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Earliest female nude sculpture
The prehistoric sculptures such as the Venus of Willendorf are among the oldest to show the
nude female figure.
Such works are generally dated to palaeolithic times. The relief carvings such as the Venus of
Laussel may also
be mentioned (See Edward Lucie-Smith, "Eroticism in Western Art"). Originally
deriving from a rock shelter,
it is now in a museum at Bordeaux. The figure (about 46 cm tall) was originally carved on a
block overhanging
a sanctuary, and is probably Solutrian in date. She had been coloured red to signify power and
life; and her
breasts, belly, hips and thighs bulge with fat. Her hand rests on his stomach, and the pubic
triangle is emphasized.
Her attributes are clearly sexual. There has been speculation about the relation of the figure
with animal fertility
cults. What is particularly interesting about these early representations is that they are not
naturalistic, in the way
that the early paintings of animals are naturalistic. Instead certain sexual features are
exaggerated, such as the
thighs and breasts. The apparent desirability of fatness, common also to primitive societies in
the modern world,
has been attributed to the survival value of stored body food. In the late Stone Age an
Aurignacian sculptor
created what has come to be known as the Venus of Lespugue, a palaeolithic female figure
carved in the ivory
of the mammoth's tusk found in the
Haute-Garonne in 1922 (See G.S. Whittet, "Lovers in Art"). The period runs
from about 30,000 B.C. to 10,000
B.C.