This book, a sensuous evocation of images of the reclining nude, claims a female-identified pleasure in looking. Agnès Varda, Catherine Breillat, and Nan Goldin are re-imagining images of female beauty, display, (auto)eroticism, and intimacy. The reclining nude is compelling, for female-identified artists in the ethically adventurous, politically complex feminist issues it engages.

"Sensuous, voluptuous, provocative--the female form has inspired artists for centuries, making it perhaps the most popular subject in the history of painting. Since Venetian painter Giorgione's Sleeping Venus, the first notable female nude in Western painting, painters have focused their talents on the infinite possibilities of the representation of the female body. Featuring lush, full-page illustrations of masterpieces of the genre, Reclining Nude is a feast for the senses. From Titian's alluring Venus of Urbino to Manet's guileless Olympia, Reclining Nude provides a fascinating tour of the ever-changing visions of beauty and repose." -- Provided by publisher

This book, a sensuous evocation of images of the reclining nude, claims a female-identified pleasure in looking. Agnès Varda, Catherine Breillat, and Nan Goldin are re-imagining images of female beauty, display, (auto)eroticism, and intimacy. The reclining nude is compelling, for female-identified artists in the ethically adventurous, politically complex feminist issues it engages.

The best of Tom Lubbock, one of Britain's most intelligent, outspoken and revelatory art critics, is collected here. Ranging with passionate perspicacity over 800 years of Western art, Tom Lubbock writes with immediacy and authority about the 50 works which most gripped his imagination.