The Nude

a New Perspective

de Gill Saunders

The human body, unclothed and on display, has long been the subject of both artists and art historians. But it wasn’t until 1989, when Gill Saunders’sThe Nudewas first published, that the nude’s evolution in modern art was considered in all its facets. Written in response to Kenneth Clark’s 1956 study of the same name,The Nudeoffered a new, crucial feminist perspective on nudity in art—and has been cited in nearly every art history book since its publication. This book accompanies an exhibition at the Victoria & Albert Museum and it surveys the portrayal of the nude in art and photography. Recent moral and social changes, as well as aesthetic and technological developments have produced new attitudes to the role and meaning of the naked body in art. The author who studies the changing attitudes from the perspective of the eighties was editor of and contributor to "100 Great Paintings in the V&A".