The Statue of Aphrodite (Venus) depicted in the Michael C. Carlos Museum at Emory is a copy of “the Venus de’ Medici-which originates from the famous Aphrodite of Knidos by renowned artist, Praxiteles”(SOURCE), in Ancient Greece around 350-340 BCE. The Aphrodite of Knidos grew famous due to it being the first life-sized sculpture depicting a nude female who was not of low social class, but a deity. The fact that this statue depicted the goddess of love and beauty had people sailing from all over the land to view its superhuman beauty. How did this statue, with its open and unapologetic female nudity, shape the way the female form was later portrayed in art? In Ancient Greece and Rome, women had a low legal standing in society. During this time, men had far greater freedoms and opportunities. In art, it was rare to see a female portrayed without an elaborate drapery covering her form meanwhile most depictions of males were in the nude. Statues of epic heroes and athletes were almost exclusively nude. What remains of the east pediment of the Parthenon in Athens, Greece depicts Helios and his horses, and Dionysos (or perhaps Herakles) all nude. ( pg 71). Polykleitos’s Doryphoros (Spear Bearer) depicts a nude man made up entirely from a mathematical formula devised by Polykleitos himself upon imagining the perfect form.…show more content… To the untrained eye, it might seem Hellenistic. “This specific sculpture from the Carlos Museum is Roman in provenance.” In Rome, “Venus was their version of Greek Aphrodite”. Though it is much later than the original Aphrodite of Knidos as well as the Venus de/ Medici, the similarities between the three are much apparent. All three statues have Aphrodite looking away and feigning embarrassment as she shields her pelvis. The Statue of Aphrodite is suspected to have had the missing arm covering her breasts partially, however it was lost years