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The art world has devalued simple beauty and pleasure, although these values are present in art from the past and in some contemporary works. Relatively tame nudes tend to be shown in museums, while works with shock value are shown in commercial galleries. At the same time that any nude may be suspect in the view of many patrons and the public, art critics may reject work that is not cutting edge. Puritan history continues to impact the selection of artwork shown in museums and galleries. However, in the United States nudity in art has sometimes been a controversial subject when public funding and display in certain venues brings the work to the attention of the general public. Great art can contain significant sexual content without being obscene. According to Clark, the explicit temple sculptures of tenth-century India 'are great works of art because their eroticism is part of their whole philosophy'. With regard to the distinction between art and pornography, Kenneth Clark noted that sexuality was part of the attraction to the nude as a subject of art, stating 'no nude, however abstract, should fail to arouse in the spectator some vestige of erotic feeling, even though it be only the faintest shadow-and if it does not do so it is bad art and false morals'. The 21st century may have created a fourth category, the commodified nude, which intentionally uses ambiguity to attract attention for commercial purposes.

Viewers easily identify some images as belonging to one category, while other images are ambiguous. In Western culture, the contexts generally recognized are art, pornography, and information. The meaning of any image of the unclothed human body depends upon its being placed in a cultural context. 'Although nudity in art was publicly protested by Americans, Vanderlyn observed that they would pay to see pictures of which they disapproved.' The painting was initially considered too sexual for display in the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. Types of depiction Ariadne Asleep on the Island of Naxos (1808–1812) by John Vanderlyn. Rather than being a timeless Odalisque that could be safely viewed with detachment, Manet's image was assumed to be of a prostitute of that time, perhaps referencing the male viewers' own sexual practices. Some of the same characteristics were shocking almost 70 years later when Manet exhibited his Olympia, not because of religious issues, but because of its modernity. The shocking elements were that it showed a particular model in a contemporary setting, with pubic hair rather than the smooth perfection of goddesses and nymphs, who returned the gaze of the viewer rather than looking away. This likely first occurred with the painting The Nude Maja (1797) by Goya, which in 1815 drew the attention of the Spanish Inquisition. One of the defining characteristics of the modern era in art was the blurring of the line between the naked and the nude. Clark states that to be naked is to be deprived of clothes, and implies embarrassment and shame, while a nude, as a work of art, has no such connotations.

The introductory chapter makes (though does not originate) the often-quoted distinction between the naked body and the nude.

One often cited book on the nude in art history is The Nude: a Study in Ideal Form by Lord Kenneth Clark, first published in 1956. Through each era, the nude has reflected changes in cultural attitudes regarding sexuality, gender roles, and social structure. Japanese prints are one of the few non-western traditions that can be called nudes, but the activity of communal bathing in Japan is portrayed as just another social activity, without the significance placed upon the lack of clothing that exists in the West. In India, the Khajuraho Group of Monuments built between 9 CE are known for their erotic sculptures, which comprise about 10% of the temple decorations. From prehistory to the earliest civilizations, nude female figures were generally understood to be symbols of fertility or well-being. Unclothed figures often also play a part in other types of art, such as history painting, including allegorical and religious art, portraiture, or the decorative arts. It was a preoccupation of Ancient Greek art, and after a semi-dormant period in the Middle Ages returned to a central position with the Renaissance. The nude, as a form of visual art that focuses on the unclothed human figure, is an enduring tradition in Western art.

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'What spirit is so empty and blind, that it cannot recognize the fact that the foot is more noble than the shoe, and skin more beautiful than the garment with which it is clothed?' Work of art that has as its primary subject the unclothed human body David (1504)