Erotica in Art
(Encyclopaedia Britannica)
Literary or artistic works having an erotic theme;
especially, books treating of sexual love in a sensuous or
voluptuous manner. The word erotica typically applies to works in
which the sexual elementis regarded as part of the larger aesthetic
aspect. It is usually distinguished from pornography,
which can also have literary merit but which is usually understood
to have sexual arousal as its main purpose.
There are erotic elements in literary works of all times and all
countries. Among the best-known examples of erotic literature are the
Kama-sutra and other Sanskrit literature from about the 5th century
AD, Persian lyric poems called ghazals, Ovid's Ars Amatoria, the
16th-century Chinese novel Chin p'ing, William Shakespeare's Venus
and Adonis, the writings of the Marquis de Sade, and D.H. Lawrence's
Lady Chatterley's Lover.