I Couldn’t Help But Wonder…A Carrie Bradshaw Take on Art

The Art Story #16

This is being typed from my friend’s New York City apartment — at a small desk by the window, looking out onto a row of brownstones. Yes, that kind of set up. If this feels like the opening scene of Sex and the City, it’s because it is. Just swap Carrie’s cigarette for my oat latte, and replace Mr. Big with an emotionally sensitive dog.

Said dog — orange-haired, adopted, anxious — is currently melting into the corner of the room in what can only be described as position: abstract sculpture. Loudly sighing the weight of life, he shifts every now and then — from mildly weird to spectacularly twisted. I sip and observe, amused.

And then, of course, I hear Carrie Bradshaw’s voice in my head:

“I couldn’t help but wonder… if dogs have weird sleeping positions, do humans have ones too?”

Naturally, I turned to the most comprehensive archive of human positioning known to us long before the Kama Sutra became coffee-table chic: art history. From mythical seductions and Renaissance drama to erotic oddities and unfiltered expression, artists have been painting tangled bodies (mostly female, of course) for centuries.

Let’s start with Titian’s reclining nude — locked in a tower to escape a prophecy that her firstborn would kill her father — as Zeus descends on her thighs as golden rain (!). Early example of erotic symbolism — or a mythological excuse for what we might today file under “very niche preferences.”

Titian and his workshop - Danaë Receiving the Golden Rain, 1560s (Museo del Prado)

Then there’s the garden fantasy, courtesy of Fragonard. A woman kicks off her shoe mid-air, flashing her ankles (scandal!), while her lover gazes up from the bushes. Nature, flirtation, and flying footwear (hi, Carrie!).

Jean-Honoré Fragonard - L'Escarpolette, 1767–8 (The Wallace Collection, London)

Now we’re entering pretzel territory. Egon Schiele’s work is raw, unfiltered, and often shows bodies in twisted vulnerability — erotic, existential, and uncomfortably honest. It was a major theme in his work — and his paintings got him imprisoned for obscenity in 1912.

Egon Schiele - Sitting Woman with Legs Drawn Up, 1917 (Leopold Museum, Vienna)

Next up: the controversial, the dreamy, the deeply unsettling. A girl with raised legs and a tilted head in a trance-like daze — Balthus blurs the line between poise and provocation, centering adolescent sexuality in a way that still sparks debate.

Balthus - Thérèse dreaming, 1938 (Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY)

And for dessert: pop-art seduction. Cropped body parts, plush textures, leopards, fruits — Tom Wesselmann’s paintings turn suggestion into spectacle. Pure visual foreplay.

Tom Wesselmann - Study for Bedroom Painting #6, 1968 (McClain Gallery, Houston)

“So, here I am — on a borrowed couch with a dog in a furry pretzel shape — wondering. What’s the most twisted, seductive, or hilariously impractical pose you’ve seen in art?“

Leave a comment or DM me your favorite.
💌 Bonus points if it’s erotic.
🔥 Double bonus if you’ve tried it.

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