Mary Beard’s Shock of the Nude

If there is one genre of art that seems to have played a greater role than any other, it is the nude. For at least 30,000 years, humans have represented the naked form in a variety of ways. From the ideal to the real, the Romantic to the Surrealist, there have been almost no end of works devoted to the unclothed human body. This series - presented by writer and broadcaster Tim Marlow - will examine those artworks, the societies that produced them and the artists that made them. What can we learn about Ancient Greece or Renaissance Italy from its depictions of nudity? What is revealed about the soul of ancient Rome or 19th century France through its statues, sculptures and paintings of bare flesh? How much - if at all - have our attitudes changed over the centuries? The four episodes chart four distinct historical periods which, combined, provide a narrative line through the story of art: Ancient and Classical, Renaissance, the Enlightenment and the Modern period.