AllMovie

While the Victorian era in England is generally regarded as a time of great sexual repression, it's also the same era where British artists began to embrace the nude figure as a favored subject, drawing from Roman and Greek influences to create an aestetically idealized portrait of the female form. Empire of the Nude: The Victorian Nude is a documentary which explores the creative, social and moral phenomenon of the rise of the nude as a subject in British painting, sculpture and photography. The film includes interviews with artists and historians George Frederic Watts, William Etty, and Lord Leighton.