Paintings burn human hearts if they send the right kind of message to us. Since the prehistoric times when graffiti were a craze, man has looked to use all his creative flair in an inordinate expression of the definite and the indefinite. There have been abstract painting revolutions which have guided us towards the best in indefinite themes and then there have been art movements which have celebrated life and its various forms. Nude paintings have also kept our imagination completely fixed on the art medium.

Nude paintings are the works of sheer art. They evolve from a painter's precise reading of an anatomy and aims to exemplify that which is hidden inside a human body. Nude paintings looked to enhance the contours and sometimes depress it to gather the desired effect. Each nude painting is individual to a painter's psyche. Overall, it is the stimulus he draws from the society that comes to the fore. Expressions vary for the nude paintings. In the emotions of the face and the contortions of body part lies a mute gesture which asks for reading.

Baroque era and the Renaissance movement were deeply submitted to the cause of nude paintings. In those times the power balance of Catholicism had shifted. People were looking for reformation and going to the protestant fold. The only option left with the Catholics was to draw people back into its folds through nudity. This made the Renaissance men quite besotted to the idea of nudity.

Nude paintings have been amply pepped up by Baroque, Renaissance, Neo-Classic and Rococo revolutions in painting. The erotic paintings were executed brilliantly through oil painting and linen canvas with a primer coat. No surface better treated the art form and no medium was deemed fitter.

Oil medium uses the concept of layering. Moreover it does not dry quickly. This double effect helps in bringing the contours alive. Moreover, the painters ably use linen textures and contrast it with oils, this helps in creating the erotic portrayals in subtler undertones.

Artists like Poussin, Caravaggio and Ingress have boosted these art forms to such levels that even if one looks to make money through fake paintings, he will be caught woefully short on any such attempt; world over, only original nude paintings sell. Moreover, the connoisseurs can subtly make the difference.

Nude paintings emphasize eroticism with extremely tasteful portrayals. Art can hardly be vulgar. Michelangelo, the best among the best believed that how could a shoe ever be more brilliant than the feet and how could a garment be more impressive than a body in full bloom. By quoting this, he meant to bring the importance of nudist adventure to us. Since those times, Renaissance seduction for nudity has run parallel with the theme of Michelangelo's statement.

Today painters are also using acrylic medium to experiment with nudity.

Now here is a trivia. Renoir's male nude painting was stolen by an amateur thief; the work of art made in 1910 was ably restored later.