Venus vs. Nini
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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Featured:  Illustration: Portrait fantaisiste du marquis de Sade (1866) by H. Biberstein |
The Venus and Nini are two terms of art to denote the female nude. They are illustrated here by the Venus (Giorgione) vs. Venus of Urbino (1538) by Titian.
The French painter Pierre-Auguste Renoir said of the distinction, "The nude woman, whether she emerges from the waves of the sea,or from her own bed, is Venus, or Nini, and one's imagination cannot conceive anything better" (quoted in Pach 70). In modern art, pubic hair marks the dividing line between a Venus and a Nini, as Gilles Néret noted.
In classical art, the difference was in their gaze, Giorgione's Venus looks away with her eyes closed, Titian's Venus, painted 28 years later, looks the spectator straight in the eye.
The locale is different too. Giorgione's Venus is set in a pastoral environment, Titian's Venus is in a house.
Giorgione's Venus conjures a mythical being which never really wears any clothes because she lives in a fictional universe, Titian's Venus is your girlfriend, or the model you get intimate with or the call girl who has received you.
Both are female nudes but with regards to the differences enumerated above art critics label the first kind Venus and the second Nini. Idealization vs. homeliness. Remoteness vs. proximity. Hard-to-get vs. available.
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