“The Greek artist who must represent a Laocoon, or a Niobe or a Philoctetes does not know of a princess, a king or son of kings of any kind; he just abides with the human. For this reason, the wise sculptor tosses the clothes and leaves us with just the clarity of the naked bodies, even when he knows well this will never happen in real life. Robes for the sculptor are, actually, mere accidents which cannot be held in higher value than the necessary, for the laws of decency or the laws of the urgencies of the senses are never the laws of art. The sculptor should and would reveal the human being, and will, on this behalf, dispose of the clothes.”

Extracted from Friedrich Shiller, Aesthetic letters