Callipygian (pronounced kal-uh-pij-ee-uhn)
Of,
pertaining to, or having beautiful buttocks.
Circa 1800: A Latinized form from the Ancient Greek καλλίπυγος (kallípugos) (of, pertaining to, or having beautiful buttocks), the epithet of a statue of Aphrodite at Syracuse, the construct being calli (kalli) (from the Ancient Greek κάλλος (kállos) (beauty)) + πυγή (pugē) (tail; buttocks; rump) + -ian (the adjectival suffix).
Despite the classical association, there were serious critics who deplored the word pygē, dismissing it as mere slang “…completely avoided in epic poetry and higher literature” with “…no convincing etymology" although etymologists trace it back to the primitive Indo-European spugeh with cognates including the Latin pūga, the Old High German fochen, and Old Church Slavonic паоуга (pauga), пѫга (pǫga). The objection may be because it was used also in the figurative to mean "fat, swelling" but the combinging form pyg- exists in many technical (often medical) words including pygalgia (pain in the buttocks) and dasypygal (having hairy buttocks). The lingustic snobbery didn't extend to the taxonomy and systematics of penguins, the Adélie penguin named Pygoscelis adeliae, the construct of the genus Pygoscelis being pygē + skelos (leg"). For those who might think it an anyway handy adjective, the comparative is more callipygian and the superlative most callipygian, applied as appropriate although the TikToK generation has a more accessible lexicon for such purposes.
The Ἀφροδίτη
Καλλίπυγος (Aphrodite Kallipygos), known also as the Venus Callipyge or
Callipygian Venus (all translating literally as “Venus (or Aphrodite) of the
beautiful buttocks”, is a marble statue, carved in Ancient Rome and assumed to
be a copy of a Greek original. It’s one
of the most famous examples of a sculptor’s interpretation of the device ἀνάσυρμα (anasyrma,
the construct being ἀνά (ana) (up, against, back) + σύρμα (syrma) (skirt) (ἀνασύρματα & ἀνασυρμός (anasyrmata
& anasyrmos) the plural), the gesture
of lifting the skirt or kilt. Known also
from religious rituals, eroticism and vulgar humor, the technique in art pre-dates
antiquity. The statue depicts a
partially draped woman, raising her light peplos
(a woman’s ankle-length gown) to uncover the hips and buttocks, her gaze cast
back down her shoulder. Although most
often identified as being of Venus (Aphrodite), this has never been certain.
The dates
from the first century BC, the lost Greek original thought to have been rendered
in bronze and executed around 300 BC, very early in the classical Hellenistic
era although nothing is known of its history until it was rediscovered, missing
its head, during The Renaissance. The head
was recreated, first in the sixteenth century and later the eighteenth when the
sculptor closely followed the earlier restoration, the head made to look over
the shoulder which had the effect further to draw attention to the bare
buttocks, something thought greatly to enhance its popularity and certainly
influence those who would later reprise the work. This would not be the only time the artists of
the high Renaissance would modify reality a bit to so construct an idealized vision of the classical world of Antiquity.
It was in the seventeenth century the statue was identified as Venus and
associated with a temple to Aphrodite Kallipygos at Syracuse.
That association
is however tenuous because it was discussed by the (third century AD) writer Athenaeus
of Naucratis in his fifteen-volume Deipnosophists
(dinner-table philosophers). According
to Athenaeus, two beautiful sisters from a farm near Syracuse argued over which
of them had the shapelier buttocks, and accosted a passer-by, asking him to judge.
The young man, the son of a rich local
merchant voted for the older sister and found himself quite smitten with her,
quickly falling in love. In one of the fortunate
coincidences which pepper myths ancient and modern, the man’s younger brother heard
of this and went to see the girls for himself and, as much of an emo as his
sibling, fell in love with the younger sister. The brothers refused to consider other brides,
so their father arranged the marriages. The
citizens dubbed the sisters Kallipugoi
(the women with beautiful asses) and dedicated a temple to Aphrodite, calling
her Kallipygos. The cult of Aphrodite attracted
other writers, the Christian author Clement of Alexandria (circa 150-215) included
it in his table of the erotic manifestations of paganism and variations of Athenaeus’s
tale circulated in copies of Vincenzo Cartari’s (1531-1590) retelling in Le Imagini con la sposizione dei dei de gli
antichi (The Images of the Gods of the Ancients and their Explanations
(1556)) some of the stories from classical mythology.
The Venus Callipyge in the Louvre Museum in Paris is one of several copies of the Roman version of the Venus from the Farnese Collection. Then as now, the taste of the public ebbed and flowed and what was declared to be obscene moved in the arc of a pendulum, this rendition modified with additional marble layers which, as historians of art note, were draped across the eponymous feature “so as not to offend an increasingly prudish public taste”. After the French Revolution, it was displayed in the Jardin des Tuileries (the public garden between the Louvre and the Place de la Concorde), reflecting the politics of 1789. That a statue in in a French museum has the buttocks depicted in swirling fabric while those on show in Italy are bare is mere coincidence and no inferences about national character should be drawn.
The adjective callipygian need not be restricted to the human form and can be applied anthropomorphically. In different ways, stylists can apply to machinery the motifs of the baroque, the sensuous the athletic or the muscular.
1 1974
Dino 246 GTS (C&F) by Ferrari.
2 1958
De Soto Firesweep convertible by Chrysler.
3 1965
Jaguar E-Type (modified as Eagle Speedster 4.7).
4 1971
Chevrolet Corvette Coupé LS6 by General Motors.
5 1967
Alfa Romeo Spider 1600 (Duetto).
6 1971
Mercedes-Benz W111 (280SE 3.5 Coupé).
7 1973
BMW E9 (3.0 CSi).
8 1971
Lamborghini Miura P400SV.
9 1966 AC Shelby Cobra 427 S/C.
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