The psychology behind why some people want to censor classic nude art

The psychology behind why some people want to censor classic nude art

New research published in Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, & the Arts finds that people’s moral values shape how they judge paintings of nude figures. Nudity occupies an uneasy place in art: it can be treated as beautiful, sacred, heroic, or liberating, but it can also be judged as shameful, obscene, or morally troubling. Researchers Kim N. Awa and colleagues frame this tension through philosophical debates about whether aesthetic value and…