Walking through the hallowed halls of any art gallery, you are likely to find countless depictions of the nude female body.
Whether they are reclining in shimmery oil paint or frozen in marble in a graceful poise, one aspect of these ladies’ anatomy is conspicuous in its absence, leaving many art lovers to wonder: Where are all the pubes?
As an apocryphal story about the famous Victorian-era English art historian John Ruskin goes, the father of modern art history was so shocked to find his new bride was not smooth and hairless (like all the paintings he studied) that he failed to consummate his marriage on their wedding night.
Although Ruskin’s wife’s pubes were almost certainly not the cause of the demise of their short-lived marriage, this myth is indicative of the way art history’s “pubelessness” has haunted scholars for centuries.
In fact, way back in 1765 the French philosopher Denis Diderot put his enormous brain to task on the following question: “Why is it that sculpture, both ancient and modern, strips away from women that veil which nature’s own modesty […] throw[s] over the sexual organs, while leaving it in place for men?”
I’m glad philosophers were finally asking the right questions.
To get to the bottom of this philosophical mind-bender, we have to go all the way back to the ancient world.
It’s always the Greeks
In ancient Greece, whether you were a hairy alpha male or a gorgeous and effeminate power bottom, the gents were generally allowed to let it all hang out. But when it came to depicting the female body, she was always entirely pubeless.
Diderot speculated that maybe it was the “hot climate” in Ancient Greece, maybe it was the fashion of the day, or perhaps these sculptors were using courtesans as models — women who removed their pubic hair as a “convenience associated with pleasure”.
Aside from the bit about the weather, it turns out that Diderot wasn’t too far off the mark.
Historical evidence suggests that for women, removing pubic hair has been fashionable from antiquity right through to modern times.
Ancient and medieval medical texts contain recipes for toxic depilatory creams that would singe off hair (if they didn’t also chemically burn your skin off) and some sources describe women plucking out their pubic hairs one by one. Ouch.
These hair removal techniques were dangerous, time-consuming, and expensive — so it’s no surprise that they were usually practised only by upper-class women and, as Diderot correctly suspected, by courtesans and sex workers who often modelled for artists.
But where did this painful fashion come from? Why do we have such a long history of distaste for female pubic hair?
Well, one answer may be found in the original woman: Eve.
The original sin (of having pubes)
Eve is one of the few female figures in Western art who is sometimes depicted with pubic hair.
But before we crown her as an icon of body positivity, we must remember that Eve’s body – when depicted in art – represents the original sin, and therefore her pubic hair reveals some of the more sinister beliefs about women in pre-modern Europe.
In the Middle Ages, the male body was believed to produce body hair as a sign of strength and health, but female body hair — in particular female pubic hair — was seen as dangerous; largely because it was associated with female puberty and menstruation.
One medieval writer even went as far as to claim that if you take the hairs of a menstruating woman and bury them in the garden, a snake will grow from the earth. (If any of our dear readers try this at home, please write in to the ABC with your results).
Aesthetics
Diderot concludes his musings on pubes by saying that perhaps art history’s aversion to the muff is more to do with loftier, aesthetic values. Female pubic hair, he writes, is a “stain on a woman” and without it we can better admire “the beauty of her contour”.
While this statement is giving major ick, it’s not entirely Diderot’s fault that he feels this way.
By the time his century – the 18th – rolled around, the West’s fear of female pubic hair was well and truly established. But if we do some digging, we might find some surprises.
One artist known for his idealistically smooth and hairless female nudes is the 19th century French painter Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres. His preparatory drawings show us that his models did indeed have pubic hair – hair that mysteriously vanishes in the final versions of his paintings.
It’s likely that many nude paintings were, originally, a fair bit hairier. Many pubes were probably painted over by puritanical Victorian “restorers”, but also many of the fine, delicate brushstrokes used to depict the short and curlies have simply been rubbed away when paintings have been cleaned of their stale varnish.
So next time you’re at the art gallery and you’re wondering where all the pubes have gone, it might be worth getting out a magnifying glass and taking a closer look. (If you dare.)
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