I don’t quite know how it happened, but somehow, looking for references of fainting couches suddenly turned into this wild Amazon book spree and Deviant Art fave-a-thon for anything nude and vintage.

After spending hours researching cases of Anorexia and Bulimia for my Historical Context class, it’s so very refreshing to see normal sized models, and not those fading waif-thin models flaunting bare bones and flat chests.

I’m a big fan of anything vintage, and has been a key source of influence, if that isn’t painfully obvious enough in my work. Specifically vintage erotica/pornography due to the romantic quality it seems to posses regardless of its content.

Among my findings, I came across Twittey on DeviantArt who has a gorgeous selection of vintage nudes, as well as Inspyretash-Stock, whom I’ve followed for years and has provided me with countless amounts of inspiration and references.

In terms of books, I went a little crazy with the wish-list adding, but I didn’t want to lose any of those titles. Among the ones that called my attention the most were:

The Art of Arousal: A Celebration of Erotic Art throughout History by Ruth Westheimer

Female Nude: Art, Obscenity, and Sexuality by Lynda Nead

Eroticism and Art (Oxford History of Art) by Alyce Mahon

Jazz Age Beauties: The Lost Collection of Zigfield Photographer Cheney Johnston by Robert Hudovernik

The Queens of Burlesque: Vintage Photographs of the 1940′s and 1950′s (Schiffer Pictorial Essay) by Len Rothe

Practical little nymphet that I am, I’ll definitely be reading some of the more academic texts (the contents of ‘Eroticism and Art’ appealed to me the most), and merely lusting after those gorgeous 1920′s and 1940-50′s photography books for when I have enough money to own them. In the time being, I’ll continue to gorge on the beauty of the photographs available via Public Domain.