The female form has been a popular subject in art for millennia. From as early as the Paleolithic age in Europe, we see the female form sculpted in three dimension. Exactly why the female form was one of the earliest and most popular representations in art is hard to say, but it appears that it is based on the reproductive powers that females possess. Many sculptures from antiquity emphasize the reproductive parts of the female form, thus suggesting that they were perhaps created as fertility images. Indeed, this tendency to represent the female as a fertility goddess has persisted into the historical period when texts about these sculptures assert this function. While the styles of these figures have changed over time, their basic message has not. They are the physical embodiment of fertility and were created in hopes of encouraging the fertility of the females who encountered them.
