European erotica
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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| *[[Erotica]] | *[[Erotica]] | ||
| *[[European pornography]] | *[[European pornography]] | ||
| - | == By region == | + | |
| - | [[American erotica]] | [[Belgian erotica]] | [[British erotica]] | [[Dutch erotica]] | [[World erotica]] | [[French erotica]] | [[German erotica]] | [[Italian erotica]] | [[Japanese erotica]] | [[Scandinavian erotica]] | + | |
| {{GFDL}} | {{GFDL}} | ||
Revision as of 22:53, 13 December 2008
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- American erotica, Belgian erotica, British erotica, Dutch erotica, European erotica, French erotica, German erotica, Italian erotica, Japanese erotica, Scandinavian erotica
- One striking aspect of pre-industrial European erotic literature is the preponderance of female characters. Two early 17th century French works, L'École des filles and L’Academie des Dames, were written as female dialogues — a literary device that was to be repeated many times over the next century in works such as John Cleland’s Fanny Hill and the Marquis de Sade’s Juliette.
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Intro
Mainland Europe, especially France, Scandinavia and the Netherlands has a reputation for sexual freedom unknown in the puritanical Anglo-Saxon world.
Paris is the capital of erotic art and the Netherlands has enjoyed freedom of the press since the enlightenment era.
Many British upper class Grand Tour travellers were shocked by the sexual explicitness of the artworks they found in Europe.
An example of such outrage can be found in the writings of American author Mark Twain:
- In his 1880 travelogue A Tramp Abroad Mark Twain called the Venus of Urbino 'the foulest, the vilest, the obscenest picture the world possesses'. He proposed that 'it was painted for a bagnio and it was probably refused because it was a trifle too strong', adding humorously that 'in truth, it is a trifle too strong for any place but a public art gallery'.
European erotic art
In Europe, starting with the Renaissance, there was a tradition of producing erotica for the amusement of the aristocracy. In the early 16th century, the text I Modi was a woodcut album created by the designer Giulio Romano, the engraver Marcantonio Raimondi and the poet Pietro Aretino. In 1601 Caravaggio painted the "Love Triumphant," for the collection of the Marquis Vincenzo Giustiniani. The latter is reputed to have kept it hidden behind a curtain to show only to his friends, as it was seen as a blatant celebration of sodomy. The tradition is continued by other, more modern painters, such as Fragonard, Courbet, Millet, Balthus, Picasso, Edgar Degas, Toulouse-Lautrec, Egon Schiele, who served time in jail and had several works destroyed by the authorities for offending turn-of-the-century Austrian mores with his depiction of nude young girls, and so on.
European erotic film
See also
