Nanette Salomon, 'The Venus Pudica: uncovering art histories 'hidden agendas' and pernicious pedigrees'

Initiated by Praxiteles, 4th Century BC Greek sculptor. It became the symbol of the vulnerable, yet sexualised female body, visible, yet hidden.

A copy of the Venus Pudica

The word Pudica, is etymologically linked to the word 'pudenda', meaning simultaneously shame and genitalia.

The female female figure is created as submissive and opposite to the dominant powerful man. The pose worked in 15-16th century Italian Renaissance Italy (and later) as a site of a mutual male mating ritual. I a socio-political state it allowed man to achieve an equality by adopting a common interest.

The homosexual erotics, which Salomon observes in Michelangelo's 'Dasvid' were stigmatized by the time of the Italian Renaissance. Homosexuality and art in the Italian Renaissance, was explored by James M Saslow in his book, 'Ganymede in the Renaissance', in which he considers the taboo of homosexuality and how artists constructed imagery which enabled them to express their feelings in 'secret'.
The 'Venus Pudica' as it became known, began to allow men to experience sexual eroticism together, triggered by a 'stigmaless' femal heterosexual image.

The Pudica serves men, it is a cultural indicator (this idea of the construction of the 'Woman' by culture is explored by Lisa Tickner in the 'Body Politic') and causal of ideology. It does nothing positive to women directly, it shows them as being imposed upon, whereas their counterpart, the male nude, stood for 'atheltic natural beauty'. The model of creation, Salomon says, is passed from genration to generation without ever being questioned.

A Greek Nude