The Censored Venus

The Censored Venus is an NFT collection that innovatively explores the theme of censorship of nudity in art.

Tired of seeing some of his realistic paintings representing nudes censored on social networks, the artist decides to censor his latest work himself by blurring it entirely, leaving the public the choice to reveal it or not.

This collection, in addition to opening a reflection on the censorship of the artistic nude, while celebrating the beauty and power of Venus as a timeless subject, combines several technological innovations made possible thanks to the blockchain through an interactive game system via a web3 voting platform for collectors around the world.

Venus and censorship, timeless subjects

The artist, customary to create NFTs from his physical works, presents here a collection based on his latest creation: a realistic oil painting representing a Venus in the guise of a naked young woman lying on satin sheets. He is particularly inspired by the tradition of the "reclining nude" dating back to the Italian High Renaissance. From Titian's Venus of Urbino to Manet's Olympia.

In the history of art, Venus, as an emblematic female figure of beauty, love and birth, has indeed often been subject to censorship and controversy when nudity was perceived as indecent or immoral.

Today, the algorithms put in place by artificial intelligences on the internet and social networks censor several works of naked art, sculptures, paintings, identifying them as "explicit content".

The work of Pascal Boyart

This collection was made from the original work painted in oil on canvas (130 x 80 cm) by the artist in October 2O22.

After several quick sketches made on paper, the artist used montages of drawings and photos as references to paint the body of Venus, as well as artificial intelligence (Stable Diffusion) for the drapes and the curtain.

The realization of the oil painting on canvas lasted two weeks in the studio.

Then, the canvas was scanned in high definition in order to create the NFT collection from the gigapixel image.

An innovative NFT collection

Boyart's NFT collection plays with the tension between art and censorship; The pixels that blur the Venus are distributed in the form of a grid of 250 pieces in total. Each piece is a unique NFT available for sale at a price of 0.33 ETH (~$610 at today's rate).

With each new sale, the area acquired by the collector appears live to the public on the "Dapp" (web3 site, or decentralized application, allowing interaction with the blockchain). It is also possible for him to personalize it by giving it the first name of a woman he likes or who inspires him.

Each new evolution is recorded live on the blockchain, creating a sense of movement and duality as censored areas are revealed as the pieces unfold. Indeed, with each new "mint" (Creation of NFT), the pixels disappear to give way to the bare area. In this way, the Venus will be fully revealed when the collection is completely sold out.

Link to the Dapp to follow the evolution live: x

After this, the collection will be automatically re-censored every three months, giving collectors the opportunity to vote for the choice of revealing the area they hold or censoring it.

Each quarter, an "airdrop" of the entire Venus, censored or nude, will be sent to collectors based on their own vote. Thus, they will receive a censored version or a nude version depending on the majority of votes.

In addition to the vote, it is also possible to optimize your chances of receiving the airdrop: if you hold 4 pieces in a square or in a line (horizontal, vertical or diagonal) as in the famous Connect 4 game, your chances are increased!

By fusing reflection on censorship in nude art, celebration of the timeless beauty of Venus, and technological advancements through blockchain, this collection offers an unprecedented interactive experience.

So, which team are you from? Censorship or naked?

Take part in the collection too by sharing on social networks with the hashtag: #TheCensoredVenus