ABSTRACT
Between the 1880s and 1930s, photographic approaches to the nude shifted from studies that mimicked painting, to explorations with uniquely photographic ways to represent the body. In photography's earliest years, the only form in which the nude was permitted was the 'etudes d'apres nature', or 'study after nature'. Any other forms were deemed obscene. Photographers such as Felix-Jacques Moulins and Eugene Durieu posed their models in accordance with classical style to create images for use by academically trained artists. Often it was difficult for censors to distinguish between these academies and pornographic imagery. Those who first explored photography as an art form, such as Oscar G Rejlander, approached the nude by adhering to the figurative tradition of Renaissance and Baroque painting. But by the end of the 19th century, the Pictorialist movement had opened up distinct new ways of picturing.
