Abstract

As Michael Squire humorously points out, if you are looking for a book dealing with ancient literary accounts on the body or one that simply presents a linear, chronological treatment of the female and male nude in Western art, then this may not be the work for you. If on the other hand you are ready to throw down the gauntlet and challenge the traditional roles that we have assumed about the Greco-Roman nude in antiquity, then the time is ripe to read this book. Squire's The Art of the Body: Antiquity and Its Legacy provides a provocative and refreshing approach for non-specialists and specialists alike to unpack the visual vocabulary associated with both the ancient and modern nude. This book is part of the Oxford University Press' Ancients and Moderns series, the aim of which is "to illustrate that how we think about the past bears a necessary relation to who we are in the present". Does Squire's monograph meet the challenge? The answer is an enthusiastic yes. This stimulating work in five thematic chapters will persuade readers to rethink the visual representations of the body within the history of the Western arts.