There were exceptions: Aphrodite, the goddess of love, was more frequently portrayed fully nude, though in postures that were intended to portray shyness or modesty, a portrayal that has been compared to modern pin ups by historian Marilyn Yalom.

The location of the Templo Mayor was rediscovered in the early 20th century, but major excavations did not take place until 1978-1982, after utility workers came across a massive stone disc depicting the nude dismembered body of the moon goddess Coyolxauhqui.

Once landed, the goddess of love will don the earthly garb of mortal sin, an act that will lead to the New Eve-the Madonna whose purity is represented by the nude Venus.

If this is indeed the intended theme of the drawing, the bull would represent the zodiacal sign of Taurus, while the nude female, holding a bouqet of flowers, would be a depiction of Flora, the goddess of spring.

Gimbutas argued that the thousands of female images from Old Europe ( archaeology ) represented a number of different groups of goddess symbolism, notably a " bird and snake " group associated with water, an " earth mother " group associated with birth, and a " stiff nude " group associated with death, as well as other groups.

A first millennium BC cylinder seal shows a fire-spitting winged dragon — a nude woman between its wings — pulling the chariot of the god who subdued it, another depicts a god riding a dragon, a third a goddess.

Kotavi, sometimes described as a Matrika (" mother goddess ") is nude, dishevelled, wild and awful in appearance.

Kingsley says that there are several blood-thirsty, nude and wild goddesses and demonesses in Hindu mythology, though Chhinnamasta is the only goddess which displays the shocking self-decapitation motif.

A nude goddess is a figure alien to Greek culture before Praxiteles ' famous Cnidian Aphrodite in the fourth century: iconographic analogies must be sought in Phoenician Astarte and the Cypriote Aphrodite.

There were exceptions: Aphrodite, the goddess of love, was more frequently portrayed fully nude, though in postures that were intended to portray shyness or modesty, a portrayal that has been compared to modern pin-ups by historian Marilyn Yalom.

* the frontispiece image is entitled Venus Genetrix, and the goddess is nude and drawn in a chariot by doves, as in the classical sources.

It depicts a nude young woman, identified with the goddess Venus, reclining on a couch or bed in the sumptuous surroundings of a Renaissance palace.

But this particular depiction of a goddess represents a specific motif: a nude goddess with wings and bird's feet.

Moreover, examples of this motif are the only existing examples of a nude god or goddess ; all other representations of gods are clothed.

The bird's feet have not always been well preserved, but there are no counter-examples of a nude, winged goddess with human feet.

However, the specific depiction of the hanging wings of the nude goddess may have evolved from what was originally a cape.

In a back-to-back article, E. Douglas Van Buren examined examples of Sumerian art, which had been excavated and provenanced and she presented examples: Ishtar with two lions, the Louvre plaque ( AO 6501 ) of a nude, bird-footed goddess standing on two Ibexes and similar plaques, and even a small haematite owl, although the owl is an isolated piece and not in an iconographical context.

Jacob Brotman, identified as one of the main players in the Tijuana bible trade in Jay Gertzman's Bookleggers and Smuthounds, had earlier been arrested in a similar raid on a Lower East Side loft reported in the New York City papers in 1936, which produced a large haul of bibles, " readers ", pornographic playing cards, and nude photos, along with printing, cutting and binding equipment.

Perhaps this is a clue to the amazing variety and power of reactions, attitudes, and emotions precipitated by the nude form.

The monument was designed by Jean Chalgrin in 1806, and its iconographic program pitted heroically nude French youths against bearded Germanic warriors in chain mail.

Tin Machine IIs arrival was marked by a widely publicised and ill-timed conflict over the cover art: after production had begun, the new record label, Victory, deemed the depiction of four ancient nude Kouroi statues, judged by Bowie to be " in exquisite taste ", " a show of wrong, obscene images ", requiring air-brushing and patching to render the figures sexless.

The production stirred deep controversy by featuring nude performers in Mickey Mouse masks dancing on the ruins of the World Trade Center and a female singer with a painted on Hitler toothbrush moustache performing a straight arm Nazi salute, along with sinister portrayals of American soldiers, Uncle Sam, and Elvis Presley impersonators.

" Munch's nude paintings from this period survive only in sketches, except for Standing Nude ( 1887 ), perhaps confiscated by his father.

At one point, however, Munch's father, perhaps swayed by the negative opinion of Munch's cousin Edvard Diriks ( an established, traditional painter ), destroyed at least one painting ( likely a nude ) and refused to advance any more money for art supplies.

The historian Justin mentions an image of " the Lycaean god, whom the Greeks call Pan and the Romans Lupercus ," nude save for the girdle of goatskin, which stood in the Lupercal, the cave where Romulus and Remus were suckled by a she-wolf.

" At the age of 8, he had been sexually molested by a camp counselor, who had also taken nude pictures of him .... Poor Mike had spent his whole life racked with guilt and in constant fear that these pictures would someday surface in a way that might embarrass him and, especially, his adoptive father.

Priestess officiating before an altar while nude to demonstrate purity, Attic red-figure kylix ( drinking cup ) | kylix by Chairias, c. 510-500 BC, Ancient Agora Museum in Athens

The film courted controversy by including a nude wedding-night scene while Olivia Hussey was only fifteen.

* April 6 – Robert Mapplethorpe's " The Perfect Moment " show of nude and homoerotic photographs opens at the Cincinnati Contemporary Arts Center, in spite of accusations of indecency by Citizens for Community Values.

Swaddling and Bonfante ( among others ) explain that depictions of the nude embrace, or symplegma, " had the power to ward off evil ", as did baring the breast, which was adopted by western civilization as an apotropaic device, appearing finally on the figureheads of sailing ships as a nude female upper torso.

Her best known film roles were " Susanne Wallner " in Wolfgang Staudte's film Die Mörder sind unter uns ( The Murderers Are Among Us ), the first film released after the Second World War in East Germany and produced by DEFA ); and in 1950, " Marina " in Die Sünderin ( The Sinner ), in which she performed a brief nude scene, the first in German film history, causing a scandal.

Although artists have depicted the figure on a cross with a loin cloth or a covering of the genitals, writings by Seneca the Younger suggest that victims were crucified completely nude.

Ingres ' pupil Théodore Chassériau ( 1819 – 1856 ) had already achieved success with his nude The Toilette of Esther ( 1841, Louvre ) and equestrian portrait of Ali-Ben-Hamet, Caliph of Constantine and Chief of the Haractas, Followed by his Escort ( 1846 ) before he first visited the East, but in later decades the steamship made travel much easier and increasing numbers of artists traveled to the Middle East and beyond, painting a wide range of Oriental scenes.

He " never painted a nude ", and his wife modelled for several of his harem scenes, which, with the rare examples by the classicist painter Lord Leighton, imagine " the harem as a place of almost English domesticity, ... ... women's fully clothed respectability suggests a moral healthiness to go with their natural good looks ".

The Swedish actress Britt Ekland was cast as the innkeeper's lascivious daughter, although her singing and possibly all of her dialogue was redubbed by Annie Ross, and some of her nude dancing was performed by a double called Jane Jackson who lived in Castle Douglas at the time.

* 1893: The “ Bal de Quat ' zarts ” caused a scandal with its procession of a nude Cleopatra surrounded by young naked women.

Frank becomes suspicious of Lester and Ricky's friendship and finds his son's footage of Lester lifting weights while nude, which Ricky captured by chance and leads Frank to believe Ricky is gay.

He was soon seen as the ideal model by those disliking the excesses of Mannerism: the opinion ... was generally held in the middle of the sixteenth century that Raphael was the ideal balanced painter, universal in his talent, satisfying all the absolute standards, and obeying all the rules which were supposed to govern the arts, whereas Michelangelo was the eccentric genius, more brilliant than any other artists in his particular field, the drawing of the male nude, but unbalanced and lacking in certain qualities, such as grace and restraint, essential to the great artist.

File: Adam study-Michelangelo. jpg | Michelangelo-Studies of a reclining male nude: Adam in the fresco ' The Creation of Man ' on the vault of the Sistine Chapel ( c. 1511 )

Helen of Troy ( painting ) | Helen of Troy by Evelyn de Morgan ( 1898, London ); Helen admiringly displays a lock of her hair, as she gazes into a mirror decorated with the nude Aphrodite.

File: Female artistic nude. jpg | Female nude study

File: Kippur. jpg | Male nude light and shadow

Image: PaintedCyclists2005 2. jpg | The Solstice Cyclists are known for riding nude through the neighborhood

Image: Egon_Schiele_085. jpg | Egon Schiele, untitled nude, 1914.

Image: Antonin mercie david bronze nude. jpg | David

El Greco | El Greco's 1609 portrait of Hortensio Félix Paravicino | Fray Hortensio Félix Paravicino, who argued for the destruction of all nude paintings