contrappostos

Noun

contrapposto (countable and uncountable, plural contrapposto or contrappostos or contrapposti)

1. (uncountable, especially sculpture) The position of a human figure whose hips and legs are twisted away from the direction of the head and shoulders; (countable) an instance of this.
   • The Archaic kouros was always callipygian, the large buttocks more stressed and valued than the face. But the buttocks of the Kritios Boy have a feminine refinement, as erotic as breasts in Venetian painting. The contrapposto flexes one buttock and relaxes the other. The artist imagines them as...1990, Camille Paglia, Sexual Personae: Art and Decadance from Nefertiti to Emily Dickinson, London; New Haven, Conn.: Yale Nota Bene, Yale University Press, published 2001, →ISBN