Home/Symbols/Hand-at-mons gestureHand-at-mons gesture SymbolismFrom the Venus pudica tradition; here signals frank sexual readiness linked to fertilityCommon ThemesErotic desireMimesis vs. abstraction (truth vs. artifice)Originality, authorship, and appropriationMarriage & domesticityGender & sexualityFashion & adornmentClass & inequalityBeauty & the idealArtworks Featuring This SymbolVenus of UrbinoTitian (1538)Titian’s Venus of Urbino turns the mythic goddess into an ideal bride, merging frank <strong>eroticism</strong> with the codes of <strong>marital fidelity</strong>. In a Venetian bedroom, the nude’s direct gaze, roses, sleeping lapdog, and attendants at a cassone bind desire to domestic virtue and fertility <sup>[1]</sup><sup>[2]</sup>.
