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The Aphrodite of Knidos (or Cnidus) was an Ancient Greek sculpture of the goddess Aphrodite created by Praxiteles of Athens around the 4th century BC. It was one of the first life-sized representations of the nude female form in Greek history, displaying an alternative idea to male heroic nudity .
Jan 13, 2022 · “Aphrodite of Knidos” statue is a sculpture of Aphrodite, a Greek Goddess. The Aphrodite body type was a unique representation of classical female sculpture in the era of the portrayal of heroic male nudes.
This statue was inspired by the most famous Greek sculpture of a goddess, the Aphrodite of Knidos. Carved by the sculptor Praxiteles in the 4th century B.C. from fine marble, it enjoyed great renown as the first devotional statue of a female goddess in the nude.
The “Aphrodite of Knidos” is the most famous of Praxiteles’ works, and perhaps one of the most famous sculptures of Classical Greece. Contemporaries such as Pliny lauded the sculpture as “superior to all works, not only of Praxiteles, but indeed in the whole world.”
Discover everything you need to know about the famous Aphrodite of Knidos statue, sculpted by the famous Praxiteles.
The Aphrodite of Knidos is credited with being the first life-size female nude. Such was her novelty that the city of Kos on Crete is supposed to have rejected her in favour of a clothed version.
This magnificent large bronze statuette represents only one variation on the Praxitelean original. While originally an over-life-sized work sculpted in Parian marble, the Aphrodite of Knidos was widely imitated and adapted by artists of the Greek and Roman world in many mediums and on many scales.
Roman copy or adaptation of a Greek statue of the 3rd century B.C. known as the Capitoline Aphrodite. The Aphrodite of Knidos created by Praxitiles in the fourth century B.C. was the first major nude statue of the goddess.
This paper argues that the mythological narratives the Knidian Aphrodite evokes invite the identification of female viewers and the reverence of worshippers by suggesting her divine power to dominate, unite, and protect mortals.
The over life-size statue of the goddess—caught unawares emerging from her bath—is based on the first large-scale, freestanding sculpture of a female deity in the nude: the Aphrodite of Knidos, carved by the Greek sculptor Praxiteles in the fourth century BCE.
