The Genius of British Art

Writer Howard Jacobson celebrates the way British artists depict sex and desire, and argues that the most compelling expression is to be found where we might least expect it: in the art of the Victorians.

We like to caricature the Victorians as hypocrites for whom the body is nothing but an embarrassment. In fact, thanks to artists like William Etty, who introduced the nude into British art in the 1820s, the Victorian era became a golden age for painting a wild and desperate sexuality.

What distinguishes this art from what was happening in, for example, France, is its moral consciousness. These are not paintings of unthinking hedonism. They reflect an awareness of the moral and psychological consequences of sex, which is what makes them all the more erotic. 'This for me is the British genius,' says Howard. 'We don't just do the fires of love today. We think about the way we'll feel tomorrow.'

Howard first discovered that British art of the 19th century was far more adventurous than it's given credit for when he visited his local gallery in Manchester as a schoolboy. Even today it's in the great provincial art galleries in which some of our most provocative sexual art can be found, thanks to those Victorian men of trade and industry, like soap billionaire William Lever, whom we often deride as prudish and philistine.

William Etty is York's most distinguished artistic son and yet Howard finds that not a single one of his nudes is on show here. We may laugh at the Victorians for what we think of as their prudery and repression but it seems we are hedged in by more moral prohibitions than they were.

Clips from Episode 3

• Fairy Art WARNING This clip contains scenes of a sexual nature
• Sex and Desire WARNING This clip contains scenes of a sexual nature

• All Clips (2)