2. Rembrandt Van Rijn – The Monk In The Wheat Field 1646
Rembrandt created rude etchings!? – I hear you cry. This work is perhaps the most controversial of Rembrandt’s etchings, which the artist made after the death of his wife Saskia in 1642. During this time Rembrandt’s career was in turmoil. He was quickly losing favour with his elite clientèle as he digressed ever further from the conventions of high art. Perhaps out of need for money he made these daring, blatantly sexual, etchings. Regardless of the mastery of his craft, perhaps the world still wasn’t ready for such explicitly erotic imagery. Even to this day many of his erotic etching remain hidden in a store room of the British Museum, away from public view, with the exception of an exhibition at the British Museum that shocked the London art scene in 2001.