Talk:Depictions of nudity/Archive 1

Page creation
Page created because nudity is heavy with arts info.

I'm following (roughly) idea/concept model of Angel/Angels in art, Plastics in art, Bridges in art et cetera.

There are also already subcategories of this discussion already including List of album covers containing nudity, Nude scene, Nudity in American television, Nudity in science-fiction literature and Nudity in The Simpsons. Dandelion1 03:34, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

Is that last photo really neccesary?

Page lay-out
The page is quite messy at 1280×1024 with all the images aligned with overlaying float tags... perhaps it could be re-styled? Jeroen Stout 20:16, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

tatoo section
I remmoved this section because it is talking about nudity as art and not nudity in art. Also, this article is referring to more history of depictions of nudity, not modern practices. Find me a painting of a tattooed person and that would make much more sense. Otherwise, that information and the unrealted information about nude dancing don't belong here, espeicially due to the definition at the top of what nudity in art is. pschemp | talk 14:33, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

Current Cultural Reference Removed
I supplied a few sentences plus a link to a 2006 panel discussion held at the Art Students League in NYC about the art of the nude, called, quite appropriately, "Why the Nude?" The panel of artists, teachers and curators discussed censorship of artists, pressures on artists for self censorship, hostility and denigration regarding the art of the nude, especially male nudes and especially in the US. The artists shared a common thread of working exclusively or predominately in the art of the nude. So they had experience and authority. The author of the article wrote the article because even though there was so much excitement about it that tickets for the event ran out, no newspapers covered this discussion. On the wiki entry, there was a link to the website entry on which this panel discussion was posted but the entry and the link were removed and the post reverted to the previous entry, complete with misspelling.

My question is this -- was this removed because it was external and it would be better to copy the article (or make a sub-entry on this subject) or because this venue and topic is controlled by people with an agenda and attitude and new-comers are not welcome? Or, was it yet another reason? I believe that this is important and relevant information which should be included in any discusssion of the nude in art today, and yet I am finding a roadblock in the one location which I thought it would be welcome.Art Lister 20:10, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

Tattoo section is very out of place
Using the skin as a canvas has absolutely nothing to do with the depiction of a nude. The art nude might fit in the vernacular section or in the nudity of the minor section slightly. This article is already too long in my opinion. I am severely brain damaged and have a neurological imbalance because of an acquired brain injury. This entire article appears to me to ramble. I do not delete anything or add anything to an article anymore unless asked to. I could clean this one up, but it would take several days work. It would be extremely interesting to watch. I am extremely blunt because of my acquired brain injury. CurtisNeeley (talk) 20:51, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Proposed merges
There's a proposal to merge Nude photography into this article. Since Nude photography is a type of Fine art photography, I think it should remain a separate article. Other photographic genres have their own articles (for example, Still life photography has its own article, distinct from the Still life article), and I see no reason why nude photography should be any different. Klausness (talk) 16:37, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

Image copyright problem with Image:TwoVCover.jpg
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NPOV killing grammar?
Under the heading "Children", the phrase "whom some consider controversial" looks like grammar and/or logic being mangled for the sake of NPOV. Surely an artist is either controversial or he isn't. If only some consider him controversial, then it is by definition controversial as to whether he is controversial! Lee M (talk) 01:51, 1 June 2008 (UTC)
 * By definition if someone causes a controversy or are part of a controversy then they are controversial. Controversial only indicates a state and doesn't mean they are in the right or wrong so the sentence should be changed. Biofase (talk) 16:10, 2 July 2009 (UTC)

New Article
The current version is such a collection of mismatched fragments, duplications, broken links, and contradictions, that I have prepared a draft that is a complete re-write. Since I have also just re-written the Fine Art Nude article (now Nude (art)), most of that content is there, except the depiction of children material, about which I have reservations. Basically I have organized the content around three major divisions, Fine Art, Popular Culture, and Science/Education. The ethnographic section was particularly confused, since ethnographic images that are scientifically valid are photos, not paintings, although I suppose at one time there were ethnographic drawings. There were no references to the latter, instead there was a painting by a French Academic artist of a type usually called an "Orientalist", and his work had no scientific purpose. — Preceding unsigned comment added by FigureArtist (talk • contribs) 03:55, 28 October 2012 (UTC)

Note there remains some content from the original article that is questionable to me.FigureArtist (talk) 04:24, 29 October 2012 (UTC)

Seperation of Nude (art) from this article
I think there is much to say about depictions of nudty that are not works of fine art. The distinction may not be entirely clear but there are many topics already covered in this article that are definitly not art. I hope that any editors will respect the boundary and edit the appropriate article. In particular, the Nude photography article needs a lot of work.FigureArtist (talk) 22:20, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

I have also edited the Nude photography article and invite comments.FigureArtist (talk) 20:08, 28 October 2012 (UTC)
 * I have just discovered this series of articles and look forward to your improvements. Being a (self-proclaimed) sculpture historian I am thinking about how sculpture fits in with all of this.  Being a less confident photography historian I have some opinions here too.  For example, is a picture of a nude woman, wearing red hi-heeled shoes still a nude?  If there is a strategically growing fig leaf, is it a nude?  Is the (I think) Michelangelo sculpture of Jesus that someone later put a loin cloth on a nude?  I should write an article about the Johnny Nash song There Are More Questions Than Answers just to get a blue link off of it.  I look forward to new things being revealed, so to speak.  Einar aka Carptrash (talk) 04:43, 29 October 2012 (UTC)

Topic?
It is unclear to me what this article is about, given the title and some of its content and connection to other articles. The WP definition of depiction is a technical one: the mapping of reality to a two dimensional picture plane, which generally excludes sculpture and live performance. The dictionary definition includes both rendering something as an image and in words.

However the opening section and the page creation discussion below indicate that the subject is the nude in art (but not limited to the fine arts). The logical title should then be Nudity in Art, but that redirects here. Then why is it only WPNudity rather than also WPArt?

And if it is nude in art, the ethnographic section is questionable unless vernacular art is taken to mean any photography, including photos taken to record scientific facts. FigureArtist (talk) 03:44, 21 October 2012 (UTC)
 * I have a bit of a problem with the Performance art section because it seems to me that most that IS nudity rather than a depiction of it. Or am I missing something? Carptrash (talk) 05:36, 29 October 2012 (UTC)

This has been such a catch-all that I thought I would organize it first so that issues such at this would be apparent. The dictionary definition of depiction is about pictures, but includes the usage of verbal depiction in a novel. As I said above, is a sculpture a picture? A performance that respects the Fourth wall? There is a usage of depiction for what an actor does with a character. A performance were the artist interacts with the audience is stretching it?FigureArtist (talk) 06:32, 30 October 2012 (UTC)
 * They do stretch the meaning of "depictions", and they were removed, as the comments above. Hafspajen (talk) 11:20, 2 January 2014 (UTC)

Young women
I've replaced the "Ethnographic photography" nude image with another. The previous one was miscaptioned "East African girl", when the file actually indicates that it was taken in "Deutsch-Ostafrika" i.e. German East Africa. The populations in that southern African Great Lakes region are mainly Bantu and Nilotic, unlike most of the populations to their north in the Horn region. The new pic by contrast indicates the woman's actual population group, consistent with the other images. Middayexpress (talk) 15:17, 8 April 2014 (UTC)


 * OK, thanks for your explanation. Please explain in your edit summary why remove picture. Also, you do not need to remove the image entirely if the caption is wrong, but mend the caption. As it is now it looks like you simply do not like the imagre and want to find an excuse to remove it, because a wrong caption is not a good excuse to remove one image.   Hafspajen (talk) 15:20, 8 April 2014 (UTC)


 * As explained above, the image's subject was misrepresented. The one on the far right is from the African Great Lakes region. She should have been labeled and linked as such to begin with so that readers don't get the misimpression that she is from elsewhere in the broader region, where the demographic makeup is completely different. The arguments you use against the nude woman plaiting mats would just as readily apply to most of the other images on the page; so with respect, it doesn't really hold. The same goes for the Shaigi Nilotic young woman, who is in the same state of undress as the Venus de Milo and many other figures depicted herein; only she's real and has arms. As a compromise, I propose File:Bundesarchiv Bild 105-DOA0430, Deutsch-Ostafrika, Einheimische.jpg. She is from the same African Great Lakes region as the girl on the right (same photographer in fact). However, unlike the latter, she is in her natural setting rather than an artistic backdrop, which is more consistent with the "Ethnographic photography" wiki-text. Middayexpress (talk) 16:10, 8 April 2014 (UTC)


 * About the difference between the current and the previous, it is about composition, balance, lines and so on. Just try to nominate them for evaluation on and they will quickly tell you the difference.  I thought it was the same picture, with background. Anyway, the third picture is better.  Hafspajen (talk) 16:34, 8 April 2014 (UTC)


 * I'm not sure I follow. Do you prefer the Deutsch-Ostafrika image with the artistic backdrop or the Deutsch-Ostafrika image in the natural setting? They're both by the same photographer. The only major difference is that the one in the natural setting is actually consistent with the wiki-text on ethnographic photography (viz. "nudity that occurs in a "natural" or spontaneous setting in news programs or documentaries"). Middayexpress (talk) 16:47, 8 April 2014 (UTC)


 * HM, put hat in the article and see, actually it is an improvment. Better than any one of the old ones. Looks splendid. Hafspajen (talk) 18:53, 8 April 2014 (UTC)


 * Ok. Middayexpress (talk) 20:44, 8 April 2014 (UTC)

File:Shaigi Girl (1906) - TIMEA.jpg|Shaigi Nilotic young woman, 1906 -This girl is not nude. File:Plaited mats while you wait.jpg|Nude woman in Nigeria plaiting mats, 1922. Picture NOW, displaced figure to the left, other figure in the background, figure partly obscured and sitting, not an improvment. File:Bundesarchiv Bild 105-DOA0319, Deutsch-Ostafrika, Einheimische.jpg|Removed picture - much more beautiful picture actually than the current File:Bundesarchiv Bild 105-DOA0430, Deutsch-Ostafrika, Einheimische.jpg|Best replacement so far, still it would need some cropping.

External links modified
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External links modified
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Re-focusing
I am in the process applying the guidelines on Summary style to the general topic of Nudity. The main article is ~200k, and there seems to be agreement that the way to reduce it is to focus on the social and cultural aspects. Everything about nudity in visual media should be here, which in turn points to the sub-articles on art, performance, etc. I have re-written the intro and added a definitions section in order to find a logical basis for deciding what belongs here and what belongs elsewhere.--WriterArtistDC (talk) 16:04, 19 April 2022 (UTC)