This is her. She is very different from the nudes we see so often in our culture, but you really can't deny that she's incredibly beautiful. It's hard to look away. I think many nudes we see today (especially pornographic nudes) are difficult to look away from in the same way a car wreck is - the metal of the vehicle is twisted and wrecked and destroyed into a new and interesting and sad form, and I think many of the women we are presented with in today's media are the same way. But this Venus is different. She isn't even a goddess - she's a courtier, a wealthy woman waited upon by maids, surrounded by luxurious fabrics and adorned with expensive jewelry. But she is goddess-like: the direct and confident gaze that is still relaxed and unassertive, the casual posture that displays almost all of her smooth and rounded form without appearing cheap or really even sexual. Overall she is much more sensual than sexual, waiting carelessly more than inviting. I wish we could have retained this idea of beauty - partly for selfish reasons (my body would be much more in style), but partly because it seems actually beautiful. It seems today that we have edited so much femininity out of beauty, and then hastily tried to replace that femininity with artifice like silicone and frilly accessories. But this woman - she is completely feminine, completely natural, and completely - unabashedly - nude. She needs nothing to be beautiful. I think that while our modern idea of beauty could benefit from her, our modern idea of femininity (and feminism) could also learn something from this portrait.
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