We've said it before: having a body -- whether tall or short, cis or transgender, ostomized, hirsute, voluptuous, small-boned or whichever adjective feels most apt -- is the only prerequisite for having a "beach body."
Still, baring more skin than you're used to come June can make some feel less than confident. To help, we gathered 28 instances of many-bodied babes in paintings that illustrate the beauty in the human form, regardless of how you happen to take up space in this world.
For centuries, art students have studied faces and bare bodies as practice for understanding proportion and human form, so what better place to look for beachy celebrations of our buck-naked selves?
Of course, this is just the tip of the (mostly Western, male-oriented) art canon iceberg. For more on how contemporary art is embracing diverse bodies of all genders and races, see projects here, here, here, here, here and here.
Every so often, HuffPost Arts & Culture attempts to bring to light a few forgotten gems with our light-hearted look back at art history. For past examples see here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here.
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