Gustave Courbet shocked the world in 1886 with his notorious Origin of the World, which depicts a close-up view of a woman’s vagina. Almost 130 years later, female genitalia have remained an artistic subject that goes hand-in-hand with controversy.

Earlier this year, Belgian artist Peter de Cupere created The Deflowering, a frozen Madonna statue made from vaginal sweat, which the artist described as “holy water.” As it melted, the statue emitted its scent. To say the work divided opinion would be an understatement.

At the time, de Cupere wrote on his website that “The smell is produced by movement and sweating in the female intimate area,” which was “…conserved as odorous substance and realized by a professional lab in Germany.”

Now, he’s at it again. His latest project entitled The Paintbrush of Gustave Courbet, de Cupere has used a pubic-hair bristled paintbrush to ‘paint’ a blank, primed canvas with the scent of women’s vaginas.

De Cupere says his work aim to activate as many senses as possible, and The Paintbrush of Gustave Courbet is no different. The artist told Huffington Post “To look at vaginal smell as paint is a poetic statement.”

He says that “a woman’s vagina smells, in general, great, and more men should respect that.” The artist insists that “nothing [is] as creative [as] to start with an empty canvas and to brush down your desires with the smell of vagina!”