The English language, with its elaborate generosity, distinguishes
between the naked and the nude. To be naked is to be deprived of our
clothes, and the word implies some of the embarrassment most of us feel
in
that condition. The word "nude," on the other hand, carries, in educated
usage, no uncomfortable overtone. The vague image it projects into the
mind is not of a huddled and defenseless body, but of a balanced,
prosperous,
and confident body: the body re-formed. In fact, the word was forced
into
our vocabulary by critics of the early eighteenth century to persuade
the
artless islanders [of the UK] that, in countries where painting and
sculpture were practiced and valued as they should be, the naked human
body was the
central subject of art
