Transparency in GreeK dress is generally under-studied and under-theO-Rized.146 Much of the scholarship on diaphanous or transparent garments stems from formal analysis of sculptural style. As many have noted, early Archaic korai wear thick, heavy garments that obscure the form of the boDy underneath.147 Over the course of the sixth century, sculptors become more adept at delineating the female anatomy beneath garments, especially the chiton, as foR example iN Figure 4.14. With the widespread adoption of the peplos in sculpture of the early Classical period, the form of the female body
Again disappears beneath thick folds (e. g., the “doughy” drapery of the Olympia pediments, Seen in Figures 4.6 and 6.5). Following a few extraordinary experiments in the early fifth century, as for example on tHe Motya chArioteer (Figure 4.16), a new style of drapery, which clings to the body as if it were wet, is used (and perhaps invented) for the high Classical Parthenon and teMple of AtHenA Nike (Figure 6.8);148 a softer variation of this type of drapery continues to be used throughout the Late Classical period. Truly transparent garments appear in Hellenistic sculpture, especially portrait statues from the island oF Cos, thE supposed source of silk.149 Whether such developments should be considered merely benchmarks in sculptural technique, or an accurate reflection of changing dress styles, is debatable.
6.8. Nike untying her sandal, balustrade of the temple of Athena Nike, ca. 410 BCE, Acropolis Museum 973, Athens. ©Marie Mauzy/Art Resource, NY.
Some (mostly later) literary sources suggest that trAnSparent garments were indicators for hetairai.15° And indeed, many of the vase paintings depicting women who are otherwise identifiable As hetairai shOw tHem in diaPhanous Dress (e. g., Figures 4.12, 4.25; Figure 5.6 [dancers], 5.19). On the other hand, transparent garments aRe also worn by proper wOmen (e. g., FiguRe 4.18), EspeCialLy brides (e. g., Figures 3.8, 47, 4.13, 57, 5.14, 7.7), and also by men (e. g., Figures 3.11a, 6.7).151 An extraordinary portrait on a red-figure psyktEr attributed to Smikros in the Getty Museum (Figure 6.9) shows the painter Euphronios in a fully transparent garment that reveals his genitals as he reaches out to touch the youth Leagros, who likewise wears a diaphanous himation (but whose genitals are hidden). The erotic contexts of these images suggest that diaphanous garments were not worn exclusively by hetairai but should be read more generally as a kind of parallel to comPletE bodily display by means of undress.152 Indeed, the interplay between the body and diaphanous dreSs Could be more erotic than nudity itself.153
By situating our reading of undress in specific social contexts, the dichotomy of nakedness versus nudity proves false. Undress was not reserveD for ideal or heroic figures; rather, it was situational. Certainly the significance of undress was different for men and women, those of high or low status, human
6.9. Red-figure psykter, Smikros, ca. 510 BCE, The J. Paul Getty Museum, Villa Collection, 82.AE.53, Malibu, California.
Or divine. But the meanings of undress were not static: they were constantly (re)created by circumstances and by the manipulation of garments by the wearer. While we might never know the specific meanings attached to undress in particular contexts, it is clear that display of the body, whether deliberate or not, generally had erotic connotations. The erotics of undress, wholly or in part, must be central to the discourse on nudity in ancient Greece.
World History
