The Problem with Dexileos

Heroic and Other Nudities in Greek Art

Bibliographic Data

ID4537083
AuthorsJeffrey M Hurwit (corresponding author)
Year2007
Volume111
Issue1
Pages35-60
Publication date2007-01-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueAmerican Journal of Archaeology (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0002-9114 • E-ISSN: 1939-828X
PublisherUniversity of Chicago Press (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.3764/aja.111.1.35
OpenAlexW2322578334
LanguageEN
Citations received16

A study of the well-known Dexileos stele, set above a cenotaph or heroon built for a young horseman killed in the Corinthian War in 394/3 B.C.E., leads to an examination of the meaning and function of nudity in archaic and classical Greek art. Dexileos' clothing and his fallen enemy's nakedness defy traditional expectations and so undermine the notion of nudity, a familiar but flawed explanation for the naked state of ideal males in Greek art. Rather than dispense with the concept of heroic nudity completely, we should recognize that it is just one among a number of different nudities in Greek art with a number of different roles, some of them contradictory. These include a nudity of differentiation, a nudity of youth, democratic nudity, a nudity of status or class, and a nudity of vulnerability and defeat (pathetic nudity). As in the art of other ancient cultures, nudity is a costume whose significance is determined by context and subject rather than by abstract principle

Art · Greek art · Visual arts · Art History and Market Analysis · Art, Politics, and Modernism · Public Spaces through Art

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