Each installment of Strike a Pose features one of art history’s most seminal postures. Mediums range from sculpture to oils and everything in between. (See all installments.)

This week we discuss the meaning behind one of the most iconic: The Venus Pudica (explore the corresponding playlist).

When exactly Praxiteles sculpted Aphrodite of Knidos is up for debate, with estimates ranging across the 4th century BCE. But art historians seem to agree in one regard: that it’s the first life-size female nude in Greek history. Before Praxiteles and the Classical Era, Greek nude figures only took the male form, usually in the tradition of “heroic nudity.” Artists mostly overlooked the female form unless portraying a goddess, in which case the figure was draped in cloth.

While sculptures of (mortal) men depicted idealized soldiers, emperors, or even just toothsome youths, sculptures of women represented slaves or other characters diminished by society. Though it may seem counterintuitive today, male nudes, which were healthy, fit, and well-proportioned, were upheld as symbols of beauty and sexuality; the female form was not yet associated with beauty and daintiness—until Praxiteles revealed his Aphrodite.

Scandal-less

Praxiteles anticipated scandal. (After all, his sculpture wasn’t just the first female full-sized nude—it was one of Aphrodite, the high-ranking goddess of sexual love and beauty.) So, as some legends attest, he created a narrative for the pose, in which an intruder happens upon the goddess as she prepares for a bath, causing her to recoil. With this backstory in place, he revealed it to the public, to great acclaim.

It wasn’t long before Praxiteles’ sculpture became a treasure of his city, Knidos. And then, like cultural icons throughout history, it was copied for widespread consumption, cementing its place in the Western canon. Throughout history, the posture has been reduplicated across numerous movements and mediums, with perhaps none more famous than Sandro Botticelli‘s Birth of Venus (1484–86). Renaissance artists were drawn to the pose for its connection to Greco-Roman aesthetics, and the inherent link between shame and nudity. (Despite the fact that Greek social mores embraced nudity, the pose recalls the biblical story of Adam and Eve, where knowledge of one’s nakedness leads to disgrace.) Though more recent versions of the Venus Pudica show the subject covering her breasts and privates, the original showed Aphrodite reaching for a towel, leaving her upper-body exposed. It’s also worth mentioning that Praxiteles achieved such rare verisimilitude that many men became physically aroused in its presence.

Historians note that the exposure endured by the figure defaults to the male gaze, denying the female subject power in her sexuality. Contemporary critics have voiced that the origin of the pose, the idea that it is alluring or beautiful when a woman protects her nude body from unwanted eyes, is unsettling. It is difficult to view these works without attaching notions of beauty to the “damsels,” even if the viewer understands the disturbing nature of the pose’s implied narrative. The value of examining art from the past partly comes from its ability to expose our cultural roots and trace societal parallels or changes.

Manet’s new context

Artists have also taken notice of the sculpture’s problematic context, and many have chosen to follow Praxiteles’ aesthetic lead without following in his ideological footsteps. Édouard Manet’s Olympia (1863), for example, still depicts a woman in the nude, but her nakedness is her choice—not a condition that invites threatening male intrusion. Instead of a recoiling pose, Manet’s subject owns her body, staring unapologetically at the viewer. No longer is she afraid of advancements. No longer is she vulnerable. No longer is she there for nonconsensual consumption. In this way, Olympia marked a revolution in this Western genre on par with Praxiteles’ invention of it.