The Medicean Venus, he remarks, is only a pretty woman coquetting
with her body. Canova's Venus in the Pitti (who has drapery in
front of her, and presses her arms across her breast) being a
more accurate rendering of the attitude of modesty. But Stratz
admits that when a surprised woman is gazed at for some time, she
turns her head away, sinks or closes her eyes, and covers her
pubes (or any other part she thinks is being gazed at) with one
hand, while with the other she hides her breast or face. This he
terms the secondary expression of modesty. (Stratz, _Die
Frauenkleidung_, third ed., p. 23.)
It is certainly true that the Medicean Venus merely represents an
artistic convention, a generalized tradition, not founded on
exact and precise observation of the gestures of modesty, and it
is equally true that all the instinctive movements noted by
Stratz are commonly resorted to by a woman whose nakedness is
surprised. But in the absence of any series of carefully recorded
observations, one may doubt whether the distinction drawn by
Stratz between the primary and the secondary expression of
modesty can be upheld as the general rule, while it is most
certainly not true for every case. When a young woman is
surprised in a state of nakedness by a person of the opposite, or
even of the same, sex, it is her instinct to conceal the primary
centers of sexual function and attractiveness, in the first
place, the pubes, in the second place the breasts.
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