# What's an underappreciated work of classic art? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** arts-crafts\ **Created:** [September 29, 2022, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-an-underappreciated-work-of-classic-art/972470 "2022-09-29T19:20:59Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2022, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-an-underappreciated-work-of-classic-art/972470/1 "2022-09-29T19:20:59Z")
I was reading an article online about the movie “Avatar” which pointed out that, surprisingly enough, a magnificently conceived and beautifully executed work can nonetheless fail to capture the popular imagination. I was curious what the classical painting or sculpture equivalent might be. A work that art critics unanimously declare to be a masterpiece, yet one that figuratively speaking can only look on with bitter envy at Andy Warhol’s painting of a Campbell’s Soup can. ---
**Author:** ![Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmer_j.fudd/32/1211_2.png) [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elmer_J.Fudd)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2022, 8:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-an-underappreciated-work-of-classic-art/972470/2 "2022-09-29T20:36:18Z")
_Arnolfini Portrait_ [![](https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-3DcO_AEL77s/Xu9DXrYltLI/AAAAAAAAAq8/HtbyZhUOi3Qb5O1lkkSqQ7LHofHfRkZcQCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/the-arnolfini-portrait-by-jan-van-eyck-1434.jpg) ](https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-3DcO_AEL77s/Xu9DXrYltLI/AAAAAAAAAq8/HtbyZhUOi3Qb5O1lkkSqQ7LHofHfRkZcQCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/the-arnolfini-portrait-by-jan-van-eyck-1434.jpg) > **[Arnolfini Portrait](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arnolfini_Portrait?wprov=sfti1)** > > The Arnolfini Portrait (or The Arnolfini Wedding, The Arnolfini Marriage, the Portrait of Giovanni Arnolfini and his Wife, or other titles) is a 1434 oil painting on oak panel by the Early Netherlandish painter Jan van Eyck. It forms a full-length double portrait, believed to depict the Italian merchant Giovanni di Nicolao Arnolfini and his wife, presumably in their residence at the Flemish city of Bruges. > It is considered one of the most original and complex paintings in Western art, because of... I think they’re extraterrestrials, myself. ---
**Author:** ![Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba9def/32.png) [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Asking_Questions)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2022, 8:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-an-underappreciated-work-of-classic-art/972470/3 "2022-09-29T20:50:31Z")
Hopper’s Nighthawks is one of my favorite paintings, but it gets overshadowed in the popular mind by Boulevard of Broken Dreams. ---
**Author:** ![Lantern2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lantern2/32/3010_2.png) [@Lantern2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lantern2)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2022, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-an-underappreciated-work-of-classic-art/972470/4 "2022-09-29T21:06:13Z")
I like Nighthawks too and in fact hung a print in my room many years back. Had never heard of Boulevard of Broken Dreams and had to look it up. Is it really that famous? ---
**Author:** ![journeyman\_southpaw](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/5e9695/32.png) [@journeyman\_southpaw](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/journeyman_southpaw)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2022, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-an-underappreciated-work-of-classic-art/972470/5 "2022-09-29T21:12:48Z")
_Las Meninas_ by Velazquez was voted the greatest painting of all time in a 1985 poll of artists and critics but I don’t know if it’s all that well known by the general public. I certainly can’t think of any pop culture parodies for it like the countless ones there are for say, the Mona Lisa or the Creation of Adam or American Gothic. > **[Is Velázquez's Las Meninas a time-traveling optical illusion? - Artstor](https://www.artstor.org/2016/12/09/is-velazquezs-las-meninas-a-time-traveling-optical-illusion/)** ---
**Author:** ![Kent\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kent_clark/32/105_2.png) [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2022, 9:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-an-underappreciated-work-of-classic-art/972470/6 "2022-09-29T21:20:23Z")
The art world generally loved American Gothic. The people of Iowa, however, felt it portrayed them as [“pinched, grim-faced, puritanical Bible-thumpers.”](http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/22639) Eventually they came around. [![](https://blog.singulart.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/american-gothic-1040x1255-1.jpg) ](https://blog.singulart.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/american-gothic-1040x1255-1.jpg) ---
**Author:** ![Prof.Pepperwinkle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/prof.pepperwinkle/32/13627_2.png) [@Prof.Pepperwinkle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Prof.Pepperwinkle)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2022, 9:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-an-underappreciated-work-of-classic-art/972470/7 "2022-09-29T21:24:43Z")
Gericault’s _Wreck of the Medusa_ gets my vote. [![](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/15/JEAN_LOUIS_TH%C3%89ODORE_G%C3%89RICAULT_-_La_Balsa_de_la_Medusa_%28Museo_del_Louvre%2C_1818-19%29.jpg/1280px-JEAN_LOUIS_TH%C3%89ODORE_G%C3%89RICAULT_-_La_Balsa_de_la_Medusa_%28Museo_del_Louvre%2C_1818-19%29.jpg) ](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/15/JEAN_LOUIS_TH%C3%89ODORE_G%C3%89RICAULT_-_La_Balsa_de_la_Medusa_%28Museo_del_Louvre%2C_1818-19%29.jpg/1280px-JEAN_LOUIS_TH%C3%89ODORE_G%C3%89RICAULT_-_La_Balsa_de_la_Medusa_%28Museo_del_Louvre%2C_1818-19%29.jpg) Here’s the Wikipedia link discussing it: > **[The Raft of the Medusa](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Raft_of_the_Medusa)** > > The Raft of the Medusa (French: Le Radeau de la Méduse \[lə ʁado d(ə) la medyz\]) – originally titled Scène de Naufrage (Shipwreck Scene) – is an oil painting of 1818–19 by the French Romantic painter and lithographer Théodore Géricault (1791–1824). Completed when the artist was 27, the work has become an icon of French Romanticism. At 491 by 716 cm (16 ft 1 in by 23 ft 6 in), it is an over-life-size painting that depicts a moment from the aftermath of the wreck of the French naval frigate Mé G... Quote: > At 491 by 716 cm (16 ft 1 in by 23 ft 6 in),[[2]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Raft_of_the_Medusa#cite_note-2) it is an over-life-size painting that depicts a moment from the aftermath of the wreck of the French naval [frigate _Méduse_](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_frigate_M%C3%A9duse_(1810)), which ran aground off the coast of today’s [Mauritania](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mauritania) on 2 July 1816. On 5 July 1816, at least 147 people were set adrift on a hurriedly constructed raft; all but 15 died in the 13 days before their rescue, and those who survived endured starvation and dehydration and practiced [cannibalism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cannibalism) (the [custom of the sea](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Custom_of_the_sea)). The event became an international scandal, in part because its cause was widely attributed to the incompetence of the French captain. > > Géricault chose to depict this event in order to launch his career with a large-scale uncommissioned work on a subject that had already generated great public interest.[[3]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Raft_of_the_Medusa#cite_note-Louvre-3) The event fascinated him, and before he began work on the final painting, he undertook extensive research and produced many preparatory sketches. He interviewed two of the survivors and constructed a detailed scale model of the raft. He visited hospitals and morgues where he could view, first-hand, the colour and texture of the flesh of the dying and dead. As he had anticipated, the painting proved highly controversial at its first appearance in the 1819 [Paris Salon](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salon_(Paris)), attracting passionate praise and condemnation in equal measure. However, it established his international reputation and today is widely seen as seminal in the early history of the [Romantic movement](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romanticism) in French painting. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2022, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-an-underappreciated-work-of-classic-art/972470/8 "2022-09-29T21:29:45Z")
Paris has a Museum of Modern Art, which is less known than those in other cities. It’s showpiece is equally unknown, _[La Fée Electricité](https://www.mam.paris.fr/en/oeuvre/la-fee-electricite)_ (the Spirit of Electricity" by Raoul Dufy. The fresco covers three large walls. You can get lost in it. The small image on a screen doesn’t do it justice, but here it is anyway. [![](https://www.mam.paris.fr/sites/default/files/parcours/bandeau/fee_bandeau.png) ](https://www.mam.paris.fr/sites/default/files/parcours/bandeau/fee_bandeau.png) ---
**Author:** ![Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmer_j.fudd/32/1211_2.png) [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elmer_J.Fudd)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2022, 9:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-an-underappreciated-work-of-classic-art/972470/9 "2022-09-29T21:40:31Z")
FWIW, I’ve been in the jigsaw puzzle business for 19 years and except for the Dufy, I’ve sold a puzzle version of every painting mentioned in this thread. (_La Fée Electricité_ isn’t in the public domain, so not a surprise.) It takes a certain level of popular appreciation to make it worthwhile to sell a fine art piece as a puzzle. I chose _Arnolfini_ because it sells badly. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2022, 9:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-an-underappreciated-work-of-classic-art/972470/10 "2022-09-29T21:46:52Z")
> [@Prof.Pepperwinkle](#): > > Gericault’s _Wreck of the Medusa_ gets my vote. My second exposure to that painting was from the cover of the Pogues album, [_Rum, Sodomy, and the Lash_.](https://i.scdn.co/image/ab67616d0000b2739975d79e960a2ff6fdb934d5) I later realized that my _first_ exposure was from [an Asterix and Obelisk comic.](https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTBNyWc6QlU5dEqcz_VuWZqFlXFWavPew17SQ&usqp=CAU) ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2022, 11:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-an-underappreciated-work-of-classic-art/972470/11 "2022-09-29T23:56:50Z")
As soon as I saw it, I loved Goya’s “The Family of the Infante Don Luis.” There is a hell of a lot going on in the painting. [![](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/f4/La_familia_del_infante_don_Luis.jpg/800px-La_familia_del_infante_don_Luis.jpg) ](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/f4/La_familia_del_infante_don_Luis.jpg/800px-La_familia_del_infante_don_Luis.jpg) When people think of Goya, it’s usually “The Naked Maja” or “The Clothed Maja.” ---
**Author:** ![Dr\_Paprika](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr_paprika/32/3042_2.png) [@Dr\_Paprika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr_Paprika)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2022, 2:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-an-underappreciated-work-of-classic-art/972470/12 "2022-09-30T02:40:07Z")
“For most art historians today, the 1870s are known as the Impressionist Years, when the practitioners of the new style exhibited their works in defiance of reactionary academic tradition. But even “official art” at the Exposition showed a remarkable variety. Pierre Bonnat and Ernest Meissonier were the grand old men of the show, as Ingres and Delacroix had been in 1855. Each artist had a room in the fine arts section entirely devoted to his works. Meissonier in particular was at the height of his fame; and his clever genre scenes brought enormous prices. Adolphe Bouguereau’s exquisitely rendered religious and mythological scenes and Alexandre Cabanel’s “Death of Francesco da Rimini” were the rage of the day. Who would have predicted, in 1878, that after a hundred years, the names of these four most prominent French artists of the day would sink into obscurity?” (By Arthur Chandler, at his eponymous website.) They are still well represented in the Musee d’Orsay. You know these guys? ---
**Author:** ![Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmer_j.fudd/32/1211_2.png) [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elmer_J.Fudd)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2022, 3:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-an-underappreciated-work-of-classic-art/972470/13 "2022-09-30T03:01:57Z")
> [@Dr\_Paprika](#): > > You know these guys? Yes. For the most part, they are viewed by modern art critics as kitsch; especially Bouguereau. They make great puzzles…just like Thomas Kinkade. ---
**Author:** ![ParallelLines](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/parallellines/32/3575_2.png) [@ParallelLines](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ParallelLines)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2022, 4:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-an-underappreciated-work-of-classic-art/972470/14 "2022-09-30T04:38:23Z")
I want to point out a trend - it’s predominantly paintings. I bring it up because I’m a fan of classic sculpture, but most of the people I know can maybe come up with ‘David’, maybe ‘The Thinker’ and ‘the one without any arms’ when it comes to discussion on the topic. I know among art mavens, it isn’t nearly as bad, but still in general all sculpture is underappreciated, no matter it’s fame and quality. I come by this appreciation very weirdly, becoming a fan of Rodin after reading ‘Stranger in a Strange Land’ and finding it’s description of “Fallen Caryatid Carrying Her Stone” eerily apt. [https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/207511](https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/207511) ---
**Author:** ![Cervaise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cervaise/32/16693_2.png) [@Cervaise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cervaise)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2022, 5:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-an-underappreciated-work-of-classic-art/972470/15 "2022-09-30T05:56:21Z")
I nominate Veronese’s _Wedding Feast at Cana._ > **[Wedding Feast at Cana, Paolo Veronese: Analysis](http://www.visual-arts-cork.com/famous-paintings/wedding-feast-at-cana.htm)** > > Wedding Feast at Cana by Paolo Veronese (1563): Interpretation of Mannerist Biblical Painting It’s somewhat well known as “the largest painting in the Louvre,” but not many people know much beyond that. And I know it’s underappreciated in person, because it’s in the same room as the Mona Lisa, literally on the opposite wall, facing Leonardo’s famous masterpiece. If you go to the Louvre and stand in that gallery, you will see hordes of people looking at the tiny little art celebrity, with their backs to the Veronese. Maybe one person in a hundred stops and gives the giant painting more than a few seconds of attention. It deserves a lot more time and scrutiny than that. It’s a spectacular masterwork, endlessly rewarding. The overall composition is beautifully structured and balanced, and within that structure is a bottomless well of detail. There are well over a hundred human figures in the painting (plus several animals), and every one of them is unique, engaged in a specific activity, interacting with the people around them in specific ways. Each shows an individual relationship to the celebratory event in which they’re participating. Just on a human level, it’s very entertaining. Then as you keep looking, you realize that couched in the overall balanced composition, you find all of the specific thematic details are also balanced. For every symbolic representative of the sacred and elevated, there’s someone or something portraying the mundane or the profane, the grounded real world. The wedding couple enjoys their marriage being blessed by Jesus himself, but then in the background you’ve got possibly-drunk partygoers climbing rudely on the architecture. You’ve got the Virgin Mary making a gesture suggestive of the cup that caught Jesus’s blood, but you’ve also got a dog straining at its leash in its desire to launch itself at a cat. It’s a spectacular piece of work. In multiple visits to the Louvre, I’ve spent probably an hour total looking at it, but if you put me in front of it right now, I could look at it for another hour. But because it’s being displayed in close proximity to a world-famous painting, it gets overshadowed and overlooked and, yes, underappreciated. So that’s my nomination. (**[Here](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e0/Paolo_Veronese_008.jpg)** is a decent-sized jpg of the painting, if you want to glance it over, but believe me, for the real impact, you have to be standing in front of it.) ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2022, 7:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-an-underappreciated-work-of-classic-art/972470/16 "2022-09-30T07:32:33Z")
I nominate any of the _other_ [35 _Views of Mount Fuji_](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thirty-six_Views_of_Mount_Fuji) besides the first. The one that everyone knows. You know, _not_ this one: > **[The Great Wave off Kanagawa](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Wave_off_Kanagawa)** > > The Great Wave off Kanagawa (Japanese: 神奈川沖浪裏, Hepburn: Kanagawa-oki Nami Ura, lit. 'Under the Wave off Kanagawa')\[a\] is a woodblock print by Japanese ukiyo-e artist Hokusai, created in late 1831 during the Edo period of Japanese history. The print depicts three boats moving through a storm-tossed sea, with a large, cresting wave forming a spiral in the centre and Mount Fuji visible in the background. > The print is Hokusai's best-known work and the first in his series Thirty-six Views of Moun... > [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](#): > > Arnolfini Portrait It’s pretty appreciated by anyone with any interest in early art or medievalism. But I get that’s a small subset of people. > [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](#): > > Hopper’s Nighthawks is one of my favorite paintings, but it gets overshadowed in the popular mind by Boulevard of Broken Dreams. I had no idea what the latter was, I had to look it up. No, I don’t think you’re correct. > [@journeyman\_southpaw](#): > > _Las Meninas_ by Velazquez Good one. ---
**Author:** ![eburacum45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eburacum45/32/8690_2.png) [@eburacum45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eburacum45)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2022, 8:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-an-underappreciated-work-of-classic-art/972470/17 "2022-09-30T08:10:55Z")
> [@journeyman\_southpaw](#): > > _Las Meninas_ by Velazquez was voted the greatest painting of all time in a 1985 poll of artists and critics but I don’t know if it’s all that well known by the general public. I certainly can’t think of any pop culture parodies for it like the countless ones there are for say, the Mona Lisa or the Creation of Adam or American Gothic. Here are a few parodies or homages of Las Meninas. The first one is by Picasso. [![](https://www.pablopicasso.org/images/paintings/las-meninas.jpg) ](https://www.pablopicasso.org/images/paintings/las-meninas.jpg) [![](https://www.janismarswunderlich.com/wp-content/gallery/las-meninas-de-los-perros-1/Las-Meninas-de-los-perros.jpg) ](https://www.janismarswunderlich.com/wp-content/gallery/las-meninas-de-los-perros-1/Las-Meninas-de-los-perros.jpg) [https://strangeling.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/aliceandlasmeninas-450x304.jpg](https://strangeling.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/aliceandlasmeninas-450x304.jpg) ---
**Author:** ![outlierrn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/outlierrn/32/3005_2.png) [@outlierrn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/outlierrn)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2022, 10:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-an-underappreciated-work-of-classic-art/972470/18 "2022-09-30T10:46:13Z")
I’m not sure what classic art means, as such, but if you’re looking for new artistic side streets to wander down, and aren’t we all, I recommend checking out some of the artists banned by the Nazis, there is some remarkable work to be found. [Degenerate art - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Degenerate_art#Artists_in_the_1937_Munich_show) ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2022, 10:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-an-underappreciated-work-of-classic-art/972470/19 "2022-09-30T10:50:52Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > When people think of Goya, it’s usually “The Naked Maja” or “The Clothed Maja.” Personally, I think of _Saturn Devouring His Son_. [![](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/82/Francisco_de_Goya%2C_Saturno_devorando_a_su_hijo_%281819-1823%29.jpg/800px-Francisco_de_Goya%2C_Saturno_devorando_a_su_hijo_%281819-1823%29.jpg) ](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/82/Francisco_de_Goya%2C_Saturno_devorando_a_su_hijo_%281819-1823%29.jpg/800px-Francisco_de_Goya%2C_Saturno_devorando_a_su_hijo_%281819-1823%29.jpg) ---
**Author:** ![GWF\_Hefel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/898d66/32.png) [@GWF\_Hefel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GWF_Hefel)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2022, 1:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-an-underappreciated-work-of-classic-art/972470/20 "2022-09-30T13:29:19Z")
Something a little more pleasant to look at than Saturn eating lunch. I give you the Venus Callipyge: [![](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venus_Callipyge#/media/File%3AVenere_Callipige_Napoli.jpg) ](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venus_Callipyge#/media/File%3AVenere_Callipige_Napoli.jpg) > **[Venus Callipyge](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venus_Callipyge)** > > The Venus Callipyge, also known as the Aphrodite Kallipygos (Greek: Ἀφροδίτη Καλλίπυγος) or the Callipygian Venus, all literally meaning "Venus (or Aphrodite) of the beautiful buttocks", is an Ancient Roman marble statue, thought to be a copy of an older Greek original. In an example of anasyrma, it depicts a partially draped woman, raising her light peplos to uncover her hips and buttocks, and looking back and down over her shoulder, perhaps to evaluate them. The subject is conventionally ide Th... [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-an-underappreciated-work-of-classic-art/972470.md?page=2)