These 28 Nudes Are Here To Assure You Every Body Is A Beach Body

Hit the waves in whatever physical form you happen to take.
Getty

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?

Paul Gauguin, "Nude woman among the waves," 1889
Imagno via Getty Images
Félix Vallotton, "Femme nue dormant au bord de l'eau," 1921
Vallotton, Femme nue dormant au bord de l'eau ( Musée d'art moderne et contemporain de Strasbourg )
Otto Mueller, "Three nude figures in the wood," 1911
DEA / M. CARRIERI via Getty Images
Gustave Courbet, "The Spring," 1868
DEA / G. DAGLI ORTI via Getty Images
Edvard Munch, "Bathing Men," 1907-08
Edvard Munch - Bathing Men, Ateneum (1907)
Charles Maurin, "Les fleurs du mal," 1891
DEA / G. DAGLI ORTI via Getty Images
Unknown, "Tomb of the Diver"
Leemage via Getty Images
Paul Gauguin, "Aha Oe Feii? (Are you jealous?)," 1892
DEA / V. PIROZZI via Getty Images
Felix Vallotton, "The Bath: Summer Evening," 1982-83
Heritage Images via Getty Images
Otto Mueller, "Bathers" circa 1917
DEA PICTURE LIBRARY via Getty Images
Pierre-Auguste Renoir, "The Bathers," 1918-19
DEA / A. DAGLI ORTI via Getty Images
Bernardino Luini, "Young women bathing," 1520-1525
DEA / G. CIGOLINI via Getty Images
Pan Yuliang, "After the bath," 1964
Universal History Archive via Getty Images
Félix Vallotton, "Frau mit Dienstmagd beim Baden," 1896
Valloton Frau mit Dienstmagd beim Baden
Renato Birolli, "Naked Woman with Black Veil," 1941
Mondadori Portfolio via Getty Images
Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, "Group of swimmers," 1909
DEA / M. CARRIERI via Getty Images
Joaquin Sorolla y Bastida (1863-1923), "Ninos jugando en la playa Valencia"
Universal History Archive via Getty Images
Emile Bernard, "Bathers," 1889
Heritage Images via Getty Images
Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, "Girl under a Japanese Umbrella," 1909
Heritage Images via Getty Images
Francois Boucher, "Diana leaving the bathroom," 1742
DEA / G. DAGLI ORTI via Getty Images
Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, "Reclining Blue Nude in a Straw Hat," 1909
Heritage Images via Getty Images
Paul Cézanne, "Bathers," 1898-1905
Heritage Images via Getty Images
Gustave, Courbet, "The Woman in the Waves," 1868
Print Collector via Getty Images
Paul Gauguin, "Tahitian women on the beach," 1892
Imagno via Getty Images
Paul Cezanne, "The Diver," 1867-70
Heritage Images via Getty Images
Pablo Picasso, "Female Nude at the Beach," 1963
Geoff Caddick/PA Archive
Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (1880-1938), "Fünf badende am See"
Kirchner - Fünf badende am See

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.

Before You Go

Nude Hand-colored Daguerreotype From 1850's

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