It may be proper here to say a word in explanation of that frank
and innocent nudity which is so characteristic a trait of the best
Greek art. The Greek admiration for the masculine body and the
willingness to display it were closely bound up with the
extraordinary importance in Greece of gymnastic exercises and
contests and with the habits which these engendered. As early as
the seventh century, if not earlier, the competitors in the foot-
race at Olympia dispensed with the loin-cloth, which had
previously been the sole covering worn. In other Olympic contests
the example thus set was not followed till some time later, but in
the gymnastic exercises of every-day life the same custom must
have early prevailed. Thus in contrast to primitive Greek feeling
and to the feeling of "barbarians" generally, the exhibition by
men among men of the naked body came to be regarded as something
altogether honorable. There could not be better evidence of this
than the fact that the archer-god, Apollo, the purest god in the
Greek pantheon, does not deign in Greek art to veil the glory of
his form.
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