Female nudity has been a hotly discussed topic all over the world throughout centuries. Sometimes it's considered sacred, sometimes blasphemous. Folklore has it that when Christians turned towards the Protestant fold and the grip of Catholicism had shaken, people aligned to the new fold were taken back by the invasion of Renaissance nudity. Female nude paintings then were the cause of infatuation for the Renaissance and Baroque era.

Paintings celebrate life. It can celebrate an apple and a toothbrush (still life painting), an abstract image (aiming at the illusory concept of reality). It can also celebrate human body. Through the various contours and the alignments, nude female paintings look to show the curves of female body and provide the erotic portrayals with tasteful sensuality. No more is nudity profane. It touches the deepest chord of a painter's psyche and seeks response from him.

Nude female paintings work on the precision of female anatomy, its proportions are absolutely on the dot and through it, and the paintings look to create an expression that is rooted deep inside the sub-conscious. A woman's expression says a thousand things.

Nude female paintings in 19thcentury were lustful adventures. Few artists further put them in a pornographic light. France had been typical of such erosion of art form. Nude female paintings however managed to rot the tide and it was only after the fall of Napoleonic Empire that complete frontal nudity was banned and models were dictated not to shed their entire cloth.

Drawing female nudity has been a challenge in any medium. Today, with Acrylic taking over oil as the top medium, models do not have to wait for long hours for the paintings to be completed. Look at it this way, the acrylic paint dries pretty quickly. As it dries, it lets fresh film be worked on the existing film and hence the paintings are completed fast.

Earlier, oil paint on canvas (specifically linen as it does not stretch like cotton) was the favorite medium and surface for female nude paintings. Such representation helped in layering the nude images. This way, the contours were brilliantly portrayed. Moreover the varnishes played well in contrast with the textures and hence added quite a lot to the ultimate brilliance of a painting.

Female nude paintings made in 19th and 20th century is cutting perfect corners today.