Sexy Art for Women.

The Birth of Venus. Alexandre Cabanel.

A sensuous painting of Venus The Goddess of Love with five cupids.

Venus In Fur Coat. Peter Paul Rubens.

A semi-naked Venus with buxom bosoms and naughty nipples. She has pretty eyes and lovely lips. All the better to kiss you with!

Mars and Venus. Louis Lagrenee.

Venus the Goddess of Love along with Mars the God of War and two white doves which are the symbol of Love. Make love not war!

Sleeping Venus. Artemisia Gentileschi.

Someone has had another hard days night. Now she is sleeping like a log. Fortunately, Cupid is there to watch over her.

Venus and Amor. Jan Matsys.

Venus the Goddess of Love and Cupid (Amor) with a puppy. Nice nipples.

Venus and Cupid. Frans de Vriendt.

The Goddess of Love and Cupid. Cupid has his bow. Is he adding another string? While Venus holds one of Cupid's golden arrows.

Venus and Cupid. Willem Adriaensz Key.
The Goddess of Love and Cupid. Venus is holding one of Cupids arrows while Cupid points to someone he wants to use it on.

Venus and Her Attendants. Hans Zatzka.

The Goddess of Love with Cupid her helpers. Venus has very pretty eyes to lure you along with a sexy sheer dress. There are flowers in her hair and all around Venus. The beautiful girl would certainly be very hard to say no to.

Venus at Her Mirror. Diego Rodriguez de Silva Velazquez.

Venus is admiring herself in the mirror, which Cupid is holding. You look lovely lady!

Venus, Cupid, Bacchus, and Ceres. Peter Paul Rubens.

The Goddess of Love is with Amour, Bacchus God of Wine and Ceres Goddess of Agriculture. Cupid is having some grapes handed to him by Bacchus and her is offering Venus some food as well. A nude Venus has buxom breasts and naughty nipples as she enjoys the company of the others. Rubens has presented us with a stunning painting.

Venus of Urbino. Titian.
A nude Venus has prettyeyes and lovely bosoms. She is holding some pretty flowers in her hand. There is a woman and a young girl in the background.

THE TANAGRA DANCER.

I was captivated by a Tanagra statuette--so much so that the sight of it stirred in me that trembling joy and anxiety which are the constant companions of romantic passion.

She is a dancer. A veil of light fabric embraces her perfect form; her pose seems captured at the very moment when her torso and leg--animated by rhythmic movements drawing to a close and, as it were, made sublime by the abundant vitality that musical training instills in a young, pure body--attain, in a split second of stillness, an elusive beauty.

"Oh, little dancer!" I took the liberty of saying one day to this graceful clay figure. "I beg you to reveal the secret of the charm you radiate--a charm that surpasses even that of your sisters. For you see, I feel its power as keenly as if it came from a young woman ten years my junior, even though the experts claim that many centuries lie between us. As for me, I confess I can almost sense the warmth of your scented flesh, newly stirred to life; indeed, I am not certain that the air displaced by your agile leg is not the very same breeze that just cooled my face. Call me mad!" ...but I imagined your bosom rising from a gentle weariness, and your lips--parted for a moment--exhaling a breath scented with olives and oleanders, just as I once breathed it in lands of sunshine and on slopes facing the sea.

"I implore you to tell me who you are, or what god dwells within the fine texture of your clay; for I do not feel the calm that the sight of a masterpiece usually inspires, and the intimate familiarity of your grace tears me away from my own time--snatches me from the hour fate allotted me--to sweep me back into the ancient past, to that blissful moment when your eyelid fluttered... a thing contrary to the natural order, and one that rends my heart."

Then I heard a pleasant voice, and I believed the little dancer of Tanagra was speaking.

"You know," I was told, "the Boeotian town that gave its name to those clay figures--white Tanagra; that is my home. My father owned fields and vineyards on the slopes of Mount Kerykios, where the town’s mud--brick houses rose in tiers. My childhood lacked nothing, and I knew happiness. At the age when all the young girls among us were beautiful, I, too, became so--or so it seemed--and whenever I walked through the streets to the temples or the games, men and women would smile as they looked at me.

It was around that time--while I was visiting the quarter where the *koroplastai*, or doll--makers, sold the little figures they shaped with their hands--that one of them, named Douris, signaled his love for me. I lowered my eyes and dared not return to that spot for a long time, for his face had made a deep impression on me.

Yet I thought of him often, even without seeing him. Soon, he fell into the habit of passing by my father’s house, and I would catch glimpses of him. That day, I realized I had never loved anyone as I loved him, and I deeply regretted that he was merely a poor doll--maker whose statuettes--prized though they were above all others--sold for a mere obol.

One day, when--by some rare chance--I was not there at the moment he arrived, I found a small, perfectly modeled and painted clay Eros resting on the marble stele dedicated to Hermes, which stood near the house’s portico. I could not help but show it to my father, a prudent and shrewd man. He turned the little Eros over and over in his hand. Finally, he asked: 'Who made this?'

I blushed and replied that I did not know." "In any case," he said, "whoever made this is a truly fine artist, and one whose fame will spread far and wide."

At these words, I leapt up so joyfully, clapping my hands, that my father looked at me in astonishment. I fell to my knees--embracing them--and said, all flustered:

"Father, this little Eros is by Douris, the maker of dolls; and the heart he has pierced with this arrow is mine."

"Let Douris come here, then," my father said as he helped me up, "and I believe he will honor my house."

I think fondly of the all--too--brief days that followed my marriage to the maker of figurines. We loved each other; he admired me and took me as his model. His finest clay figures date from that time--not because I was superior to the girls who had posed for him before he met me, but because love fired his talent.

He was a passionate soul, enamored of beauty; consequently, he was often troubled by doubts regarding the worth of his work, even as his reputation soared and praise was lavished upon him. At dusk, I would take him to the meadows stretching along the banks of the Asopus, beyond the city. We would bathe our feet in the river; I would lean over his brow, and my voice, mingling with the gentle rustle of the wind in the tamarisk leaves, would lull his mind to rest.

Yet, one time, he pulled away from my caresses. It was at the end of a particularly turbulent day, when the clay had proven more stubborn than ever beneath his fingers; he had even destroyed several rough sketches in which we had placed great hope. Suddenly, he pushed me back and said, in a voice that was at once commanding and imploring:

"Dance!… Dance!"

I rose at once, for, loving him as I did, I was his handmaiden; and I imitated as best I could the dance the young girls performed in honor of Artemis. My garment was light, and the ground was favorable. I tried to supply with my voice the flute accompaniment we lacked. Moreover, soon swept along by the rhythm of my steps, Douris began to sing himself. His voice was rich and varied, and one would have sworn a shepherd was there, supporting my movements with the sound of the pan--pipes.

Suddenly, he stooped to grab a handful of the damp earth that lay in abundance by the water's edge; he began to knead it briskly, and I watched as my likeness quickly took shape beneath his hands.

It is the one you see here. Until then, he had never succeeded so perfectly with any other. As the figure emerged beneath his moving fingers, I saw Douris’s face come alive with emotion; I swear by the gods that he looked more beautiful in that moment than on the very day he first saw me and felt in his heart that he loved me. Shall I admit that I felt a secret pang of sorrow, and was a little jealous of that lovely clay image that held my husband so captivated?

Douris carried his work away; to cover it, he dampened a piece of my garment--which had slipped to the ground during the dance--without noticing that my shoulder was left bare. The words I spoke to him on the walk home went unheeded; even when I tried to draw his mind to the beauty of the evening--which was transfiguring Tanagra and the hills--that sight, usually so powerful in its effect on him, could not distract him from thoughts of the masterpiece he had created.

The days slipped by; He was refining the admirable figure, bringing it to perfection. He never noticed me--alive--wandering around that handful of cold, damp earth that held him captive. My anguish grew. I was tempted to destroy the little clay dancer while Douris slept.

One night, I rose; I took the lamp and made my way carefully toward the spot where the statuette rested beneath the cool cloth. Anger drove me, and I felt a strange, intoxicating thrill. I savored the bitter pleasure of uncovering the enemy who resembled me, before annihilating her. Holding the cloth in my hand, I directed all my hatred toward that inanimate image of my own body--an image that had become my rival through some spell or madness I could not explain.

"So there you are!" I said. "You wretched scrap of clay--you won't even cover the sole of my foot once I’ve crushed you! I’ve trampled you into mire a hundred times before, down by the stream, when the eyes of shepherds--and my beloved’s eyes, too, jealous of the purity of my leg--lamented that I should soil it against your mud... And now you’ve risen onto this pedestal; you’ve borrowed the very shape of my leg and my lovely, smooth belly! Treacherous thing! You’ve even stolen that movement of the shoulders and head--a gesture I was told no other creature possessed, one that made strong men shiver. By what trickery did you do it? Even I didn't know the secret; I had never managed to catch it in a mirror, and here I stand, trembling at the revelation of the mysterious allure that Love instills in us. Everything you are, you owe to me; you stole it from me piece by piece; without me, you would not exist; you are nothing but me!..."

Suddenly, I was terrified by the sound of my own words in the dark room, facing that image which alone caught the lamplight. The dancer seemed to smile and look down at me indulgently from her wooden stand. I fell silent. My final words echoed in the stillness of the night: "You are nothing but me!..."

My first impulse had been to spring toward the statue the moment I finished railing against it. But an unforeseen will held me fast. My eyes remained fixed on the object of my rage, and I marveled at my own stance and inaction. I clasped my head in both hands, as one does when striving to see clearly; I remember my fingers sinking deep into my hair, and when their tips met behind my head through the thick tangle, I felt such a sharp surge of vexation at my own weakness and the unknown power paralyzing me that I abruptly rushed out, knocking over the lamp and spilling its oil.

I found myself on the terrace where I had spent such beautiful, happy nights in Douris’s arms. Beneath the veiled sky, a faint, uncertain blue glow was beginning to halo the pediments of the temples on the heights; the city was still plunged in shadow, and the silence frightened me.

Suddenly, I remembered an old man named Simonides, who was feared for his knowledge of secret things. I knew where his house was, for he often passed the stalls of the terracotta makers, offering praise or criticism in words that were few but apt; and I had watched him walk all the way home, intrigued by the tales of his wondrous learning. I ran there. I found him hunched over his lamp, poring over works that appeared ancient and were written in an unknown script.

He smiled when he saw me:

"You are Douris’s wife," he said.

And before I could speak, he added:

"You must be mad to have married that man!..."

I felt a surge of defiance, born of my love.

"You love him," he said, his smile fading, "yet he prefers his clay figures to you?"

I nodded.

"I tried to smash the dancer," I added, trembling; "I couldn't do it; and I have come to find out..."

He interrupted me violently:

"I have seen," he said, "Douris’s dancer! One might as well challenge Jupiter, who rules the world. Poor child! You are the one who posed for that magnificent body, and yet you marvel to see those clay forms suddenly eclipse you in the mind of the man who molded them with his fingers--those very fingers, were they not, that used to tremble with ecstasy at the mere touch of the young blossom of your flesh?

"My child, listen. A god lies hidden and asleep beneath the shifting sea of forms, just as he does beneath the deep waters of human gazes. No one knows how or why he awakens, stirs, and suddenly makes his presence felt. Yet we bow before a gesture or a pose whose secret power has shaken us to the very depths of our souls. It may have lasted but an instant--gone as soon as it appeared--and many witnesses might well have failed to notice it. But we deem divine the skilled artist who, having glimpsed it, knew how to give it lasting expression--and who, no doubt, often summoned that miracle through prayer or burning desire.

"Thus, through Douris’s evocation and the inspiration of your beautiful, stirred body, that moment of sublime revelation was realized in clay and took on an immortal form. And that small clay object--which you could not bring yourself to shatter--is greater than Douris himself, and greater than you: it would not be unjust to rank it among the gods."

I listened to the old man with great dread. As he spoke, I felt the sting of my loss more keenly, for I understood that Douris had drawn the very best of me into his work. When Simonides had finished, I simply said:

"I want to die." Instead of throwing up his hands and treating me to a thousand commonplace speeches, the old sage paused for a moment--as if weighing various alternatives--and told me I was right. I admired his deep insight into the secrets of the heart and mind, and I kissed his robe in gratitude.

Dawn was cheerfully descending the slopes of our hills as I returned to the terrace where the idea of consulting the old man Simonides had first come to me. I paused there once more and resolved to carry out my plan on the spot. It was the place that had been kindest to me, for love had smiled upon me there; and wherever I turned my gaze across the landscape, I found the burning memory of Douris’s caresses.

"High up in the city, the temples of the gods caught the first rays of day, and beyond the walls, the fields of barley and wheat, the meadows, and the river’s long, serpentine curve lay bathed in the hazy sea of milk that morning spills across the land. My heart swelled; tears filled my eyes, and I could no longer clearly see the spots in the countryside where my husband had held me most tenderly in his embrace. I bade farewell to the rising day--a day whose noon I would never see. Then I performed a few rites prescribed by the old man and drew from my bosom the small vial he had given me. I drank its contents in a single draught before going to kiss the man for whom I wished to die--fearing that the sight of him might make my resolve waver. He was sleeping soundly and did not feel my kiss. My lips, moreover, had already grown cold, and I could only with difficulty make my way back outside, where the first birdsong and the city’s brisk awakening were the last things of this world to reach me amidst the great confusion that attends the presence of death."

-- "O passionate soul who, one morning on a terrace in Tanagra, defied the very flesh that inspired the maker of figurines," I cried out, "I love you!"

-- "No!" said the voice--the voice that had moved me with the tale of a life so simple and so beautiful. "No! It is not me you love: like Douris, like men, and like the gods, it is my rival you love! I am not the statuette; I, who have spoken to you, am the one who was sacrificed--the eternally jealous one. I am the creature of flesh, the model, the lover, the heroine, the muse who inspired the work of art;" forever smaller than the patch of earth a man's thumb has touched.”

THE TABLETS OF CYTHERA.

Towards the middle of the ninth day, we saw small boats with swelling sails rising upon the sea; Myrrha immediately waved her hands and raised her bare arms, which gleamed in the daylight with a fine golden down.

"Myrrha!" I said, clasping her beloved body. "It is indeed fitting to greet with signs of joy the news that there are still men--men going about their trade and their quests for glory--while we love one another on this lonely isle. Those little wind--filled sails are childlike, aren't they? Like the cheeks of newborns. If you wish, we shall dance and laugh; and at twilight, we shall weave garlands pleasing to Aphrodite from briar stems mingled with myrtle and violets."

Myrrha did not refuse to sway her shapely leg in rhythm; she even grew spirited enough to shake her tambourine above her hair. She sang, and I leaned down to breathe in, from her lips, the resonant breath and the joy of my dear lover.

Yet the small boats soon drew close enough for the sound of voices to reach us, and amidst the cacophony, we could even distinguish various dialects and coarse speech. There were people from every region of Greece, and even Barbarians--a motley crew of worthless men wandering in search of adventure.

"Myrrha!" I said. "Enough irony; you have done sufficient honor to these strangers who deserve none. Let us withdraw to the other side of the rocks and make our way to our flowery haunts." If all these people wish to land here, we shall offer them milk, honey, and pomegranates. Let us be off!

But, quite the contrary, Myrrha began to run along the fine sandy shore, wetting her feet in the sea; she gathered her hair into a knot atop her head--Theban--style--and secured it with a gold clasp shaped like the head of Silenus, which she had taken, along with other jewels, from a small carnelian box. She slipped a lovely spiral--shaped bronze necklace around her neck and adorned her fingers with rings set with Syrian garnets and prase--a new kind of stone.

I swear I thought I would die when I saw that, and I performed a few extravagant services for Myrrha--such as fastening her belt myself--much as the docile stage machinery at the theater carries and supports the gods. My lips were sealed in silence for a moment; then, I felt a sudden urge to weep, which I stifled because of the presence of those Barbarians. Finally, when I could speak:

"Myrrha! My little Myrrha!" I said to her. "What whim or madness has suddenly seized you in the presence of these vile, unshaven men--men far more vulgar than those we fled to come and love one another here, Myrrha, barely nine days ago?"

"Oh! I love you!" she said, winding her beautiful arms around my neck in a pose that would have charmed even the slow--moving seashells or the reefs of the sea.

She accepted my kiss, then turned her head and slipped from my grasp.

"I love you," she said again; "I love only you, my love."

And already she was leaning toward the men in the small boats, who were lifting their heavy eyes--laden with astonishment and desire--in her direction.

I clutched the light fabric of her tunic and undid the small gold fibula that fastened the garment at her throat. I glimpsed the fair skin of her shoulder, while men with harsh accents--men hailing, at the very least, from the tributary islands--shouted from the boats: "Evohe! It is Aphrodite herself!"--a cry that those who were true Barbarians translated into their own tongue.

"I love you!" I cried out to Myrrha, even as she was already moving away and hands were already crumpling her garments; for in that moment, I remembered nothing but my love for her. She replied:

-- You are the only one I love!

One could see she was torn between joy and sadness. I shouted to her:

-- Don't you know what you're doing, then?

— I don't know! she replied.

Something very strange happened. I was kneeling on the shore, near a few objects she had left behind. There was her mirror, which I kissed at the very spot where her image had once rested. I also picked up a piece of fruit she had bitten into; its moist flesh still bore the mark of her teeth. I began to kiss the bite--mark on the fruit, and in that moment, I felt no shame in weeping, even before strangers and barbarians. Amidst my confusion, I discerned that Myrrha’s face betrayed a sorrow equal to my own. I thought she was reaching out to me, and I saw her foot arching in an effort to return; yet, when her gaze met the many eyes admiring her in so many different ways, she could not help but revel in the joy of being beautiful--as many times over as there were men around her.

"But!" I cried out, "all of them together do not grant you as much beauty as I do, all on my own!"

She laughed. She allowed herself to be ferried from boat to boat so that other men might experience a fresh sense of wonder at her, and so that she might delight in being beautiful anew, over and over again.

The breeze picked up, and I watched the boats drift away, carrying my beloved little Myrrha with them. It all seemed, almost instantly, distant and childish--reminiscent of the puffed cheeks of a newborn. Yet, when the golden movement of Myrrha’s arms finally faded from sight, I collapsed onto the shore like a wounded hoplite.

And so, I have shattered the little mirror; it could reflect only a single kind of beauty--far too little for Myrrha, who surely possesses them all. I shall close my eyes forever, for they were incapable of feigning the thousand necessary artifices, expressing only the single, honest confession of the great love within my heart. But before that, I wrote this, and I am sealing it inside the funerary urn we had brought there to hold our ashes when the time came.

May the lover who discovers it adorn and kindle his love with the melancholy I enclose within this light earth.