Erotica 17th-18th Century (TASCHEN Icons Series) (Paperback)

~ Angelika Taschen (Creator, Editor), Gilles Néret (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

This is a collection of the best 17th and 18th century images from Erotica Universalis, volumes I and II. From Rembrandt to Fragonard and lots of others in between (known, unknown, and anonymous), a plethora of delightfully naughty pictures!

Product Details

• Paperback: 192 pages
• Publisher: Taschen (April 15, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 3822855359
• ISBN-13: 978-3822855355
• Product Dimensions: 7.7 x 5 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.5 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #267,439 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

• This item is part of The Icons Series.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

35 of 37 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Successful erotic art, May 23, 2001

By	Eileen Galen (USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

This is a small scale (pages measuring 5" by 8") high quality art book of explicit erotic painting and engravings - along with a spirited and sensitive ideological introductory essay by Gilles Neret. He starts out with the far-reaching assertion that "there is only one real antidote to the anguish engendered in humanity by its awareness of inevitable death: erotic joy." This collection focuses on the representation and the provocation of that erotic joy. Those who enjoy explicitly graphic erotica (including those who might prefer to call it 'pornography') will not be disappointed in this book.

Neret has an abiding enthusiasm and a curatorial talent, for he has assembled a wide range of examples of erotic paintings, drawings, and engravings. In addition he has a sturdy confidence in the rightness of erotica's goal for its admirers: the enhancement of sexual experience. So yes, at least some of this art will do the customary and expected job of successful 'erotica.'

The approximately 170 plates are by European painters and printmakers. When color was used, it has been faithfully reproduced. The range of media and mood is wide, and the subject matter is consistently explicitly sexual.'Everything' is revealed at times. Threesomes, orgies, assorted combinations and recombinations are sometimes the subjects of these works.

There are boudoir scenes from the 1700's ( paintings of French artist Francois Boucher; the golden and voluptuous paintings of Jean-Honore Fragonard (softly beautiful women: dreaming - attended by cherubs - or sated and asleep in appealing disarray) and an assortment of anonymous politically satirical aat the same time sexually explicit paintings. There are social and cultural satires and a series of explicit and graphic paintings "for the education of the dauphin" that Napoleon hung in his bathroom. (Only several survived). A 1797 Dutch edition of de Sade's "The Story of Justine or the Misfortunes of Virtue" featured detailed and often gruesome illustrations - and some are included here.

From Italy, Carracci's series of engravings, "The Loves of the Gods," done in 1602, shares similarities of mood and topics with much mainstream pornography of today, but Carracci named his exuberant couples after classical gods, and inserted edifying visual details into his scenes of frank and explicit sexual activity: the satyr's hooves, Bacchus' grapes, Achilles' warrior equipment, discarded in favor of Briseis, etc.

Rembrandt (yes, Rembrandt) loved to paint women and evidently loved sexual subjects, for he did numerous erotic paintings, often of his wife and himself. His women (and his men) are real, often in a sort of sensuous and happy disarray, wrinkled and classically imperfect - and beautifully human. The attitudes of the lovers are unidealized, sensuous because so natural - and the drawings are lovely.

English painter Thomas Rowlandson published a series of graphic and consistently and deliberately insulting caricatures of "the sexual practices of the English aristocracy" in the early years of the nineteenth century. Orgies, various sorts of sexualized cruelty, and an assortment of sexual embarrassments pervade his paintings. They were published then, and are reproduced here.

This is a great little book. Art history enthusiasts will not be disappointed in this collection. More to the point, those in search of explicitly sexual art that succeeds at erotica's primary goal will not feel that they have wasted their money on yet more Art History.

2 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Page 184 looks fun., July 24, 2006

By	Darsh - See all my reviews

Fun book that you can get a few giggles out of, I especially enjoyed the flying [...] with butterfly wings [...] a nun on pg. 153 and the cat watching the friar tugging at a rope tied around his [...] while smacking himself in the [...]. Another funny one was the guy getting shot in the [...] by cupid while he's [...] on page 171.

Funny stuff aside, the highlight on the book is the de Sade engravings from page 111 to 141. Also the artistic ability by Agostino Carracci is amazing. His engravings are absolutely beautiful.

6 of 36 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Art has gone a long way, September 26, 2002

By A Customer

Yuk. This rating isn't the fault of editors or such, but the criticism of someone who was interested in whether people of yore generated high-quality nudes of ladies of their age (I'm male, nude males don't interest me). If they did, they didn't make a living doing erotica. I wasn't interested in the erotic side of this (if you've seen it in one collection, you'll see pretty much all that's offered in others - it's quiet repetitive and boring and so unimaginitive that you can pretty much guess what the next generation will do... A parade of genitals and often some sick-statement art saying bad things about sex.).

The single-star rating illustrates an art critics dissappointment in the quality of the artwork. Women were almost always drawn like men with breasts, all muscles and heavy bodied. Art style has advanced greatly - I've seen and am a fan of many modern artists who's sketchings and paintings break my heart in their ability to render people as real (some of the prettiest of which are of normal, non-glamor model people!) An art apologist will state "But people of that era often viewed fat women as the eye of beauty." That isn't what is wrong here; I've seen heavy women portrayed in realistic artistry and they are pretty. What is wrong is that the painters and etchers managed to render butt-ugly women! Literally, the paintings and drawings are just childishly ugly.

As a passing art scholar I learned a lot in buying this; the artwork is true-to-norm for the age (art has always grown and improved over the years), and varied, and for fans of the age would be great. But the quality of it based on pure true-to-life norms and beauty which a normal person would base it one is: it stinks. Look at later series and you will see a slow progression in the quality of artwork to the point where modern artists could drawn naked women who looked like real naked women. Not galmor girls, just real naked women! Indeed, if you've never seen it, check out some good art instruction books who use real people for models - it's impressive how a person doesn't have to be a glamor girl to be attractive. If they are presented in a quality piece of art, at least.