figure painting

A portrait painting focuses on the creation of a likeness of a particular individual or group.{{cite journal| first=Richard | last=Brilliant | year=1987| title=Editors Statement: Portraits: The Limitations of Likeness| journal=Art Journal| volume=46| issue=3| pages=171–172| doi=10.1080/00043249.1987.10792358}}

Genre painting portray ordinary people engaged in common activities.

Historical paintings depict events in a narrative, which may be allegorical.

The nude has been a theme in Western art since classical antiquity{{cite web| author=Sorabella, Jean|title=The Nude in Western Art and its Beginnings in Antiquity, In Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History| location=New York| publisher=The Metropolitan Museum of Art| url=http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/nuba/hd_nuba.htm|date=January 2008|access-date=25 October 2012}} and again in Renaissance art, after being largely absent during the Middle Ages.{{cite web| author=Sorabella, Jean|title=The Nude in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, In Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History| location=New York| publisher=The Metropolitan Museum of Art| url=http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/numr/hd_numr.htm|date=January 2008|access-date=25 October 2012}}

While standing nude figures of both sexes are found in antiquity, in Western art, male nudes were more prevalent through the idealisation of the male form in society. The first female reclining nudes as a popular genre appeared during the Renaissance, most notably in a work by Giorgione.{{Cite book|last=Ferrara|first=Lidia Guibert|title=Reclining Nude|publisher=Thames & Hudson|year=2002|isbn=0-500-23797-2|location=London|pages=6, 7|language=en-GB}} Oil paint historically has been the ideal media for depicting the figure. By blending and layering paint, the surface can become more like skin. "Its slow drying time and various degrees of viscosity enable the artist to achieve rich and subtle blends of color and texture, which can suggest transformations from one human substance to another."Scala, p. 1 Although working from live models is preferred, the length of time needed to complete a painting has led most modern painters to use photographs as references at least part of the time if not for the entire work.

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Gallery | height=240 | title=Antiquity

|File:Ägyptischer Maler um 1400 v. Chr. 001.jpg|Thebes c. 1400 BCE

|File:Meister des Mahâjanaka Jâtaka 001.jpg|5th-century mural painting from the Ajanta Caves, India

|File:Winged genius Boscoreale Louvre P23.jpg|Winged genius, fragment. Second-style mural painting, Roman artwork, late 1st century BCE.

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Gallery | height=240 | title=Mythological/Religious

|File:Lucas Cranach d. Ä. - Reclining Nymph - WGA05637.jpg|Reclining Nymph by Lucas Cranach the Elder

|File:Albrecht Dürer - Adam and Eve (Prado) 2.jpg|Adam and Eve (1507) by Albrecht Dürer

|File:Tizian 099.jpg|Venus and the Lute Player (1565–1570) by Titian

|File:IngresOdipusAndSphinx.jpg|Oedipus and the Sphinx (1808) by Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres

|File:Homère déifié, dit aussi L'apothéose d'Homère - Jean-Auguste Dominique Ingres - Musée du Louvre Peintures INV 5417 ; C 196.jpg|Apotheosis of Homer (1827) by Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres

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Gallery | height=240 | title=Impressionist

|File:Edouard_Manet_-_Olympia_-_Google_Art_Project_3.jpg | Olympia (1863) by Édouard Manet

|File:Whistlers Mother high res.jpg|Arrangement in Grey and Black No. 1 (The Artist's Mother) (1871) by James Abbott McNeill Whistler

|File:Young Spartans Exercising National Gallery NG3860.jpg|Young Spartans Exercising, c. 1860 by Edgar Degas

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{{

Gallery | height=240 | title=Academic

|File:William-Adolphe Bouguereau (1825-1905) - The Wave (1896).jpg|The Wave (1896) by William-Adolphe Bouguereau

|File:Winged Figure 1889 Abbot Handerson Thayer.jpg|Winged Figure (1889) by Abbot Handerson Thayer

|File:Thomas Eakins - William Rush Carving His Allegorical Figure of the Schuylkill River - Google Art Project.jpg|William Rush Carving His Allegorical Figure of the Schuylkill River (1908) by Thomas Eakins

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{{

Gallery | height=240 | title=Modern

|File:Duchamp - Nude Descending a Staircase.jpg| Nude Descending a Staircase, No. 2 (1912) by Marcel Duchamp. Oil on canvas. Philadelphia Museum of Art.

|File:Egon Schiele - Sitzender weiblicher Akt mit aufgestützen Ellbogen - 1914.jpeg |Sitzender weiblicher Akt mit aufgestützen Ellbogen (1914) by Egon Schiele

|File:Modigliani - Nu couché.jpg|Red Nude (1917) by Amedeo Modigliani

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{{reflist}}

• Depictions of nudity

• {{cite book| author=Clark, Kenneth| year=1956| title=The Nude: A Study in Ideal Form| publisher=Princeton University Press| location=Princeton| isbn=0691017883| url-access=registration| url=https://archive.org/details/nudestudyinideal00clar}}
• {{cite book| author=Hughes, Robert| year=1997| title=Lucian Freud Paintings| publisher=Thames & Hudson| isbn=0500275351 }}
• {{cite book| author=Rosenblum, Robert| year=2003| title=John Currin| publisher=Harry N. Abrams| isbn=0810991888 }}
• {{cite book| editor=Scala, Mark| year=2009| title=Paint Made Flesh| publisher=Vanderbilt University Press| isbn=978-0826516220 }}
• {{cite book| author=Steiner, Wendy| year=2001| title=Venus in Exile: The Rejection of Beauty in Twentieth-century Art| publisher=The Free Press| isbn=0684857812 }}

• {{cite web| author=Ryder, Edmund C|title=Nudity and Classical Themes in Byzantine Art, In Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History| location=New York| publisher=The Metropolitan Museum of Art| url=http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/nuby/hd_nuby.htm|date=January 2008|access-date=25 October 2012}}

{{Commons category|Nude paintings}}

;Museum exhibits

• [http://www.leopoldmuseum.org/en/exhibitions/46/nude-men Leopold Museum, Austria – Nude Men]
• [http://www.mfa.org/exhibitions/degas-and-nude Museum of Fine Arts, Boston – Degas and the Nude]

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Category:Visual arts

Category:Painting

Category:Visual arts genres