The first examples of artistic representation of the female breast date back to the Paleolithic era. The oldest evidence is the Venus of Willendorf, a small statuette (about 11 cm high), considered the most famous among the Venuses of that period, in which the prominent breasts are a symbol of fertility and maternal sustenance.
In the Minoan Civilization, women played a dominant role, as clan leaders or priestesses and were often portrayed as part-nude. The famous Snake Goddess is a recurring figure of Cretan sculpture of this period. The goddess is depicted with bare and prominent breasts, emphasized by a corset-like garment.
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Classical Greek art gave a new aesthetic taste to the representation of breasts, ruled by the principle of harmony and the search for universal beauty, and materialized it in sculptures. We recall, among the various works, the Aphrodite Cnidia, dating back to 350 BC and made by Praxiteles, one of the greatest masters of Greek sculpture.
The ancient Romans regarded sex as something absolutely natural, a source of pleasure, and often depicted scenes in which the ars amandi was freely expressed. There are numerous representations of Bacchic scenes in which Menadi, with uncovered breasts, are caressed by Satiri in the grip of erotic fury.
The Middle Ages – an obscurantist period par excellence – had a very different discourse: the scarce representations of nude bodies were reduced to essential lines, with stylized bodies devoid of aesthetic qualities. The few examples of nude in this period were limited to biblical passages, such as the Genesis of Adam and Eve, in which the woman's breasts were often reduced to rough and schematic protrusions.
The representation of the Madonna breastfeeding the child Jesus, known as Madonna Lactans, deserves a specific analysis. A very particular example is the right panel of Jean Fouquet's Melun Diptych, the Virgin and Child Surrounded by Angels. Here, the Virgin Mary has the face of an icy queen, rather than the sweet expression to which we are accustomed. The iconography of the Madonna del Latte was banned by the Council of Trent (1545-63) as it was believed that such images could distract the faithful from prayer. The production of new works of this type was forbidden and many Madonnas were covered or subjected to retouching.
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The well-known painter Titian is credited with having given a whole new sensuality to the depiction of the female nude in art. His Venus of Urbino, with its soft shapes, has the genitals covered by one hand, but the breasts well on display, in a mixture of exquisite Renaissance modesty and seduction.
In the 17th century, breasts appeared in numerous paintings and were depicted in a soft and natural way, not idealized, as with the curvy and feminine bodies of Peter Paul Rubens and Rembrandt.
Between the 18th and the 19th centuries, the fashion of miniature portraits exchanged between lovers as emotional support was widespread. In some cases, women in love even posed bare-breasted, in order to give their loved one an image to keep in their pocket and carry with them, and keep the desire alive. Imagine a circle of a few centimeters within which love, eroticism, beauty and memories were enclosed – a solution that today could make us smile, but at the time was certainly revolutionary.
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Speaking of revolutions, we can’t fail to mention a painting symbolic of French romanticism, The Freedom Leading the People by Eugène Delacroix, inspired by the revolutionary days of Paris. This work exalts the freedom and political passion of the people, symbolized by the young woman who advances confidently with her breasts uncovered.
At the end of the 19th century, Edvard Munch painted two important works in which the representation of the breast has the precise purpose of transmitting an emotion and a message. In the painting Puberty (1895), the artist investigates the theme of adolescence, portraying unripe breasts in perfect agreement with the childish face and the lost expression. In Madonna, on the other hand, he intertwines the sacred and the profane, portraying a woman with an uncovered torso and an ecstatic expression with a strong sexual resonance. The work is played on the red-black two-tone – in particular in the red of that profane halo and in the black of the long hair, which seems to recall the love-death binomial.
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At the beginning of the 20th century, nudity was generally used as a tool to fathom the psyche and was charged with a human meaning. In those years, the nudes of Egon Schiele became known, portraying in his bare bodies a raw sexuality that was even accused of pornography. The nude breasts of the Austrian Expressionist actually speak of a new sense of freedom acquired through sensuality, and exquisitely describe the most contradictory aspects of the mind.
There are many artists of the 20th century and today who have dealt with the theme of eroticism with a certain intensity, showing with feminine attributes in a different light.
Therefore, the female breast – often still the subject of taboos, scandal or voyeuristic interest of low league – is elevated through art and becomes the bearer of an important political message.
