Thème intemporel et on ne peut plus incontournable, l'amour ne cesse aujourd'hui encore de fasciner les artistes. Qu'il soit peintre, sculpteur ou architecte, l'artiste l'aborde, l'évoque, l'illustre, y puise son inspiration, comme tout un chacun s'y réfère chaque jour de sa vie. Jamais épuisé, toujours renouvelé, il porte les artistes vers les chefs-d'œuvre de leur vie. De L’Amour sacré et l’Amour profane de Titien au Baiser de Brancusi, l'amour se transforme au fil des mouvements et des époques, mais reste, quelles que soient les couleurs qui l'éclairent, un langage universel défiant à la fois le temps et l'espace. C'est toute …

The poetess Sappho did not, in any way, facilitate the relationship between men and women, with her admirable Ode to Aphrodite which celebrates the love and sexuality between two women. With the liberalization of morals, female homosexuality is part of modern society and cannot be ignored. But what does history retain from these practices? How is the love between women appreciated? By infringing on the rules of past societies, how did these women live their particularity and their forbidden sexuality? This difficult exercise, undertaken by Professor Döpp, attempts to explain these censured pleasures, without inclining towards a certain voyeurism.

Since The Turkish Bath (1863) by the French painter Ingres, the Far Eastern woman has to many been a symbol of pleasures out of reach or forbidden. Seafaring explorers, military adventurers and simple travellers from Europe over the centuries have all been enthralled by the exotic nature of the oriental woman, her foreignness accentuated by the gentle pallor of her skin. Thus arose the myth that she, of all women, was in possession of the knowledge of certain refined pleasures. Historically, in the traditions of both China and Japan, women have been required to respond at least acquiescently to men’s …

The climax to the act of love casts an indefinable expression on the face – an expression of urgent intensity. A woman, a man, in that moment experiences an ecstasy that for an instant is visible in the eyes and on the lips. A wave of pleasure runs through the body, marking the transition between desire and orgasm. For this fleeting second, when just how violent the senses can be is laid bare, the person involved is not the same as the person immediately before or the person immediately after. With the help of prints and etchings from former centuries, …

When, almost twenty years ago, we founded the World of Art, we had a burning desire to liberate Russian artistic activity from the tutelage of literature, to instil in the society around us a love of the very essence of art, and that was the aim we had when we took the field. We considered enemies all those “who fail to respect art as such”, those who either fasten wings to an old nag or harness Pegasus to the cart of “social ideals”, or reject the idea of Pegasus altogether. For that reason, we addressed ourselves to the artistic world …

Conveying six centuries of gallantry, serving as the world capital of fashion and love, Paris is the very symbol of eroticism and of joyful sexuality. Offenbach, in La Vie Parisienne, had already created a hymn dedicated to the pleasure of senses. The author, with complete freedom, follows André Malraux’s approach by building an imaginary museum, in a Paris where time no longer exists, space is neverending, and desire is always present. The iconography is exceptional, coming from unpublished private collections and covering five centuries of Paris’ erotic story. It is accompanied by an academic text which allows the reader to …

Since humans first began thinking creatively – as opposed to merely procreatively – about sex, men and women have spiced up their love lives with this and that. Every civilization has come up with its own sex objects and sex toys. From rudimentarily-fashioned objects to the most exquisite ivory carvings of the Far East, eroticism has found expression in a multitude of different forms all displayed here. The beauty and the craftsmanship of these artistic masterpieces bear striking witness to the powers of generation in every culture throughout history. From works of art to sex toys, historian Hans-Jürgen Döpp analyses …

Amsterdam rejoices in more than simply its famous canals and its celebrated collections of the works of Rembrandt, Vermeer and Van Gogh. It has a museum dedicated to the Goddess of Love, which welcomes no fewer than 500,000 visitors a year. From all over the world people come in their thousands to this unusual establishment known as “The Temple of Venus”. First put on display together in 1985 by Monique van Marle and her father, this collection of erotic works is exceptional for the quality of the objects exhibited, its engravings and its photographs of yesteryear. Far from being a …