Nudity is placed on display. To be naked is to be without disguise. To be on display is to have the surface of one s own skin, the hairs of one s body, turned into a disguise which, in that situation, can never be discarded. The nude is condemned to never being naked. Nudity is a form of dress.
Nakedness is about disclosure and lived sexuality.
According to Berger, there are a few exceptional nudes in the European tradition of oil painting. Among the hundreds of thousands of nudes that make up the tradition there are perhaps a hundred of these exceptions. A couple examples would be Danae by Rembrandt and Helenne Fourment in a Fur Coat by Rubens. In each case the painter s personal vision of the particular woman he is painting is so strong that it makes no allowance for the spectator. The painter s vision binds the woman to him so that they become inseparable as couples in stone.