Men Without Clothes: Heroic Nakedness and Greek Art

Gender and History

Volumn 9, Issue 3, 1997, Pages 504-528

  Osborne, Robin ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 0347803743     PISSN: 09535233     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1111/1468-0424.00037     Document Type: Review

References (76)

1. Quoted by Adam Phillips, London Review of Books (4 January 1996), p. 6. I am grateful to Simon Goldhill for drawing my attention to this passage and to him, John Boardman, Jas Elsner, Bert Smith, Nigel Spivey and Maria Wyke for comments on an earlier draft.
2. Denis Diderot, Sur l'art et les artistes (Paris, 1967), p. 37; tr. by Francette Pacteau, The Symptom of Beauty (Reaktion, London, 1994), p. 21.
3. Denis Diderot, Sur l'art et les artistes (Paris, 1967), p. 37; tr. by Francette Pacteau, The Symptom of Beauty (Reaktion, London, 1994), p. 21.
4. Kenneth Clark, The Nude: A Study of Ideal Art (John Murray, London, 1956), p. 37.
5. Robert Mapplethorpe, Lady: Lisa Lyon by Robert Mapplethorpe, text by Bruce Chatwin (Viking, New York, 1983); see Susan Butler, 'Revising Femininity', in Looking on: Images of Femininity in the Visual Arts and Media, ed. Rosemary Betterton (Pandora, London, 1987), pp. 120-6, and Lynda Nead, The Female Nude: Art, Obscenity and Sexuality (Routledge, London, 1992), pp. 8-9.
6. Robert Mapplethorpe, Lady: Lisa Lyon by Robert Mapplethorpe, text by Bruce Chatwin (Viking, New York, 1983); see Susan Butler, 'Revising Femininity', in Looking on: Images of Femininity in the Visual Arts and Media, ed. Rosemary Betterton (Pandora, London, 1987), pp. 120-6, and Lynda Nead, The Female Nude: Art, Obscenity and Sexuality (Routledge, London, 1992), pp. 8-9.
7. Robert Mapplethorpe, Lady: Lisa Lyon by Robert Mapplethorpe, text by Bruce Chatwin (Viking, New York, 1983); see Susan Butler, 'Revising Femininity', in Looking on: Images of Femininity in the Visual Arts and Media, ed. Rosemary Betterton (Pandora, London, 1987), pp. 120-6, and Lynda Nead, The Female Nude: Art, Obscenity and Sexuality (Routledge, London, 1992), pp. 8-9.
8. The most subtle and sophisticated exposition of this position is N. Himmelmann, Ideale Nacktheit in der griechischen Kunst (De Gruyter, Berlin and New York, 1990). This work contains many pertinent observations but nevertheless seems to me to beg the question on the fundamental issue. See the review by T. Hölscher in Gnomon, 65 (1993), pp. 519-28. In particular Himmelmann's omission of the sexualized body, which Hölscher (p. 528) notes, is what I here try to make good.
9. The most subtle and sophisticated exposition of this position is N. Himmelmann, Ideale Nacktheit in der griechischen Kunst (De Gruyter, Berlin and New York, 1990). This work contains many pertinent observations but nevertheless seems to me to beg the question on the fundamental issue. See the review by T. Hölscher in Gnomon, 65 (1993), pp. 519-28. In particular Himmelmann's omission of the sexualized body, which Hölscher (p. 528) notes, is what I here try to make good.
10. B. S. Ridgway, Fifth-century Styles in Greek Sculpture (Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ, 1981), pp. 90-1 (my emphasis).
11. N. Spivey, Understanding Greek Sculpture (Thames & Hudson, London, 1996), pp. 112-13.
12. Andrew Stewart, Greek Sculpture: An Exploration (Yale University Press, New Haven, CT, 1990), pp. 79, 106.
13. John Boardman, Greek Sculpture, the Classical Period (Thames & Hudson, London, 1985), pp. 239, 238 (original emphasis).
14. Christoph Clairmont, Classical Attic Tombstones (Akanthus, Kilchberg, 1993), vol. 1, pp. 145-6.
15. J. J. Winckelmann, 'On the Imitation of the Painting and Sculpture of the Greeks' (1755), tr. H. Fuseli, quoted from David Irwin, Winckelmann: Writings on Art (Phaidon, London, 1967), pp. 61-8. See Himmelmann, Ideale Nacktheit, pp. 1-28 for a full history of the development of views on male nakedness in Greek art.
16. J. J. Winckelmann, 'On the Imitation of the Painting and Sculpture of the Greeks' (1755), tr. H. Fuseli, quoted from David Irwin, Winckelmann: Writings on Art (Phaidon, London, 1967), pp. 61-8. See Himmelmann, Ideale Nacktheit, pp. 1-28 for a full history of the development of views on male nakedness in Greek art.
17. J. J. Winckelmann, 'On the Imitation of the Painting and Sculpture of the Greeks' (1755), tr. H. Fuseli, quoted from David Irwin, Winckelmann: Writings on Art (Phaidon, London, 1967), pp. 61-8. See Himmelmann, Ideale Nacktheit, pp. 1-28 for a full history of the development of views on male nakedness in Greek art.
18. Martin Robertson, A History of Greek Art (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1975), pp. 94, 311.
19. Stewart, Greek Sculpture, p. 106.
20. See Mary Beard, 'Adopting an Approach II', in Looking at Greek Vases, ed. Tom Rasmussen and Nigel Spivey (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1991), pp. 12-35 and Robin Osborne, 'Whose Image and Superscription Is This?', Arion, n.s. 1 (1991), pp. 255-75.
21. See Mary Beard, 'Adopting an Approach II', in Looking at Greek Vases, ed. Tom Rasmussen and Nigel Spivey (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1991), pp. 12-35 and Robin Osborne, 'Whose Image and Superscription Is This?', Arion, n.s. 1 (1991), pp. 255-75.
22. Thucydides 1.6.5 is the classic text, and M. McDonnell, 'The Introduction of Athletic Nudity: Thucydides, Plato, and the Vases', Journal of Hellenic Studies, 111 (1991), pp. 182-92 the most recent discussion.
23. Clouds 961-89; cf. also Birds 137-42.
24. Wasps 577-8.
25. On Winckelmann see Alex Potts, Flesh and the Ideal: Winckelmann and the Origins of Art History (Yale University Press, New Haven, CT, 1994). Recently note e.g. Catherine Johns's paean on Greek sexual liberation in Sex or Symbol? Erotic Images of Greece and Rome (University of Texas Press, Austin, 1982), or K. J. Dover's unshockable Greeks in Greek Homosexuality (Duckworth, London, 1978).
26. On Winckelmann see Alex Potts, Flesh and the Ideal: Winckelmann and the Origins of Art History (Yale University Press, New Haven, CT, 1994). Recently note e.g. Catherine Johns's paean on Greek sexual liberation in Sex or Symbol? Erotic Images of Greece and Rome (University of Texas Press, Austin, 1982), or K. J. Dover's unshockable Greeks in Greek Homosexuality (Duckworth, London, 1978).
27. On Winckelmann see Alex Potts, Flesh and the Ideal: Winckelmann and the Origins of Art History (Yale University Press, New Haven, CT, 1994). Recently note e.g. Catherine Johns's paean on Greek sexual liberation in Sex or Symbol? Erotic Images of Greece and Rome (University of Texas Press, Austin, 1982), or K. J. Dover's unshockable Greeks in Greek Homosexuality (Duckworth, London, 1978).
28. This is a traditional crux since by Odyssey 22.488 Odysseus has his rags on again.
29. Odyssey 6.127-246.
30. Tamsey Andrews talks of 'ceremonial nudity' when discussing the youth with a ram in the Sackler Museum, Harvard (Catalogue no. 1970.26), and Susan Langdon talks of 'different kinds of nudity' and of the 'apotropaic' nudity of the heroic warrior when discussing a helmeted warrior figure in the Menil Collection, both in From Pasture to Polis: Art in the Age of Homer, ed. S. Langdon (University of Missouri Press, Columbia, MO, 1993), at pp. 149 and 196.
31. I am not persuaded by Himmelmann (Ideale Nacktheit, p. 32) that male nudity carries aristocratic connotations in geometric art.
32. Compare L. Bonfante, 'Nudity as Costume in Classical Art', American Journal of Archaeology, 93 (1989), pp. 543-70 (at p. 549).
33. This is so both on the Protoattic amphora from Eleusis (Eleusis Museum) and on the Aristonothos krater from Cervetri (Museo dei Conservatori, Rome), which was perhaps made in the Greek west.
34. C. Sourvinou-Inwood, 'Reading' Greek Death (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1995), pp. 227-70.
35. Moskhophoros: Athens Akropolis Museum 624; Dionysermos: Louvre MA3600.
36. G. M. A. Richter, The Archaic Gravestones of Attica (Phaidon, London, 1962).
37. Both the pots and the grave reliefs show how untrue for the sixth century is the claim made by Spivey, Understanding Greek Sculpture, p. 113 that nudity is heroized by association, for in both media many who are demonstrably not heroes are naked, just as in both pots and architectural sculpture many who are heroes are clothed.
38. On the self-reflexive world of the art of the symposion see F. Lissarrague, The Aesthetics of the Greek Banquet (Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ, 1990).
39. E. Gombrich, Art and Illusion: A Study in the Psychology of Pictorial Representation (Phaidon, London, 1960), ch. 4.
40. See O. Taplin, Greek Fire (Cape, London, 1989), pp. 87-9. discuss this further in 'Sculpted Men of Athens: Masculinity and Power in the Field of Vision', in Thinking Men: Masculinity and its Self-representation in the Classical Tradition, ed. Lin Foxhall and John Salmon (Routledge, London, 1998).
41. See O. Taplin, Greek Fire (Cape, London, 1989), pp. 87-9. discuss this further in 'Sculpted Men of Athens: Masculinity and Power in the Field of Vision', in Thinking Men: Masculinity and its Self-representation in the Classical Tradition, ed. Lin Foxhall and John Salmon (Routledge, London, 1998).
42. Thucydides 6.54.
43. J. Boardman, Athenian Black Figure Vases (Thames & Hudson, London, 1974), pp. 112, 211.
44. W. Sweet, 'Protection of the Genitals in Greek Athletics', Ancient World, 11 (1985), pp. 43-52; E. J. Dingwall, Male Infibulation (John Bale, Sons and Davidson Ltd, London, 1925). Dingwall's fascinating book insists, mistakenly in my view, on refusing to identify the ligature with the kunodesme referred to in some ancient sources, and on distinguishing between those representations in which some form of tie is clearly shown and those in which the penis is curled up without a tie. He achieves this by not sufficiently acknowledging the overlap between the types of males shown in his two classes, and as a result denies a connection with male modesty for either of his classes, preferring views about ligaturing preventing powers leaking, which are based on a Japanese parallel, and the curled penis being a sign of pederasty, sexual excess and moral degradation. I hope to discuss Dingwall and ligaturing at greater length elsewhere.
45. W. Sweet, 'Protection of the Genitals in Greek Athletics', Ancient World, 11 (1985), pp. 43-52; E. J. Dingwall, Male Infibulation (John Bale, Sons and Davidson Ltd, London, 1925). Dingwall's fascinating book insists, mistakenly in my view, on refusing to identify the ligature with the kunodesme referred to in some ancient sources, and on distinguishing between those representations in which some form of tie is clearly shown and those in which the penis is curled up without a tie. He achieves this by not sufficiently acknowledging the overlap between the types of males shown in his two classes, and as a result denies a connection with male modesty for either of his classes, preferring views about ligaturing preventing powers leaking, which are based on a Japanese parallel, and the curled penis being a sign of pederasty, sexual excess and moral degradation. I hope to discuss Dingwall and ligaturing at greater length elsewhere.
46. See F. Lissarrague, 'The Sexual Life of Satyrs', in Before Sexuality, ed. D. Halperin, J. Winkler and F. Zeitlin (Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ, 1990), pp. 53-82, at pp. 58-60, to which I am much indebted for what follows.
47. M. Foucault, The History of Sexuality vol. 2: The Use of Pleasure (Penguin Books, Harmondsworth, 1985), pp. 119-20, citing Plato, Laws 840a.
48. 2, p. 435, no. 95).
49. 2, p. 435, no. 95).
50. 2, p. 435, no. 95).
51. The relevance of Dionysos to discussions of male nudity is brought out by Himmelmann, Ideale Nacktheit, pp. 27, 46-7. know of only one image of Dionysos dating from before the middle of the fifth century BCE in which the god appears naked: the Dionysos on the silver coinage of Serdaioi in southern Italy. My discussion of Dionysos is heavily indebted to the article by C. Gasparri, in Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae (Artemis Verlag, Zurich and Munich, 1981-), vol. 3.1, pp. 414-514. The Serdaioi coin is no. 76 in Gasparri's catalogue. On Dionysos in sixth- century art see T. H. Carpenter, Dionysian Imagery in Archaic Greek Art: Its Development in Black-Figure Vase Painting (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1986).
52. The relevance of Dionysos to discussions of male nudity is brought out by Himmelmann, Ideale Nacktheit, pp. 27, 46-7. know of only one image of Dionysos dating from before the middle of the fifth century BCE in which the god appears naked: the Dionysos on the silver coinage of Serdaioi in southern Italy. My discussion of Dionysos is heavily indebted to the article by C. Gasparri, in Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae (Artemis Verlag, Zurich and Munich, 1981-), vol. 3.1, pp. 414-514. The Serdaioi coin is no. 76 in Gasparri's catalogue. On Dionysos in sixth- century art see T. H. Carpenter, Dionysian Imagery in Archaic Greek Art: Its Development in Black-Figure Vase Painting (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1986).
53. The relevance of Dionysos to discussions of male nudity is brought out by Himmelmann, Ideale Nacktheit, pp. 27, 46-7. know of only one image of Dionysos dating from before the middle of the fifth century BCE in which the god appears naked: the Dionysos on the silver coinage of Serdaioi in southern Italy. My discussion of Dionysos is heavily indebted to the article by C. Gasparri, in Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae (Artemis Verlag, Zurich and Munich, 1981-), vol. 3.1, pp. 414-514. The Serdaioi coin is no. 76 in Gasparri's catalogue. On Dionysos in sixth-century art see T. H. Carpenter, Dionysian Imagery in Archaic Greek Art: Its Development in Black-Figure Vase Painting (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1986).
54. See Michael Jameson, 'The Asexuality of Dionysus', in Masks of Dionysus, ed. Thomas Carpenter and Christopher Faraone (Cornell University Press, Ithaca, NY, 1993), pp. 44-64, esp. pp. 47-53.
55. See Gasparri catalogue no. 620 (for thyrsos-spear and naked opponent) and no. 609. Dionysos himself appears naked in such combats only from the end of the fifth century (see Gasparri no. 630 by the Jena Painter).
56. I discuss these further in 'The Ecstasy and the Tragedy: Varieties of Religious Experience in Art, Drama and Society', in Tragedy and the Historian, ed. Christopher Pelling (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1997), pp. 187-211. On the 'Lenaean' vases see also F. Frontisi-Ducroux, Le dieu-masque: une figure du Dionysos d'Athènes, (Flammarion, Paris, 1991).
57. I discuss these further in 'The Ecstasy and the Tragedy: Varieties of Religious Experience in Art, Drama and Society', in Tragedy and the Historian, ed. Christopher Pelling (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1997), pp. 187-211. On the 'Lenaean' vases see also F. Frontisi-Ducroux, Le dieu-masque: une figure du Dionysos d'Athènes, (Flammarion, Paris, 1991).
58. Arguably an exactly parallel phenomenon with regard to wine is visible in the 'Lenaean' vases. There maenads ladle wine from large pots and carry it round in various forms of cup, but they are never seen to drink, and, given the taboos on women drinking wine, can reasonably be assumed not to drink. Just as only making Dionysos bodiless could remove assumptions of sexual activity from rituals involving manipulations of male genitalia, so only putting the vessels into the hands of women could remove assumptions of inebriation from rituals involving manipulations of wine.
59. The voyeurism of the kinds of sexual narratives which these naturalistic statues elicit is also, of course, on display in the art of those who from Michelangelo to Mapplethorpe have turned to the Greek model to justify a more or less explicitly homoerotic art.
60. 2, p. 632, no. 3, printed as Figure 4 in Jameson, 'The Asexuality of Dionysus'.
61. 2, p. 632, no. 3, printed as Figure 4 in Jameson, 'The Asexuality of Dionysus'.
62. Of three exceptions to this rule that I know, one (Clairmont, Classical Attic Tombstones, vol. 1, no. 100 [Athens National Museum 2004]) involves one Agakles, a bearded man shown as an athlete - a pankratiast - who has occupational reasons for being unclothed; the second (Clairmont, vol. 2, no. 192 [New York Metropolitan Museum 40.11.23]) involves the naked victim of a warrior, where the nakedness seems to be a mark of the man's weakness and helplessness; and only the third (Clairmont, vol. 2, no. 957 [Budapest Museum of Fine Arts 6259]) seems clearly problematic. In this last relief a bearded naked man, with cloak over his shoulder, stands beside a clothed woman. It is possible that this man too was intended as an athlete, since signs that he wore a crown have been detected (Clairmont, vol. 2 p. 829). But it should also be noted that the piece may not be Attic: Clairmont regards the suggestion, on quite different grounds, that it is Boiotian as being 'not without its merits' (p. 828). Naked bearded men certainly appear on Boiotian monuments: cf. the stele of Rhynkhon, W. Schild-Xenidou, Boötische Grab- und Weihreliefs archaischer und klassischer Zeit (Schön, Munich, 1972), no. 44.
63. Of three exceptions to this rule that I know, one (Clairmont, Classical Attic Tombstones, vol. 1, no. 100 [Athens National Museum 2004]) involves one Agakles, a bearded man shown as an athlete - a pankratiast - who has occupational reasons for being unclothed; the second (Clairmont, vol. 2, no. 192 [New York Metropolitan Museum 40.11.23]) involves the naked victim of a warrior, where the nakedness seems to be a mark of the man's weakness and helplessness; and only the third (Clairmont, vol. 2, no. 957 [Budapest Museum of Fine Arts 6259]) seems clearly problematic. In this last relief a bearded naked man, with cloak over his shoulder, stands beside a clothed woman. It is possible that this man too was intended as an athlete, since signs that he wore a crown have been detected (Clairmont, vol. 2 p. 829). But it should also be noted that the piece may not be Attic: Clairmont regards the suggestion, on quite different grounds, that it is Boiotian as being 'not without its merits' (p. 828). Naked bearded men certainly appear on Boiotian monuments: cf. the stele of Rhynkhon, W. Schild-Xenidou, Boötische Grab- und Weihreliefs archaischer und klassischer Zeit (Schön, Munich, 1972), no. 44.
64. Peiraieus 385, Clairmont, Classical Attic Tombstones, vol. 2, no. 156. Clairmont (vol. 2, p. 106) remarks: 'Hölscher has rightly pointed out that in the case of Chairedemos one should not speak in terms of heroic nakedness, Lykeas having as much reason as his companion to be depicted naked but he actually wears clothing.' In fact what T. Hölscher says ('Ein Kelchkrater mit Perserkampf', Antike Kunst, 17 [1974], pp. 78-85 at p. 81, n. 32) is 'Take the grave relief of Khairedemos and Lykeas from Salamis, which has been explicitly cited as evidence of the heroizing meaning of nakedness ... both stand by one another with shield and spear, one is clothed and the other is naked. Obviously they are also of the same status: the naked man is not because of his nakedness raised to some fundamentally different world from the clothed man' (my translation). That Hölscher is correct does not entail that there is no reason why Lykeas is clothed.
65. Peiraieus 385, Clairmont, Classical Attic Tombstones, vol. 2, no. 156. Clairmont (vol. 2, p. 106) remarks: 'Hölscher has rightly pointed out that in the case of Chairedemos one should not speak in terms of heroic nakedness, Lykeas having as much reason as his companion to be depicted naked but he actually wears clothing.' In fact what T. Hölscher says ('Ein Kelchkrater mit Perserkampf', Antike Kunst, 17 [1974], pp. 78-85 at p. 81, n. 32) is 'Take the grave relief of Khairedemos and Lykeas from Salamis, which has been explicitly cited as evidence of the heroizing meaning of nakedness ... both stand by one another with shield and spear, one is clothed and the other is naked. Obviously they are also of the same status: the naked man is not because of his nakedness raised to some fundamentally different world from the clothed man' (my translation). That Hölscher is correct does not entail that there is no reason why Lykeas is clothed.
66. For Herakles in Athenian decree reliefs see Carol Lawton, Attic Document Reliefs (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1995), nos. 72, 82, 85, 133, 157 and 158. The young Theseus appears naked in no. 187 (a rather later example) and some other hero in no. 148. See also O. Palagia in Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae, vol. 4.1, pp. 747-8, nos. 326-30 on the beardless Herakles of these reliefs, and p. 758 for the possible role of a Herakles by Polykleitos in popularizing the beardless type.
67. For Herakles in Athenian decree reliefs see Carol Lawton, Attic Document Reliefs (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1995), nos. 72, 82, 85, 133, 157 and 158. The young Theseus appears naked in no. 187 (a rather later example) and some other hero in no. 148. See also O. Palagia in Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae, vol. 4.1, pp. 747-8, nos. 326-30 on the beardless Herakles of these reliefs, and p. 758 for the possible role of a Herakles by Polykleitos in popularizing the beardless type.
68. It is a peculiarity of the frieze from the Mausoleion that there bearded hoplites are shown naked.
69. 2, p. 1269, no. 4, p. 1174, no. 1.
70. 2, p. 1269, no. 4, p. 1174, no. 1.
71. 2, p. 1318, no. 1.
72. 2, p. 1333, no. 1.
73. See N. Crowther, 'Male Beauty Contests in Greece: the euandria and the euexia', Antiquité Classique, 54 (1985), pp. 285-91. N. Spivey, Understanding Greek Sculpture, pp. 36-7 suggests that there was a pederastic element to the appreciation of the male body in the euandria competition, but it is clear that more was at stake in the competition than sexual attraction.
74. See N. Crowther, 'Male Beauty Contests in Greece: the euandria and the euexia', Antiquité Classique, 54 (1985), pp. 285-91. N. Spivey, Understanding Greek Sculpture, pp. 36-7 suggests that there was a pederastic element to the appreciation of the male body in the euandria competition, but it is clear that more was at stake in the competition than sexual attraction.
75. 2, p. 1208, no. 41).
76. As in Praxiteles' Apollo Sauroktonos or Lysippos' 'Farnese' Herakles. I explore this theme at greater length in 'Sculpted Men of Athens'.