Art's Classic Nudes Get a Photoshop Slim-Down

What if Venus had "modeled" for Victoria's Secret instead of Botticelli? Italian artist Anna Utopia Giordano took a Photoshop scalpel to 12 famous nude Venuses to see what art history class would've been like "if the aesthetic standard of our society had belonged to the collective unconscious of the great artists of the past." As a result, rounded bellies become concave, modest bosoms are augmented, and thighs are minimized.

At first, the slideshow is jarring: these "classic" nudes are suddenly, uh, NSFW. But it's worth remembering that all but one of the "great artists" Giordano included are male, and that their paintings are not photographs of real women but rather their own conceptions of how the ideal female form should be shaped. We're used to thinking of airbrushed women with Barbie doll-dimensions as over-sexualized, but it's not like their Renaissance/Baroque/etc counterparts weren't objectified as well.

Startling Photoshop Makeovers of Classic Nudes in Art [Flavorwire]
Venus [Anna Utopia Giordano]