Fascinating thread - please continue since I have little knowledge of this other than enjoying Greek history. I sat at the original stadium on Mt Olympus in Greece and was enthralled by the fact that a millennia ago another person sat exactly where I was sitting and watched the very first Olympic games with naked athletes. Was amazing to feel the stone seat under me in a place and time that has been occupied by hundreds if not thousands before me.
And it's worth noting that the female pudendal cleft was almost entirely absent in classic Greek and Roman sculpture. I suspect that the artists were going toward a more idealized figure that downplayed those parts of the body that were devoted to reproduction. And while male genitalia can't be totally dispensed with, the artist could minimize it... yeah, he's a guy, but it's the rest of the anatomy that's important.As been noted above, the only time you see prominent male genitalia in art of that period is when it's intended to be erotic.
Maybe the genitalia on Michelangelo's David are undersized for a similar reason.
Chapter six of the book Therapy, nudity & joy : the therapeutic use of nudity through the ages, from ancient ritual to modern psychology from Aileen Goodson is a good reference resource IMO
Interesting book! Per Amazon it was published in 1991 and costs $34.50 new or used. I'd like to read it but will hold off.
Maybe the genitalia on Michelangelo's David are undersized for a similar reason.
Undersized? From what I've seen around nude men, that size isn't unusual at all. I think it only seems that way because much of the rest of David's anatomy is supersized, so to speak.
Maybe the genitalia on Michelangelo's David are undersized for a similar reason.Undersized? From what I've seen around nude men, that size isn't unusual at all. I think it only seems that way because much of the rest of David's anatomy is supersized, so to speak.
True, I meant small in proportion to the size of the statue.
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