor study.

Scène romaine, oil on canvas.

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It's interesting to see how the painting began and finished, but I have to admit that I much prefer the study to the finished piece.