For Nehamas, too, erotic art is not at all a recalcitrant exception in need of explanation. Quite the contrary, it offers the best possible inroad to understanding what beauty and art are all about. It’s not a coincidence that the touchstone work of art, to which Nehamas returns again and again, is Manet’s Olympia. Far from being an exercise in formal beauty, as Zola would have it, this is a painting that is precisely designed 