The Body in Flemish Art

Hieronymus Bosch - The Garden of Earthly Delights. 1495

Sir Peter Paul Rubens - Venus, Mars and Cupid . 1626

In early Flemish art the body, more specifically nudity, represented original sin, pity and lack of morality. However after Lutheran doctrine, the body once again became an object of beauty, something to be admired, in Flemish art and no longer had any of the negative connotations that were previously associated with it.