Anatomy of a genre

During my visit, the Carmen Thyssen museum's latest scholarly must-see entitled Desnudos (Naked) was enlivened by the presence of a group of sketchbook-equipped students, which included a trio of giggling girlfriends - with spiky hair, black lipstick and piercings - seated on the floor, copying an explicit exhibit.

What to expect as a curtain raiser? Relatively tame examples of the genre under scrutiny greet the onlooker: alongside the introductory text, a hazy beige and grey version of Picasso's Young Ladies of Avignon by Salvador Dali (1970); on the opposite wall, male models diligently depicted by a gifted teen named Pablo Ruiz, yet to adopt his mother's iconic "apellido"; a 'rear view' of a firm-buttocked lad cutting something with a saw (Isidoro Lozano, 1852).

However, as the English translation of the show's explanatory subtitle ("Normative and Rebellious Nudes...") suggests, this spectacular 90-work overview gradually unravels, not unlike Ravel's Boléro, into an impactful visual statement, echoing the evolution of Spain's attitude to the nude from late 19th-century academism towards ever increasing creative freedom, in the period leading up to the post-Franco transition era.

All in all, a savvy mix of studies of the human body ranging from what-you-see is what-you-get anatomic figures to saucy "way before #Me Too" variations on female voluptuousness. In Julio Romero de Torres's portrait of her as a reclining Venus de la Poesia, silent movie diva Raquel Meller has a wicked come-hither glint in the eye. This also applies to the copla-singer and dancer, Oterito, painted in the same year (1913), by Zuloaga. Both of these scantily clad showgirls are glowing embodiments of the idiomatic expression "morbo" - derived from "morbid", but loosely used to convey barely concealed lustfulness.

Needless to add, from start to finish, clothes-less is the dress code, and this can be unforgiving. Fortuny's emaciated old men are deeply moving, while some evidently professional posers look distinctly listless, as if they would rather be somewhere else.

"Flesh, flesh, everywhere...": on canvas, on paper, in photography and sculpture. Here as elsewhere, sculptors (notably, Chillida and Julio Gonzáles) have an unfair advantage: they are accustomed to working in the round, to looking beyond the surface; their life drawings have that extra edge.

Speaking of sculptors, a curiosity cabinet-like showcase is devoted to statuettes, and Dalí's surreal anthropomorphic contribution is a showstopper, not only because it incorporates suggestive appendages (among these, a phallus in "soft watch" mode), but in view of its title Fmentioning the forbidden "H-word": Female Nude, Hysterical and Aerodynamic (1934).

The final fanfare is a celebration of avant-garde exuberance. Proponents of a bold semi-abstract rough-textured Iberian style, already fast gaining ground beyond the Pyrenees, let it rip in the build-up to the Caudillo's death; among these: Antonio Saura (1930-98), brother of the prominent filmmaker, Carlos Saura.

In the room leading to the exit, a further pre-transition mainstreamer, Eduardo Arroyo (1937-2018) catches the eye. Known for his bright-hued off-kilter realism, at the crossroads of figurative and narrative figuration, Arroyo gave a free rein to his imagination, in an anachronistic boudoir scene featuring a matronly unrobed mirror-holding coquette seated on a drum with a Peninsula-shaped hole in it. A taste of tongue-in-cheek thrills to come.

Petals and sepals. Stigmas and stamens. Leaves and limbs. Breasts and skin. These are a few of Imogen Cunningham's favourite photographic topics. Animal, vegetable or mineral? Sometimes, it's hard to tell - so partial was Cunningham (1883-1976), to paring down her botanic themes and human subjects to bare essentials.

The bijou display to be seen in the museum's Sala Noble until 19 January 2025 highlights a selection of modern platinum prints mostly from her Roaring Twenties-to-late thirties heyday, and belonging to the collection of José Luis Soler Vila.

"Esencias" (Essences) reveals the essence of this star of the New Objectivity movement's vision: minimalist though anything but dry; pursued without interruption for seven decades. Her greatest source of artistic pleasure? "Finding beauty in the commonest things" and stripping them of the least artifice. Any resemblance to crude reality is purely subliminal.