His long struggle with physical passion was almost over, and, as with many other great sensualists, its place had been taken by an obsession with death.

Antique art has come down to us in a fragmentary condition, and we have virtuously adapted our taste to this necessity. Almost all our favorite specimens of Gr…

Conventional nudes based on classical originals could bear no burden of thought or inner life without losing their formal completeness.

It remains true that Michelangelo's intensely personal use of the nude greatly altered its character. He changed it from a means of embodying ideas to a means …