https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-08-13/why-don-t-paintings-of-women-have-pubes/104169474
From the influence of the devil to overzealous restorers, there are numerous strange reasons and theories behind the conspicuous lack of pubic hair on women depicted in Western art.
Truth is sculpting body hair was taking too much time and production couldn't keep up with demand, so management decided to cut costs and keep it smooth.
I feel like it might've been painted on for greek-style marble statues? Still unusual for paintings
Men were depicted with pubes, though. See the article, too.
A female friend of mine actually did her bachelor's thesis on body hair removal across certain cultures and time periods. Fun discussions were had.
Short version, body hair removal on both women and men has been around for a very long time and is subject to changes. Depictions of nude bodies follow somewhat different rules, though. If they are at all permissible, that is.
You know how Roman statues were actually painted bright colors? In ancient times pubes were actually glued onto the groins of sculpted figures, unfortunately with weathering over time most of these sculptures lost their pubes
Not Roman, Greek. The Greek sculptures were painted. Roman sculptors found the Greek marble beautiful without paint, and didn’t paint theirs.
Wikipedia disagrees: Roman Sculpture
Most statues were actually far more lifelike and often brightly colored when originally created; the raw stone surfaces found today is due to the pigment being lost over the centuries.
One of Ceasar's statue was found to have pigment residues. You can find an image of how it would've looked like when it was painted.
One medieval writer even went as far as to claim that if you take the hairs of a menstruating woman and bury them in the garden, a snake will grow from the earth. (If any of our dear readers try this at home, please write in to the ABC with your results).
You might want to read into it some weird sexist agenda, but really, they also had a lot of naked men with realistic penises and no pubes. I'm sure it's cuz those dudes had to shave to make it look bigger, yeah?
Believe it or not there is actually no shortage of art containing women's pubic hair if you just google it
One thing the article doesn't consider is age. What if the ancient artists were intending their subjects to be younger girls than the actual models?
"Youth" in women being idealised then as now, presumably. I don't imagine they had the same issues with girls being under age as we do.
That question work for both gender and the answer is, it depens on which artistic mouvment. "La liberté guidant le peuple" is famous the have a bit of armpit hair and "l'origine du monde" while been painting with the clear purpose to choc the public is much hairy.
I never thought restoration have got rid of the hair. If nudity chock you, would you not rather dress people than shaving them? Anyway, restoration even get rid of whole people just because their were not white so...
I feel like I've seen plenty of bush in the galleries. Will have to take a closer look in the future
(dudes historically obsessing over the existence of body hair on women) women, am I right guys??
If it had been the other way around (pubes on women and non on men), I bet you this article would've complained about that too. It's just ragebait for feminists looking for a reason to be offended.
You didn't even read it, did you?
There's more complaining in your comment than in the piece you're complaining about. Cry more, you'll show those feminists!
Who on earth do you think is offended? It's a fairly erudite and interesting exploration of the subject, no one is upset about anything. Except maybe you?
They talk about male statues as well in the article, I don't know why the title fixated on women.
Because, according to the article, only the women had their hair removed. The men did have pubes.
In ancient Greece, whether you were a hairy alpha male or a gorgeous and effeminate power bottom, the gents were generally allowed to let it all hang out. But when it came to depicting the female body, she was always entirely pubeless.
