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Abigail Solomon-Godeau suggests that photographic
technologies inaugurated an entirely new vocabulary
of sexual imagery.
Residing somewhere between visual pornography
and the photographic nude, erotic photography may
be most clearly distinguished through an analysis of
its production and consumption, with particular focus
upon issues of subjectivity and spectatorship. Unlike
the explicit sexuality of pornographic representation,
erotic photographs leave something to the imagination,
generally favoring strategic covering and subtlety over
excess and consummation. Though erotic photography
expresses interest in eliciting a sexual response from the
viewer, it refrains from depicting sexual activity.
Whereas nude photography makes no pretense to nar-
rative or fantasy, erotic images often use staging and pos-
ture, props and fetishes. Rejecting the academy fi gure’s
demure and modest view-from-behind, erotic photog-
raphy depicts a model whose more direct engagement
with the viewer—or voyeur—sets the libidinal terms of
the exchange. Many critics contend that the boundar-
ies between visual pornography, erotic photography,
and the academic nude cannot be clearly determined
and therefore recommend situating these genres along
a spectrum rather than in strict categories. To be sure,
even the fully clothed body, landscapes—such as those
by Pictorialist Clarence H. White (1871–1925)—and the
elegant corporeal curves of the domestic still life may
also stage the viewer’s desire, provoking emotional re-
sponses not unlike those evoked by erotic photography’s
staple image of the female body.
Erotic photographs fi rst appeared in France around
1845 and soon after in England. Despite mechanical
complexities and a delicate product, daguerreotypesfeaturing erotic images were soon sold by Paris opticians
and art dealers. The daguerreotype process was available
to the French public without franchise and, recognizing
the enormous commercial potential of erotic photogra-
phy, an underground market quickly blossomed. The use
of études photographiques by painters such as Edgar
Degas, Gustave Courbet, and Jean-Auguste-Dominique
Ingres legitimized the production of nudes, though typi-
cal erotic photography was not concerned with classi-
cal ideals, proportional exactitude, or, necessarily, the
beauty of the human form. As early as 1845, Eugène
Delacroix and others used académies—academic studies
of nude or partially dressed models—in lieu of living
models, and it was not long before non-artists used them
as objects of voyeuristic gratifi cation.
Inevitably, soft-core pornography was sold under the
misonomer académies in order to circumvent bans on
such material. According to Elizabeth Anne McCauley,
by 1852 and 1853 French laws against photographic
nudes were “inconsistent and poorly defi ned” with re-
course made to pre-existing laws such as the eighteenth
century prohibition against “obscene images, prints, or
drawings” or the 1810 Code Napoléon, an injunction
barring the sale and distribution of visual or written
material without the name of its creator. Circuitous
methods of controlling such images—such the exten-
sion of copyright laws and mandatory registration of
photographic prints at the Ministry of the Interior—were
meant to compensate for otherwise permissive attitudes
about depictions of nudity. “Artistic studies” of nudes,
unlike transactions around “obscene material” were le-
gitimate as long as they complied with “certain unstated
and ambiguous rules of posing.” Public condemnation
was more prevalent than prosecution, though seizures ofEROTIC PHOTOGRAPHY
Attributed to Felix Jacques Moulin and
Attributed to Achille Quinet. Nude.
The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles
© The J. Paul Getty Museum.Hannavy_RT72353_C005.indd 497 7/5/2007 11:18:25 AM