Venus de Milo

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Not to be confused with the group of prehistoric statuettes known as Venus figurines.


front view	three-quarter view	back view

The Aphrodite of Milos, better known as the Venus de Milo, is an ancient Greek statue and one of the most famous works of ancient Greek sculpture. It is believed to depict Aphrodite (called Venus by the Romans), the Greek goddess of love and beauty. It is a marble sculpture, slightly larger than life size at 203 cm (80 inches) high. Its arms and original plinth have been lost. From an inscription on its now-lost plinth, it is thought to be the work of Alexandros of Antioch; it was earlier mistakenly attributed to the master sculptor Praxiteles. It is at present on display at the Louvre Museum in Paris.

1 Interpretation
2 Discovery and fame
3 See also
4 References
5 External links

[edit] Interpretation

The statue dates to about 130–90 BCE. Despite this relatively late date, its composition is a mixture of earlier styles from the Classical period of Greek sculpture. The statue is a variation on an older theme of the half nude Aphrodite originally shown admiring her reflection inside the reflective inner surface of Ares' shield while it is balanced on her raised left knee (a replica of the older type is located at the Museo Archeologico Nazionale Napoli (Naples National Archaeological Museum), Italy. It is known as the Capuan Venus, after its findspot at the ruins of an ancient theater in nearby Capua, Italy).

The Capuan Venus.

It is not known exactly what aspect of Venus the statue originally depicted. It is generally thought to have been a representation of Venus Victrix (Aphrodite Victorious) holding the golden apple presented to her by Paris of Troy (see also the Judgement of Paris). This would also have served as a pun on the name of the island Milos, which means "apple" in the Greek language. Two fragments of a left arm and a left hand with an apple were found near the statue in the same niche and are thought to be remnants of its arms. After the statue was found, numerous attempts were made to reconstruct its pose, though it was never restored. (A drawing by Adolf Furtwängler suggesting its original form can be found in an article by Kousser^[1].)

[edit] Discovery and fame

Drawing by Debay of the statue with the missing inscribed plinth published in 1821.

The statue was discovered in 1820 inside a buried niche within the ancient city ruins of Milos on the Aegean island of the same name, also called Melos or Milo, by a peasant named Yorgos Kentrotas. It was found in two main pieces (the upper torso and the lower draped legs) along with several herms (pillars topped with heads), fragments of the upper left arm and left hand holding an apple, and an inscribed plinth. At the moment of discovery Oliver Voutier, a French naval officer who was either interested in the then new science of archaeology, or simply bored, decided to take two of his sailors and explore the “dull,remote, harsh” island.1With the help of the young farmer,Voutier began to dig around what were clearly ancient ruins. In only a few hours’ time,Voutier uncovered a piece of art that would become renowned throughout the world, about 10 days later, another French naval officer, Jules Dumont d'Urville, recognized its significance and arranged for a purchase by the French ambassador to Turkey, the Marquis de Riviere.

News of the discovery took longer than normal to get to the French ambassador. The peasant grew tired of waiting for payment and was pressured into selling to a local priest, who planned to present the statue as a gift to a translator working for the Sultan in Constantinople (present day Istanbul, Turkey).

The French ambassador's representative arrived just as the statue was being loaded aboard a ship bound for Constantinople and persuaded the island's primates (chief citizens) to annul the sale and honor the first offer.

Upon learning of the reversal of the sale, the translator had the primates whipped and fined, but was eventually reprimanded by the Sultan after the French ambassador complained to him about the mistreatment of the island primates. The primates were reimbursed and ceded all future claims to the statue in gratitude.

Upon arrival at the Louvre, the statue was reassembled but the fragments of the left hand and arm were initially dismissed as being a later restoration due to the rougher workmanship.^{[citation needed]} It is now accepted that the left hand holding the apple and the left arm are in fact original to the statue, but were not as well finished as the rest of the statue since they would have been somewhat above eye level and difficult to see.^{[citation needed]} This was a standard practice for many sculptors of the era--less visible parts of statues were often not as well finished since they would typically be invisible to the casual observer.^{[citation needed]} Sculptures and statues from this era were normally carved out of several blocks of stone and carefully pieced together.^{[citation needed]} The Venus de Milo turns out to have been carved from at least six to seven blocks of Parian marble: one block for the nude torso, another block for the draped legs, another block apiece for each arm, another small block for the left foot, another block for the inscribed plinth and finally the separately carved herm that stood beside the goddess.

The controversial plinth was initially found to fit perfectly as part of the statue, but after it was translated and dated, the embarrassed experts who had publicized the statue as a possible original work by the artist Praxiteles dismissed it as another later addition to the statue. The inscription read: "...(Alex)andros son of Menides, citizen of Antioch on the Maeander made this (statue)...". The inscribed plinth would have moved the dating of the statue from the Classical Age to the Hellenistic Age because of the style of lettering and the mention of the ancient city of Antioch on the Maeander, which did not exist at the time Praxiteles lived.^{[citation needed]} The Hellenistic Age was at that time considered a period of decline for Greek art. The plinth mysteriously disappeared shortly before the statue was presented to King Louis XVIII in 1821 and only survives in two drawings and an early description. The king eventually presented the statue to the Louvre museum in Paris, where it still stands on public display.

The statue's great fame in the 19th century was not simply the result of its admitted beauty, but also owed much to a major propaganda effort by the French authorities. In 1815 France had returned the Medici Venus to the Italians after it had been looted from Italy by Napoleon Bonaparte. The Medici Venus, regarded as one of the finest Classical sculptures in existence, caused the French to consciously promote the Venus de Milo as a greater treasure than that which they had recently lost. It was duly praised by artists and critics as the epitome of graceful female beauty; however, Pierre-Auguste Renoir was clearly not following the script when he dismissed it as a "big gendarme".

Although the statue is widely renowned for the mystery of its missing arms, enough evidence remains to prove that the right arm was lowered across the torso with the right hand resting on the raised left knee so the sliding drapery wrapped around the hips and legs could be held in place.^{[citation needed]} There is a filled in hole below the right breast that originally contained a metal tenon that would have supported the separately carved right arm.

The left arm was held at just below the eye level of the statue above a herm while holding an apple. The right side of the statue is more carefully worked and finished than the left side or back, indicating that the statue was intended to be seen mainly as a profile from its right. The left hand would have held the apple up into the air further back inside the niche the statue was set in. When the left hand was still attached, it would have been clear to an observer that the goddess was looking at the apple she held up in her left hand.

The statue would have been painted in a riot of colors as was the custom of the era, decked out in jewelery and positioned inside a niche inside a gymnasium. The painting of the statue along with the bedecking in jewelery was intended to make it appear more lifelike. Today, all traces of the paint have disappeared and the only signs of the armbands, necklace, earrings and crown are the attachment holes.