As Nature Formed It: Venus Sculptures and the ‘Natural’ Waistline in Dress Reform Discourse

Abstract

In the second half of the nineteenth century, ancient sculptures of Venus became models for the ‘natural’ waistline. Drawings of the Venus de Medici or de Milo were popular in texts published by American dress reformers, who advocated for the rejection of corsets and tight-lacing. This article takes as its subject these drawings and their simultaneous signification of multiple bodies: a specific sculpture, an idealized form, the ‘natural’ form of any female torso, and the supposedly superior physicality of the ancient Greeks. It argues that the elision of these various bodies is facilitated by the treatment of ancient sculptures as ‘truth-to-nature’ representations — images that are simultaneously ideal and faithful to the form produced by nature. This understanding is encouraged by drawings of the statues, which imply the comparability of sculpture and body. In this way, the sculptures enter dress reform discourse, serving as both a faithful representative of a now-lost ancient body and a kind of visual lexicon by which living women might revive ancient aesthetic and moral perfection. As constructions of aspirational physical ideals, the sculptures and the drawings of Venus are enlisted in a developing and deeply charged visualization of white American womanhood.