Erotic art

Some of the earliest known works of art include erotic themes, which have recurred with varying prominence in different societies throughout history.

US Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart wrote in 1964 that the distinction was intuitive, saying about hard-core pornography which would not be legally protected as erotic art, "I know it when I see it".

[3] Others, including philosophers Matthew Kieran[4] and Hans Maes,[5][6] have argued that no strict distinction can be made between erotic art and pornography.

[7][8] Glyptic art from the Sumerian Early Dynastic Period frequently shows scenes of frontal sex in the missionary position.

[7] In Mesopotamian votive plaques from the early second millennium BC, the man is usually shown entering the woman from behind while she bends over, drinking beer through a straw.

[7] Middle Assyrian lead votive figurines often represent the man standing and penetrating the woman as she rests on top of an altar.

[11] The men in the illustrations are "scruffy, balding, short, and paunchy" with exaggeratedly large genitalia[12] and do not conform to Egyptian standards of physical attractiveness.

In some scenes, they hold items traditionally associated with Hathor, the goddess of love, such as lotus flowers, monkeys, and sacred instruments called sistra.

Edward Perry Warren adapted a love for Greek Art during college and collected Greek erotic art pieces that often represented gay sexual relationships, such as the Warren Cup, a Greco-Roman drinking cup which features scenes of anal sex between males.

I Modi was an erotic book with engravings of sexual scenes by Marcantonio Raimondi that were based on designs by Giulio Romano.

[23] The tradition was continued by other, more modern painters, such as Fragonard, Courbet, Millet, Balthus, Picasso, Edgar Degas, Toulouse-Lautrec and Egon Schiele.

Schiele served time in jail and had several works destroyed by the authorities for offending contemporary mores with his depictions of nude girls.

[26] Critical writings on the 'nude' and in particular the female 'nude', meant fundamental shifts in how depictions of the nude and the portrayal of sexuality were being considered.

Artists and historians began to investigate how images in Western art and the media, were often produced within a male narrative and particularly how it perpetuated idealisations of the female subject.

[25] Performance art since the 1960s has flourished and is considered as a direct response and challenge to traditional types of media and was associated with the dematerialization of the artwork or object.

Edelheit was criticized for being a female artist who created erotic artwork during a time where men were main contributors in this art.

Painting nude male subjects were uncommon in the 1970s; her Art turned the tables and allowed for women to be at the forefront of this fem expression revolution that occurred in the 70s.

[33] The acceptance and popularity of erotic art has pushed the genre into mainstream pop-culture and has created many famous icons.

Frank Frazetta, Luis Royo, Boris Vallejo, Chris Achilleos, and Clyde Caldwell are among the artists whose work has been widely distributed.

The Guild of Erotic Artists was formed in 2002 to bring together a body of like-minded individuals whose sole purpose was to express themselves and promote the sensual art of erotica for the modern age.