Eroticism is a masculine noun that expresses the character or trend what is it erotic. It can also mean an explicit representation of the sexuality, which can be related to lustful love.
Eroticism is a manifestation of sexuality, whose characteristics vary according to the society that is taken as a model.
Although defined at first as "the passion of love", it is necessary to emphasize its character re-evaluating the proper forms of sexuality, both in personal and social life as well as in the manifestations cultural.
Reflection on eroticism, a privileged form of interpersonal relationships, is born with civilization. In Plato, on the other hand, one of the most fruitful aspects of erotic reflection is present: the liberating function of eros, a problem that was taken up by psychoanalysis when describing the its liberating aspect for the individual (Freud) and for society (Jung and Reich), as well as to emphasize its character of confrontation with the system (Marcuse, Bataille).
Another of the most relevant aspects of the discourse around eroticism was the intention to delimit the concept, differentiating it from others, such as pornography and obscenity. Its character of cultural elaboration and the important role that the imagination played in all times in the elaboration of erotic codes, led to to point out that the difference with pornography lies more in its deliberate interest in arousing excitement, in the specifically creative function of the eroticism. For this reason, eroticism has been a constant source of inspiration in literature and the arts.
eroticism and art
The first artistic representations of clear erotic intent were made by the Greeks and Romans. They appear in the ornamentation of ceramic vases, in wall paintings, as in the frescoes at Villa dos Mysteries in Pompeii (Secret Museum of Naples) and sculptures inspired by mythological game scenes loving.
During the Middle Ages, this type of representation was frequently inscribed in the general structure of civil and religious buildings, carved in corbels, capitals and gargoyles. At the same time (10th-13th centuries), Hindu art developed a form of sculptural ornamentation of a religious character centered on the theme of maithuna, or couple of gods performing the sexual act in different positions, symbol of the union of the soul with the divinity.
The introduction of perspective in painting and sculpture facilitated, from the Renaissance onwards, the erotic dialogue between the spectator and the work.
From the 20th century onwards, eroticism acquired an authentic definition as an independent theme, through the work of A. Beardsley, G. Klimt, H. Matisse and Picasso, among others.
Eroticism and Literature
When analyzing the various works that have as their central theme or are inspired by eroticism, it is necessary to distinguish those of poetic or narrative fiction and those that have a gnomic or didactic meaning. To this last category belongs the Kama Sutra, for example.
The Song of Songs (or Song of Solomon), book of the Bible, is full of a profound erotic dimension.
Erotic poetry found a new dimension in the Roman world by incorporating elements of the language of colloquial language that facilitated the expression of sensuality. During the Middle Ages, the genre evolved to an ever-increasing freedom (especially in the poetry of the goliardos), while the poetry of love emerged almost contemporaneously courteous, in which erotic inspiration takes place in a highly sublimated and codified way according to certain rules, a faithful reflection of the feudal and chivalrous society in which develops.
In Renaissance and Baroque erotic poetry reached its last moment of splendor, as in the following centuries it lost its specificity as a distinct genre from love poetry.
In the 19th and 20th centuries the genre is cultivated by an extraordinary number of writers who show a vitality that other types of narrative have not had. In these two centuries, some of the most famous authors of this genre were: Alfred de Musset, George Sand, Oscar Wilde, H. Miller, F. Wheat, G. Bataille, among others.
Eroticism and cinema
Eroticism has been found in cinema since its origins as a powerful element of mass attraction due to the great realism and suggestion of animated images.
The first film of its kind that history records, The May Irving-John C. Rice Kiss, was directed by Edmundo Kuhn, in the United States, in 1896. In the same year and in Europe, the Frenchman Eugène Pirou ran Le Coucher de la Mariee, for Méliès-Pathé.
The history of eroticism in cinema is linked to the evolution of the star-system, from which the famous vamps emerged.