ORIGIN OF THE WORLD

The testimonies of poets, painters and famous psychiatrists to the fantasy of the perfect woman and feminine mystique is celebrated in this rather special art book. Beginning with the Song of Songs and illustrated with Sleeping Venus by Giorgione c1508-1510, a beautiful naked sleeping woman, Titian's Venus Rising from the Sea and his Venus of Urbino looking alluringly at the painter, Rubens' The Three Graces with their dimpled flesh and braided hair and the very satisfied looking Danaë by Rembrandt and his Bathsheba Bathing, Goya's seductive Nude Maja to Peter Fendi's Lesbian Scene with three buxom beauties at play and going on to Ingres' Turkish Bath on a similar theme, the book is titled after Gustav Courbet's famous painting The Origin of the World, a close up between a naked woman's legs, black haired, pink nipples showing from beneath the draped sheets. Hundreds of photographs and artistic examples from Schiele, Kirchner, Munch, to erotic photographs and drawings decorate poems from the 16th, 18th, 19th and 20th centuries and an essay entitled Ecstasy in celebration of the female form. 256pp. New publication.