Summary: This volume surveys the ever-changing fashions in what has constituted the ideal nude as a basis of humanist form, from the art of the Greeks to that of Renoir and Henry Moore. The author distinguishes between "naked" and "nude" with relation to cultural, philosophic, and religious attitudes in the classic and Western Christian worlds. He analyzes the postures, gestures, poses, and body formations of the undressed human figure. His definition of the nude -- a "balanced, prosperous, and confident body: the body re-formed" came at the end of a century-long debate about what should be allowed in representation and justifies the pursuit of contemplating the female body as a pure aesthetic experience.