Nudity in Fine Art: How to Talk to Your Kids (By Age)

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A parent recently wrote in with a question I've honestly wrestled with: "I'm curious how you would approach the topic of nudity in fine art as it pertains to bad pictures. We were visiting a museum recently and I was caught off guard by all of the nude paintings and sculptures. Is there any distinction or nuance there, or would you give the same advice to stop, run, and tell?"

This is a good question, and I'll be honest, it's one I've struggled to think through. We've received this type of question several times, and here's why it comes up.

In our God's Good Design curriculum here at Foundation Worldview, we have a lesson on pornography. We teach that because of sin, not all pictures are good pictures. Sometimes people take pictures or videos of others that show the special parts of the body that a bathing suit was designed to cover. We teach children that these are bad pictures or bad videos, because they do not treat the people in them, or the people viewing them, as God's image bearers.

So we teach kids a simple three-step formula. If you see a bad picture, you stop looking at it right away, you run to your parents or the nearest safe adult, and you tell them exactly what you saw. Stop, run, tell.

Because so many families have used this curriculum, we've had people write in and ask: when there's fine art, and there's nudity in it, whether in our classical homeschool curriculum or at a museum we visit, do we teach our kids that same "stop, run, tell" formula? Or is there some nuance here? That's the question we're diving into today.

A quick word on God's Good Design

Before we go further, if you have children between the ages of 4 and 8 and you haven't yet taken them through our God's Good Design curriculum, I'd highly recommend it. It lays the foundation for understanding what design is, so that children grasp that there is a design to their bodies, a design for marriage, and a design for family. That understanding helps them cut through the lies our culture tells about gender and sexuality, lies that have sprung up because we've untethered sexuality and gender from their God-given design.

We only make this curriculum available for parents to take their own children through. We believe that biblically, sexuality is an important topic designed for the family to teach. It's the parents' job, not the job of the church or the school. So if you're a parent of a child in that age range, I'd encourage you to walk them through it.

Is nude fine art the same as pornography?

As we look at nudity in art and try to discern whether something is pornographic, I do believe there's a difference between Renaissance art portraying the naked human form and modern-day pornography.

Renaissance art was designed to highlight the beauty of God's design in the human body. Whether you're looking at Michelangelo's David or at various Renaissance paintings, the goal of those works is to appreciate beauty as God designed it in the human form. Modern-day pornography is designed to be consumed for the purpose of eroticism. Arousal is the goal.

So there are two very different goals here. One is to appreciate the beauty God placed in the human form. The other is to consume an image or video for the purpose of sexual arousal.

Our children, though, are too young to understand that difference. Or at least they should be.

For kids 10 and under: keep "stop, run, tell"

If you have children who are 10 or younger, I don't recommend bringing up the difference between Renaissance nude art and modern-day pornography. For children who are 10 and under, and in some cases just 9 and under, I'd keep the concept of good pictures versus bad pictures the same.

I recommend keeping the same "stop, run, tell" philosophy whether your child is looking at a Renaissance piece of art or an image that has just popped up on the computer screen. At this young age, they're simply too young to discern the difference between the two. We just want to train them that any time a private part of a human's body is being shown, they need to stop looking immediately, run to you or the nearest safe adult, and tell you what they saw.

So how does that work at a museum? I grew up just north of New York City, and in third grade our class went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. We saw plenty of naked statues and paintings there. If you're taking your child to a museum, or they're going on a school field trip, I'd recommend explaining beforehand that some of the paintings or sculptures they'll see are going to be of people not wearing any clothes.

You might say something like: "When we see those paintings or sculptures, we're just going to look away, and we're going to enjoy all of the other paintings and sculptures, because there's so much there for us to see."

That's my recommendation for children 10 and younger, and in some cases 9 and younger. You don't make the distinction yet. You still categorize it as a bad picture, because at that young age you're training them: any time they see an image of people not wearing clothes, they stop, run, and tell.

As kids near puberty: introduce the distinction

Once your child is on the cusp of puberty, whether that's 9, 10, or 11, this is when you can begin explaining the difference, so that if you decide it's appropriate, your child can appreciate Renaissance art.

It will be a different age for different kids, but somewhere between 9 and 12 you can have this conversation. You might point to the paintings in your classical textbook, or the paintings and sculptures you're about to see at a museum, and explain that most of them are from the Renaissance period. Renaissance art was designed to highlight the beauty of the human body as God designed it, so the goal of the painting or sculpture is to appreciate beauty. Highlight how that goal aligns with viewing others as image bearers, because as you look at the human form, you're seeing God's handiwork.

I should say my own understanding of art history here is limited. I'm not an art history buff. But from what I understand, the goal of this art was to point the viewer toward the beauty of the human form, which is treating that person as an image bearer of God.

You can also discuss with your child whether you think these are good forms of art. Personally, I don't think we need to see a nude human form to appreciate that God designed the human body well. So when I go to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, or the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, or somewhere else, I'm not going to run and hide when I walk past the David statue or certain paintings. But those aren't works I'm going to stop and stare at for a long time. I'm going to choose to focus my attention on the host of other art that doesn't involve the nude human form.

You may have different thoughts on this, and if you do, you can share them with your child.

Contrasting the two goals

Then you'll want to contrast the Renaissance sculptor or painter's goal in highlighting the naked human form with the goal of modern-day pornography.

You might say: "When pictures pop up on our phones or computers, modern-day images where people have taken pictures or videos of others without clothing covering the special parts of the body that a bathing suit was designed to cover, the purpose is not beauty."

At this age, when you're explaining pornography to your child, you can share something we don't explain in God's Good Design, because children between 4 and 8 aren't ready to hear it. Once your children are on the cusp of puberty, you can explain that pornography isn't just images or videos of naked people, but images or videos of people engaging in sexual intercourse. The goal is not beauty. The goal is arousal. The aim is for the person watching to have their body go through the same process it would go through during sex. The goal is to feel like you are having sex.

So you can explain that difference to your child: "You might still choose not to engage with Renaissance art, but the goal of the Renaissance artist was different from the goal of those managing a pornographic site."

It's not until our children are older that we want to explain that difference.

My current thinking (and an invitation)

Those are my current thoughts on this topic. I know it's a tricky one. As I said at the beginning, I purposely didn't respond to the first few questions that came in on this, because I hadn't given it enough thought. I didn't yet know how to think through it biblically.

So who knows? Maybe in two or three years I'll revisit this and say I have different thoughts, that Renaissance art is something we should avoid altogether. I don't know.

If you have specific, biblically based thoughts on this topic and you're watching on YouTube, feel free to share in the comments how you think through the difference between Renaissance art with nudity and pornography, which we know is sinful to engage with. And if you have a particular way you've handled this topic with your own children, I'd love to hear that too.

Keep building the foundation. This question is exactly why we created the God's Good Design curriculum. It gives children ages 4 to 8 a biblical understanding of design, their bodies, marriage, and family, so that harder conversations later have somewhere solid to stand. You can find God's Good Design here, and you can sign up for our newsletter so you don't miss future episodes like this one.