In the ancient world, body hair was largely removed. Greek and Roman men might have had some stylised pubic hair in their art, but women? If they appeared nude at all (which was rare), they were usually depicted without a single strand below the neck. Prudish? Perhaps. But by the Middle Ages, a hairless pubis had taken on an entirely different connotation—one tied to prostitution.
To keep things "decent," artists covered up genitals with fig leaves, flowing fabrics, or strategically placed hands. Even classical Greek sculptures, famous for their idealised male physiques, often had their "manhood" modestly veiled. But, of course, there were exceptions. In 1540, German engraver Heinrich Aldegrever gave us a glimpse of Eve with an impressive, centre-parted bush.
Around the same time, Bronzino’s An Allegory with Venus and Cupid (1545) might be the first Western painting to depict female pubic hair… if you squint hard enough.
While the Renaissance and Baroque masters mostly kept their nudes bare, artists like Rubens and Rembrandt ensured their figures had at least a wisp of modesty. Then, in 1800, Francisco Goya changed the game with La Maja Desnuda—a nude so unashamed that, yes, you could actually see her pubic hair.
Fast-forward to 1814: Napoleon’s sister commissioned The Sleeper of Naples from Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres and, for once, a female nude was painted with the same hairy detail that men had always received. Unfortunately, the painting was lost, and we only have a 1911 study to go by.
Meanwhile, in Japan, artists like Hokusai were already well ahead in the pubic hair department. His shunga (erotic art) often depicted women with full, natural pubes—a stark contrast to the West, where the mere suggestion of such hair was scandalous. In fact, in Japan, it was shaved pubic hair that was linked to prostitution, a cultural association that still lingers today.
The 19th century was a tumultuous time for pubic hair in art. In 1866, Gustave Courbet painted L’Origine du Monde—a bold, unapologetic celebration of the female form in all its hirsute glory. But the world wasn’t ready. The painting was kept hidden for 122 years before finally being publicly displayed in 1988.
For Victorian-era audiences, the mere sight of pubic hair was considered shocking. Just ask art critic John Ruskin. Legend has it that on his wedding night, he was so horrified by his wife Effie’s natural pubic hair (having only seen hairless statues before) that he fled and never consummated the marriage. The union was annulled a few years later.
By the late 1800s, artists like Van Gogh, Klimt, and Schiele were challenging the norms of beauty and eroticism. Schiele, in particular, painted women in unashamedly provocative poses, complete with wild, untrimmed pubic hair. Klimt’s Nuda Veritas (1899) caused an uproar, while Oskar Kokoschka’s nudes leaned more into the naturalistic than the erotic.
By 1917, the pubic taboo had mostly faded in art. Amedeo Modigliani’s signature elongated figures often included a neatly shaped triangle of hair—perhaps the inspiration for the "Brazilian" trend of today.
Throughout history, pubic hair in art has been erased, censored, scandalised, and celebrated. Whether it's hidden behind fig leaves or boldly on display, the way we depict the body reflects cultural attitudes of the time.
So, the next time you see a classical nude, take a closer look—you might just spot a tiny but significant piece of history.
Around 1485, Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco de' Medici commissioned Botticelli to paint Venus for his villa. This was revolutionary and risky. For nearly a thousand years, the Catholic Church had banned depictions of nude pagan gods.
The painting depicts the moment Venus, goddess of love and beauty, is born from the sea foam created when the Titan Kronos castrated his father Uranus and threw his genitals into the ocean… yes, really. She stands in a giant scallop shell, blown to shore by wind gods while a nymph rushes to cover her nudity with a flowered cloak.
Botticelli made Venus impossibly beautiful, but also strangely modest: her hand strategically placed, her pose deriving from ancient Venus pudica (or “modest Venus”) sculptures. He was painting paganism but with Christian sensibility, a precarious balance.
Everything changed when Girolamo Savonarola, a fire-and-brimstone Dominican friar, seized control of Florence in 1494. He believed Renaissance art was corrupting souls, and called for the destruction of anything deemed sinful: books, cosmetics, musical instruments, mirrors, and especially "immoral" paintings.
On February 7, 1497, Savonarola organized the Bonfire of the Vanities in Florence's Piazza della Signoria. Citizens were urged to throw vanity items into massive pyres. Thousands of artworks burned. Paintings depicting mythological scenes, exactly like Botticelli's Venus, were primary targets.
Botticelli himself fell under Savonarola's spell. The artist became a follower, destroying some of his own paintings and adopting a more severe religious style.
But Birth of Venus survived. The Medici family, though temporarily exiled, hid their art collection. Venus was tucked away in the villa at Castello, too valuable to destroy but too controversial to display. For over 300 years, only the Medici inner circle saw the painting.
During this time, the painting's meaning was reinterpreted. Medici scholars argued Venus represented divine love, not earthly lust. The west wind blowing her to shore symbolized spiritual inspiration. The nymph's cloak represented the soul covering the body. With enough intellectual gymnastics, pagan nudity became Christian allegory.
It wasn't until 1815 that Birth of Venus moved to the Uffizi Gallery. Even then, it was kept in the tribune: a restricted room visitors needed special permission to enter. Women were often denied access; the nudity was considered too corrupting.
The painting was damaged while in storage: water spots, darkened varnish, paint loss along the seams. Major restorations in the 20th century revealed Botticelli's original colours: Venus's skin luminous and pale, the sea a brilliant blue-green, the flowers impossibly detailed.
Today, Birth of Venus is one of the most famous and recognisable paintings in the world, reproduced on everything from coffee mugs to album covers. Andy Warhol made screen prints; Lady Gaga recreated the pose. It's appeared in hundreds of advertisements.
The painting that was once too scandalous to show publicly is now so ubiquitous we've forgotten how revolutionary it was. Four million people visit the Uffizi annually, and most come specifically to see Venus. The painting that should have burned in 1497 instead became immortal.
For decades, no one knew what to make of them. Some believed they were the work of a vandal. The truth remained a mystery until 2021, when infrared imaging and handwriting analysis finally settled the debate.
The words were written by Munch himself. The revelation transformed the painting from an expression of terror into something even more intimate: a quiet confession. The inscription appears on only one of the four known versions of The Scream.
The image was born from a single night that left a permanent mark on Munch. He later described the experience in his diary, and his words are as haunting as the painting itself:
“I was walking along the road with two friends—the sun was setting—suddenly the sky turned blood red—I paused, feeling exhausted, and leaned on the fence—there was blood and tongues of fire above the blue-black fjord and the city. My friends walked on, and I stood there trembling with anxiety—and I sensed an infinite scream passing through nature.”
That moment of dread did not come out of nowhere. Munch’s life was already steeped in loss and fear. His mother and one of his sisters had died of tuberculosis when he was young. Another sister was later committed to a mental asylum. He struggled with alcoholism, anxiety, and recurring breakdowns. Mental illness haunted his family, and Munch lived with the constant fear that madness was not just around him, but inside him, waiting.
And that burning red sky may not have been pure imagination. Some scientists believe it was inspired by the eruption of the Krakatoa volcano in Indonesia in 1883. The explosion sent ash particles high into the atmosphere, creating spectacular, blood red sunsets around the world for years.
So why would Munch scribble such a brutal line over his own masterpiece?
The words were added after The Scream was first exhibited in 1895, after critics reacted rather harshly. One review mocked the work, suggesting that only a madman could have painted something so disturbing. Munch did not argue publicly. Instead, he responded in pencil, writing the accusation himself in letters so faint they almost disappeared into the paint. It was defiance, irony, and self-awareness all at once.
The painting’s troubled history does not end there. The Scream was stolen twice, once in 1994 and again in 2004, and recovered both times. Four versions of the work exist today. One of them, the 1895 pastel, sold for $119.9M in 2012, making it one of the most expensive ever sold.
What remains is an image that still screams across time, and a single sentence, nearly erased, that asks whether madness was the subject of the painting, or its source.
Heads up for your next trip to Rome! Think the Sistine Chapel is the only ceiling worth seeing? Think again.
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