Divine Nudity. Statues of Aphrodite from Early Times to the Present

Aphrodite, whom the ancient Romans adapted as Venus, is associated with "eternal beauty", and her depictions are considered to visualize the "essence of femininity". The book Divine Nudity. Statues of Aphrodite from Early Times to the Present focuses on the dramatic changes in the conception of the statues of the ancient goddess of sexuality that resulted from the revaluation of deities, rituals, nudity, the status of women, and arts. This also continued in the post-ancient world, which has been returning to ancient Greece and Rome and their visual arts again and again up to the present, but always from a different position, with a different aim and with different results. The depiction of Aphrodite/Venus has thus constantly oscillated between two opposing poles: a fascinating divinity that is inherently impossible to depict and a femininity that is all the more attractive the more it corresponds to our visual experience.