0229Artemis_Saint-Gaudens

Golden nude statue of Diana the Huntress drawing a bow and arrow, inside a museum with glass displays and a person in the background

Much bibliography on Saint-Gaudens' important American sculpture is reported on the Wikipedia, s.v. "Diana (Saint-Gaudens)". The sculpture's nudity was very much at issue from its first version (1891) through the destruction of Madison Square Garden in 1925.

Reid also cites bibliography for Dryfout 1982, Janson 1985, Metropolitan 1965, and Walker 1984.

The sculpture's overt nudity is starkly out of step with classical depictions of Artemis, whose classical iconography normally reveals nothing more than a shapely calf and a muscular upper arm. In myth, of course, Actaeon's voyeurism— or was his glimpse of the goddess truly an innocent mistake? — brought upon him the stern scorn of the most vengeful goddess. And for the myth to work, she can't be immodest. LIMC article on Artemis/ Diana/Artumis [Etruscan] bears this out.

Other fully nude Artemides after Saint-Gaudens' include Feodora von Gleichen's in Hyde Park, London (prior to 1906), Paul Manship's (1921), and E.J. Clack's in Green Park, London (1954).