Are there any classical paintings that show a woman with stretch marks?

April 14, 2008 8:50 PM

Are there any classical paintings that show a woman with stretch marks? Forgive me if classical is the wrong term - I'm trying to emphasize I'm not interested in modern works.
posted by agregoli to Media & Arts (6 answers total)

I'm going to go with no (IWAAHM - I was an art history major). Nude women in non-modern art were idealized and while sometimes you do see cellulite, I can't imagine you would see stretch marks. Mostly because that would connote a pregnancy/non virgin. Nudes in this context are not people in the traditional sense, they are abstractions. Just as they wouldn't have scars, because that's something an actual imperfect person has and is evidence of a person who exists beyond the borders of a painting, nudes wouldn't have stretch marks.

Saying all that, there is the exception to every rule, but I certainly have never seen it.
posted by whoaali at 9:00 PM on April 14, 2008

The Three Ages of Man by Hans Baldung (1539) certainly shows the effects of age and childbirth on a woman's figure.
posted by Wavelet at 9:29 PM on April 14, 2008

Oh, here's another one by Hans Baldung on the same theme which explicitly shows stretch marks. See the figure on the left (you may need to zoom in, depending on your browser).
posted by Wavelet at 9:33 PM on April 14, 2008 [1 favorite]

The Venus of Willendorf has a pudenda, but no stretch marks.
posted by brujita at 9:51 PM on April 14, 2008 [1 favorite]

One more: Rembrandt did nude sketches of women who looked like they had at least one or two kids - for example. Stretch marks and possibly varicose veins by the ankles.
posted by Wavelet at 9:58 PM on April 14, 2008

Gustav Klimt's Danae might have a few-- she certainly has some of the more beautifully painted cellulite I've seen.
posted by Pallas Athena at 4:01 AM on April 15, 2008