Ingres - Painting the Female Natural Beauty

If we are to select any genre of painting that has got favour and protest in equal proportion, surely it would be the art of figurative painting. Especially the paintings of women in their natural beauty have remained the cause of concern for the society, the artists and the viewers.
From the time we cannot trace out, artists have tried adoring the beauty embedded in human body. May it be the paintings of Venus, the Goddess of love, may it be carvings on the walls of temples at Khajuraho India, or may it be the statues of marbles from ancient Roman period: the artists are equally fascinated by the natural beauty of human figure.
Getting much praise and attention of the art lovers of these artworks is obvious. But the protest mainly has come form the so called guards of culture. It is because they have mixed two different phenomenons: the state of a person that is in the state of 'cloteh-less-ness' and the state of the person who is just in his or her natural beauty.
It is doubtless that a person would feel uncomfortable in a state of cloth-less situation; and he or she would feel some sort of defencelessness, too. But when a person, a man or a woman, is modelling for figurative painting, he or she is not merely a cloth-less body. Here the model is neither defenceless nor feeling any shame or guilt; the person is well-balanced and feels proud of being so beautifully depicted in a natural pose.
If we look at 'The Bather of Valpencon' painting by the master artist ingress we can see the difference discussed above. Were we to evaluate the real natural beauty of a female, this painting is one of the best example.
For reading more interesting articles about figurative painting and seeing the images, you can visit the following links.