![At time of painting, a picture for somewhere private: Hans Bock the Elder, ‘The Baths at Leuk’, 1597.](https://blog.nationalmuseum.ch/app/uploads/das-bad-zu-leuk-titel-300x225.jpg)
A scene of racy bathing pleasure as a social critique
The Reformation brought stricter social mores to many places in Europe, and artists had to adapt if they didn’t want to lose commissions. But these social mores were not popular with everyone – as revealed by this painting by Hans Bock in Basel’s Kunstmuseum.
![Two men observe the goings-on in the water.](https://blog.nationalmuseum.ch/app/uploads/das-bad-zu-leuk-detail-zwei-manner-225x300.jpg)
![Gropey music practice.](https://blog.nationalmuseum.ch/app/uploads/das-bad-zu-leuk-detail-paar-225x300.jpg)
![Lucas Cranach the Elder, ‘The Fountain of Youth’, 1546.](https://blog.nationalmuseum.ch/app/uploads/der-jungbrunnen-300x196.jpg)
![Jakob Huggel’s ‘Von heilsamen Bädern des Teutsche[n]lands’ with its chaste cover...](https://blog.nationalmuseum.ch/app/uploads/huggel-titelbild-225x300.jpg)
![... and more explicit images inside.](https://blog.nationalmuseum.ch/app/uploads/huggel-innenteil-225x300.jpg)
![Hans Sebald Beham, ‘Jungbrunnen und Badehaus’, 1536 (detail).](https://blog.nationalmuseum.ch/app/uploads/jungbrunnen-und-badehaus-detail-300x290.jpg)
![The fact that assaults did sometimes occur in these settings is shown by Sebald Beham’s 1541 woodcut ‘Der Narr im Frauenbad’ where the harassed women are putting up quite a fight against their molester.](https://blog.nationalmuseum.ch/app/uploads/der-narr-im-frauenbad-300x195.jpg)
![Pregnant woman in Hans Bock’s 'The Baths at Leuk', 1597.](https://blog.nationalmuseum.ch/app/uploads/das-bad-zu-leuk-detail-schwangere-225x300.jpg)
![Hans Bock the Elder, 'Portrait of Basilius Amerbach', 1591.](https://blog.nationalmuseum.ch/app/uploads/bildnis-des-basilius-amerbach-229x300.jpg)
![Hans Bock the Elder, ‘Dance around the Statue of Venus’, circa 1590.](https://blog.nationalmuseum.ch/app/uploads/venustanz-300x220.jpg)
![Title page of the Basel mandate of morals, 1597.](https://blog.nationalmuseum.ch/app/uploads/sittenmandats-von-basel-1597-202x300.jpg)
coveted. cared for. martyred. Bodies in the Middle Ages
There were conflicting perspectives of the human body during the Middle Ages: it was glorified, suppressed, cared for and chastised. The exhibition features many loaned exhibits from within and outside Switzerland to explore how the human body was viewed during the Middle Ages from a cultural history perspective, thereby also raising some questions about how we perceive the human body today.