Why we follow the ancient Greeks

The ancient Greeks. Yes.

The TL;DR gist of this is: the Greeks believed nudity was powerful, ideal, and beautiful.

Of course, it’s not just that.

Greek art, including sculpture, vase paintings, drinking cups, frescoes, and mosaics, is known for depicting nudity, especially male nudes. (Again males are the dominant genre here, do we see a pattern yet? 😉 )

Ancient Greek art glorified the nude bodies of their heroes, gods/mythological humans and warriors. In their times, they emphasised the perfectly sculpted versions, the ones with the right muscles in the right places and all that.

Authors of naturist fiction can do that, but I’ve found that most “of us” are more down to earth and serious about depicting real life, real people.

Still, I love the parallels between the topics of ancient Greek art and the art that we put into our writing.

In our way, we glorify our naked heroes and warriors, like the Greeks did. It’s all a matter of culture and time-period how people see these things.

Nudity was never a problem in ancient Greece. In fact it was often seen as a costume (Guardian link, loooong article), especially on festive days when the weather was very warm.

Warm weather is always a good reason to be nude, as we all know. Luckily we don’t have to wait for that. Many of us have the luxury to turn up the heat a bit, and be naked in our home when we want. Or we can find a sauna or wellness resort where nudity is the norm, like the ancient bath houses of the Greeks and also the Romans.

Be it on paintings, through sculptures or in writing, there will always be artists that are happy and willing to create in the nude, about the nude, for the nude. Do we have the old Greeks to thank for that? I don’t know. Perhaps they thought about this too, and thanked their ancestors for the wisdom of nudity, be it from a different perspective.

I wish you many happy nude days, in good health, and with some proper naturist fiction in hand.

Paul