Fizza Raza

Costello
Greek Art
Aphrodite
The author starts off by describing the role of the sculpture of
women in Greek Art. She says that although it is a popular belief that
the female nude was very common and accepted, it is actually the
male nude that was common and expected. Women were sculpture but
they were usually draped. Men being nude was meant to represent the
ideas in Greek society about homosexuality and the vision of beauty.
For them, beauty meant a youthful boy so a nude represented the
essence of that. She argues that the nude of Aphrodite does show
humiliation, and one of the reasons is because she is covering her
pubis. In the male nudes their parts are very clearly sculpted and not
hidden. The fact that Aphrodite is sculpted as having to cover her pubis
lends to the women image that they should be ashamed of their
sexuality. Even though women were greatly valued in the Hellenistic
age and they even had more than lowly positions in society, they were
still thought to have their pubis as the most important thing. So that
pose of Aphrodite represented that the most important feature in a
woman were her private parts. Her conclusion is that this pose allowed
men to have a shared sense of manliness because the female nude
allowed men to have a shared heterosexual experience. I dont know if

I agree with her conclusion because although she makes a good point
about heterosexual men all having a shared experience while looking
at the female nude, it doesnt necessarily mean that they would be
willing to work with each other and cooperate on matters aside from
that.