Nudity as a Costume in Classical Art

Abstract

The Greeks saw their custom of athletic male nudity as something that set them apart from the barbarians, as well as from their own past. A survey of male nudity as a costume in Greece attempts to trace its origin in eighth-century ritual, its gradual transformation from initiation rites to the "civic" nudity of the Classical period, and its significance in various religious, magic, and social contexts. The character of this institution can be seen more clearly by comparing it with earlier Near Eastern attitudes to nakedness, and to the later contemporary "barbarian" attitudes of the Hebrews, Etruscans, and Gauls, as well as to the contemporary views of female nudity, before its acceptance in the Hellenistic period.