Where does that ideal of the male human form come from? Lean, muscular and athletic. An exhibition at the Bendigo Art Gallery reveals it all started more than two thousand years ago with the ancient Greeks.
The human body has been an inspiration for artists and sculptors over many thousands of years, but context is everything when it comes to nude bodies and an exhibition currently on show at the Bendigo Art Gallery specifically explores representations of the human body through the eyes of the ancient Greeks.
Think about those first Olympic athletes - in all their naked glory, supernatural creatures with human body parts, and Ancient Greek gods given human form - it's all represented in this exhibition from the British Museum's Greek and Roman collection.
It's the first time the British Museum has toured an exhibition to a regional Australian venue, and is the third instalment of the Bendigo International Collections series.
You can listen to ABC Central Victoria's Jo Printz speaking about the Body Beautiful with Bendigo Art Gallery's project curator Sandra Bruce here.