Art nude

Art nude is a visual work of art depicting the naked human figure. It is intended to convey an artistic quality extending beyond the simple naked body depicted.

Art nude was a term also applied by many photographers to describe their nude photography until confronted with many calling their nudes art erotica. Many felt art and erotica were mutually exclusive. The desire to separate their views of art from erotica or pornography drove many artists to be more specific in describing their photos than using only the term “art nude”. They began to use the term figurenude to describe their photos. One notable early adopter of the term figurenude was Jerry Avenaim.

Many people regard the statue of a nude David by Michelangelo or a photo of a nude figure by Edward Weston, Ruth Bernhard, or Jerry Avenaim as examples of an art nude.

In contrast, some people claim that some use the term art erotica to give some respectability to what they regard only as pornography.

The figurenude is an object of two dimensional art with a nude human figure making up about one quarter of the surface area and is not intentionally erotic. It does not involve the subject interacting with anyone or the face of the nude as a prominent feature. The nude human form presented is revealed as an object of art and not a person with reference to his or her social relationships and behavioral patterns. It is often a term applied to photographs, but can be anything two-dimensional. The figurenude is a sub-class of the art nude genre that completely separates itself from all erotica.

Art is a broad term with several mutually exclusive genres such as painting, sculpture, and photography.