The female nude: Renaissance vs. Modernism

The painting Danaë was made by Gustav Klimt in the years 1907-1908. The painting is one of many depictions of sexually conscious women made by Klimt. Represented in the painting is the Greek myth of Danaë at the moment she gets impregnated by the god Zeus, shape-shifted in the form of golden rain. Shown on the painting is a nude, red-haired women in an almost foetal-like position with the golden rain sliding in between her thighs. Her eyes are closed, her mouth slightly open and she has a blush on her cheeks. Her figure is being framed and partially veiled by transparent purple fabric with golden Japanese ornaments.

The myth of Danaë is a classical and common used theme for the female nude in the history of art, but the way Klimt has represented it differs a lot from the approach of traditional artists. What is apparent in the Klimt´s painting of Danaë is the fact that it represents a woman enjoying sexual pleasure. The sexuality of women is a frequent theme in the work of Klimt, making a statement about women’s search for sexual liberation in a time they were still oppressed by men. Around 1900 women were not only socially inferior, but they were also thought of not to experience erotic feelings, there was a big taboo on this subject. The fact that Klimt has depicted a sexually liberated women becomes more apparent when one compares it to a work of a classical painter. Using the example of the painting Danaë with Nursemaid (1553-1554) by the Venetian painter Titian, one can see how this women is depicted in a way to serve as an object of lust for a male spectator. The women is lying passively on the bed, submissive to male voyeurism, with a rather calm and almost emotionless expression on her face. As John Berger mentioned in his book Ways of Seeing, the nakedness in these traditional European oil paintings are not an expression of the woman’s own feelings, her nudity is put on display for the male owner. Her body is arranged to appeal to his sexuality, not to hers: “Women are there to feed an appetite, not to have any of their own”.

On the contrary, in Klimt’s painting of Danaë one can see how the women has her eyes closed, like she is self-indulging and focussing entirely on her own body and pleasure. Her body is in a position not stretched out and fully visible, like in the work of Titian, but more withdrawn into her own erotic sensation. In this painting it is not about the man looking at the woman, but central is the woman’s sexuality. Klimt has addressed female sexuality most directly in his drawings, for example in these two drawings of masturbating woman: Reclining Nude Facing Right (1913) and Reclining Masturbating Woman with Spread Thighs (1916-1917). In these less subtle drawings the motif is also found, especially in the women’s facial expressions which also depict the full focus on the own erotic pleasure.