“Nu couché” 1901. Pablo Picasso.  Oil on board. 25.5 x 36 cm. Private collection, Paris

Eroticism?  In the Middle Ages, great painters (Botticelli, Lucas Cranach, l’Ancien, Piero di Cosimo, etc.) caught women’s curves concealing them in transparent veils. Eros, find out about our vintage clichés at last!

 Eroticism through Micmag’s eyes. Art in all its forms!

A strange physical and mental excitement. Let’s look into the dwellings of the Pompeii high society, painted in fresco and showing partly veiled sexual experiences of a naughty era. In the Middle Ages, great painters (Botticelli, Lucas Cranach, l’Ancien, Piero di Cosimo, etc.) caught women’s curves concealing them in transparent veils. In the following centuries, Tiziano, Tintoretto y Veronese did not resort to their imagination; instead, they gave free rein to their libido, leaving their paintbrushes to reproduce their feelings. The 16^th and 17^th-century Christians tried to leave the Greek divinities from the past behind, in vain. Photography came in the 20^th century, allowing for a more curious look from painters and sculptors such as Matisse, Rodin, Toulouse-Lautrec, Picasso, Courbet y Klimt. It was then that art lost its modesty and broke loose from the artistic conventions, giving way to nudity and turning women into a symbol of sensual beauty.

Eroticism is a prized, exciting and rich heritage. It’s enough to draw the curtain back and enter a world that is often discreet, bourgeois, colourful and naughty. Follow the guide!

 READ – THE IMPORTANCE OF STILETTO HEELS!

Restif (1) wrote his famous short story Fanchette’s feet in 1767. One Sunday morning, he spotted a girl standing in front of a boutique on the corner of Montorgueil Street.  She was wearing a white skirt, silk stockings and pink stiletto heels. Marvelling at the girl’s elegance and beauty, he immediately conjured up the first chapter of his story. The chapter begins like this: “I am the true historian of the glorious conquest of a goddess’ fine foot.”

A REAL TROUBLE-MAKER: THE COMIC STRIP!

Regarded as a 20^th C phenomenon, the comic strip has exploited eroticism for a long time. Many have lost their heads around the characters created by Manara. “Manara is a big name of the 80’s. In fact, these days there are no such great masters. The feeling is no longer the same. And good editions are out of print, hence high in demand,” confirms Danièle Masson at Curiosa bookstore in Paris. For example, a limited edition can be sold for as high as 500 Euros. Parallel to this, the names of such cartoonists as Lorsel, Crisse, Berthet and Serpieri come to mind.

THE DRAWINGS FROM GREAT MASTERS AND OTHERS!

Vertès, Wegener, Carlo & co, Bernard Montorgueil, Jules Pascin y Albert Marquet are but a few of the authors that have often been branded as “pornographers”. That said, eroticism was reflected in the works of big-name artists too, who did not pay attention to such labels. For instance, Rodin himself painted a series of women striking a subjective pose. Also, Belgian Martin Van Maele worked around sex with a certain type of humour and satire. Hest best-known work, La grande danse macabre des vifs (The great macabre dance of the living), shows nuns, monks and other demons in love. Austrian Gustave Klimt was known for painting naked women, thus pushed into alienation by the Vienna elite. At that same time, Egon Schiele’s art appeared as more straight-forward and cruel as he painted women’s bony silhouette. In 1920, German-born Marxist militant George Grosz painted erotic scenes in the ambient expressionism and Andalusian Picasso went all the way and painted Barcelona brothels. Most of Picasso’s Eros collection started to be publicly exhibited only as of 1973. Nearing the end of his life, he said “that there cannot be chaste type of art. All the contrary, art is dangerous when it is chaste.”

En castellano : Enciclopedia erótica del cómic
Esta Enciclopedia erótica del cómic compila un extenso catálogo de formas de relación sexual, canónicas u originales, tradicionales o innovadoras, prosaicas o extravagantes, que han encontrado su reflejo en los dibujos de las viñetas de los cómics a lo largo de su más que centenaria historia. Hay que tener en cuenta que los cómics, basados en el libérrimo arte del dibujo, pudieron exponer situaciones inhabituales, barrocas o extravagantes de las prácticas sexuales, con mucha más facilidad técnica que la fotografía o el cine. Es cierto que los cómics estuvieron durante muchos años sometidos a tutelas y censuras morales, ya que fueron considerados con frecuencia un producto para la lectura infantil. Pero desde la desinhibición erótica producida en las convulsiones morales y sociales acaecidas en los años sesenta del siglo XX, y manifestadas en la franqueza erótica de la cultura «underground», además de la emergencia de las heroínas llamadas «fantaeróticas» del cómic adulto francés, el panorama cambió radicalmente. Más allá de las limitaciones que padecen la fotografía y el cine, los dibujantes de viñetas han elaborado un libérrimo imaginario de fantasías sexuales, inventivo y barroco, que ahora se despliega en todo su esplendor, por vez primera, ante los ojos del lector de este libro.

 Monique Cabré & Hélios Molina
See also :

-Ces irrésistibles objets du désir...

- Pin-Up délicieusement provocantes !

- Christian Peter célèbre la beauté érotique et sensuelle de la femme.

- La porno-politique vue par le gribouillage de Gilles Olry.

-Nue dans les rues de Barcelone !