Our internet friend Catie suggested that we look at women in classical Greek sculpture, and Francesca agrees. Catie wrote:
. . . what I love is that all of them are realistic (none of them look frail like some of the ‘ideals’ we see today), and some of them were meant to represent the very image of divine beauty! . . . any time you see a goddess or woman in sculpture she is always stunningly beautiful and never of frail stature!
Here we have the wide-hipped Eirene Holding the Infant Plutus (Eirene=Peace, Plutus=Wealth)(or a Roman copy thereof):
And here we have the Aphrodite of Knidia (again, Roman copy thereof).
Francesca wishes to point out that while even today few would call Aphrodite “fat,” she has a tummy and dimples on her back, and today she would be a Plus Size model. In ancient Greece, she was considered so beautiful and perfect that, according to rumor, men snuck in at night to pleasure themselves on this statue. A normal looking woman was porn material in ancient Greece. Imagine that.
Awesome.
Comment by jojo.k — October 29, 2009 @ 12:28 pm