In Europe, starting with the Renaissance, there was a tradition of producing erotica for the amusement of the aristocracy. In the early 16th century, the text I Modi was an woodcut album created by the designer Giulio Romano, the engraver Marcantonio Raimondi and the poet Pietro Aretino. In 1601 Caravaggio painted the "Love Triumphant," for the collection of the Marquis Vincenzo Giustiniani. The latter is reputed to have kept it hidden behind a curtain to show only to his friends, as it was seen as a blatant celebration of sodomy. The tradition is continued by other, more modern painters, such as Fragonard, Courbet, Millet, Balthus, Picasso, Edgar Degas, Toulouse-Lautrec, Egon Schiele, who served time in jail and had several works destroyed by the authorities for offending turn-of-the-century Austrian mores with his depiction of nude young girls, and so on.

Today erotic artists thrive though the genre is still not as accepted as the more standard genres of art such as portraiture and landscape. We can thank the "Sexual Revolution" for reducing the limitations imposed on artists through censorship. Plus during the last few centuries society has broadened its view of what can be considered as art; several new styles developed during the 1800s such as Impressionism and Realism. This has given artists a wider spectrum to work with. We still have the traditionalist such as the erotic surrealist Anthony Christian and his students who use the same techniques that have been tried and tested by artists since the Renaissance, but we also have more contemporary artists such Marci McDonald's abstract work, and the bizarre drawings of Julian Murphy that clearly show the influences modern culture has had on Erotic Art.