The subject of bloody battles, massive intrigues and numerous disputes, Venus de Milo is full of secrets. We invite you to get acquainted with some of them.

• The statue depicting the Greek goddess of love and beauty is nevertheless named not by a Greek name. Venus is a deity of Roman mythology, which is the exact analogue of the Greek Aphrodite. Thus, the alternative name of the statue is Aphrodite of Milo.

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• The statue did not receive part of its name when it was created. In particular, the Milos sculpture was named in 1820 after the place where it was found - the Greek island of Milos.

• The time of creation of Venus of Milos (130-100 BC, Hellenistic period) became known for certain thanks to the pedestal discovered together with the marble masterpiece, on which, in addition, it was indicated that the author of the work is Alexander from Antioch. Why was it? Because immediately after the discovery, the pedestal disappeared somewhere.

• As it turned out later, the disappearance of the pedestal was far from an accident. It was deliberately hidden in order to pass off the sculpture as a creation of the classical period of Greece (510-323 BC), whose works are valued much higher than the Hellenistic. In parallel with this, authorship was attributed to Praxiteles, the founding father of the direction in sculpture, in which Venus de Milo was made. Although the trick was later revealed, the pedestal was still not found, and therefore Alexander of Antioch is considered the most likely author of the work, but by no means authentic.

• Some experts believe that the sculpture does not depict Venus / Aphrodite, but Amphitrite, the daughter of the mythological sea god Nereus and the wife of the subsequent ruler of the sea kingdom Poseidon. This version is supported by the fact that Amphitrite was especially revered by the inhabitants of the island of Milos. At the same time, there is also an assumption that the goddess of victory Nike is depicted on the statue. The hands of the statue, or rather the objects in them, could resolve this dispute. For example, a spear would indicate that this is Nike, and an apple would become the final argument in favor of Aphrodite (before the start of the Trojan War, Paris presented it to the goddess of love and beauty). Unfortunately, the arms of the statue have not survived.

• It is widely known that, found in 1820 by the Greek peasant Yorgos Kentrotas, together with the French sailor Olivier Voutier, Venus de Milo was illegally exported to France, where in 1821 it entered the Louvre exhibition. However, not everyone knows that the statue was originally sent to Paris as a gift from the French ambassador, the Marquis de Rivière, to King Louis XVIII, who later handed it over to the Louvre.

• Many masterpieces of antiquity reach our days in an imperfect condition, mainly due to the ruthless influence of time, but the lack of hands on Venus de Milo is the result of banal human nature. At the time of the discovery of the statue, it consisted of all parts of the body, but as a result of a bloody clash between the French and the Turks for the right to possess this treasure of antiquity, Aphrodite lost her arms. In this form, she was delivered to Paris.

• With her appearance in the cultural life of Paris, Venus de Milo has become a kind of symbol of the national pride of the French. The fact is that in 1815 the Louvre had to return to the Italians the statue of Venus de Medici, which Napoleon Bonaparte had taken out of Italy during his conquests. The appearance of Venus de Milo in 1820 not only made up for the loss, but was deliberately declared a more valuable exhibit. The trick was a success - the novelty immediately attracted the attention of connoisseurs and artists, as well as the general public.

• Despite its uniqueness, Venus de Milo also had ill-wishers. The most famous opponent of the opinion that the statue is the personification of beauty was the famous impressionist painter Pierre Auguste Renoir.

• Along with the statue of Nika of Samothrace and the cycle of sculptures The Slaves by Michelangelo, Venus de Milo was among the selected masterpieces of art that were secretly taken out of occupied Paris during World War II and buried in the suburbs of the French capital.

• At one time, Venus de Milo lost not only her hands, but also her jewelry. In particular, at first the statue was exhibited adorned with a bracelet, earrings and other expensive jewelry. Although these jewels have long been gone, you can still see holes in the marble for attaching jewelery.

• Today we see the statue is not at all the same as it was seen in antiquity, and it's not just the absence of hands. The original color of Venus de Milo, like any other ancient marble statue, is not white. The Greeks of antiquity traditionally treated marble statues with various colors, partially changing the appearance of the sculpture. Today, studies show that there is no trace of the ancient paint of the statue.

• Despite the fact that Venus de Milo is considered by many to be a model of female beauty, its height is just over 2 meters, which exceeds the growth of the vast majority of people on our planet. Perhaps this is a hint of an ideal, which only a few are given to achieve.

• Some art historians are inclined to believe that the sculpture of Venus de Milo is a replica of the Roman statue of Aphrodite of Capua (created 170 years before the creation of Alexandros of Antioch), which, in turn, is also a copy of the original Greek statue.

• On the one hand, the missing hand of Venus de Milo is an object of bitter regret, on the other hand, it is an inexhaustible source for speculations about how the statue's hands were located and, most importantly, what could be in them. This question has repeatedly become and to this day is becoming the topic of numerous discussions and scientific works.

By the way, we want to remind you that there is a possibility that soon the 200-year stay of Venus de Milo in the Louvre will come to an end. At least the administration of the island of Milos has announced its intention.

Venus received the regional "surname" by the name of the island, on which it was found in 1820 by a French sailor. Milos, today a territory of Greece, was at that time under the rule of the Ottoman Empire.

History of Venus de Milo

The Frenchman, accompanied by a Greek guide, found a beautiful statue - overall well preserved, but divided in half. After exhausting bargaining, the Turkish authorities still allowed the statue to be removed from the island, but later, realizing what value they had lost, they arranged a demonstrative punishment for the Greeks who participated in the search and transportation. In the process of the latter, hands were lost. In France, Venus was presented to Louis XVIII and soon handed over to the Louvre, where it remains to this day.

Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt at the Louvre. (wikipedia.org)

The pedestal, which was found together with the sculpture, and then lost, indicates that the statue was made by Alexander, son of Menides, a citizen of Antioch on Meander. And it happened around 130 BC.

The statue was sculpted in pieces, which were then put together. A similar technique was popular in the Cyclades. Based on the remaining mounting holes, Venus was wearing bracelets, earrings and a headband, while the marble was painted. For its time, the sculpture is unique for its graceful curvature of the body and skillfully draped fabric of falling fabric.

3D reconstruction of the statue. Source: wikipedia.org

It is believed that the half-naked goddess personifies Aphrodite (in the Roman tradition - Venus), but the absence of hands in which she could hold the attributes that characterize her gives rise to numerous hypotheses.

Statue of Venus de Milo: versions

There is an assumption that Venus was holding an apple. There are hypotheses that this is the goddess of the sea, Amphitrite, who was extremely revered in Milos. She could be paired with someone, with one of her hands resting on the shoulder of a nearby sculpture. Could hold a bow or amphora - attributes of Artemis.

There is also a hypothesis that the sculpture was not a goddess, but a heterosexual, one of those often depicted on vases.

Image of the statue of Praxiteles. (wikipedia.org)

For its beautiful eyes and charming curves, the sculpture is still considered the goddess of love and belongs to the so-called Cnidus type. Around 350 BC e. Praxitel sculpted a naked goddess who was holding the fallen clothes. The statue has not survived, but the image has been reproduced by numerous followers in sculpture and painting.

Greek sculpture has had a tremendous impact on subsequent eras. In many ways, the ideals of body beauty were first embodied in marble by ancient masters and, with minor variations, have survived to this day. The period of Hellenism, to which Venus de Milo belongs, was a time of change: the social institutions traditional for classical Greece outlived their usefulness, new ones arose. Foundations and norms, worldview, attitude to art changed.

Aesthetics was formed under the influence of the cultures of those peoples who were part of the empire as it expanded. The influence of the East is more and more noticeable with its attention to decor, details, sensuality and emotionality, which shows through even in marble. The sculpture was no longer the embodiment of the static position of an ideal body, but demonstrated the passions that overwhelmed the heroes, represented genre multi-figure scenes, which were later used by painters.

She is flawless. The movement of the fabric is difficult to detail, and the lines of the body are just perfect. Created over two millennia ago, it seems modern. The figure surprises with proportionality and harmony. Most often she is identified with the goddess of love, and is called Venus, although the Greek name of this goddess is not Venus, but Aphrodite. And it is called Milos by the name of the place where it was discovered about two hundred years ago by a Greek fisherman - the islands of Milos.

Many mysteries are associated with the work, one of them concerns the lost hands of the goddess. There are several theories as to what their position was and what Venus was holding.

One of the most widespread and well-founded assumptions is that in one hand she was holding an apple, and with the other she held falling clothes. As proof, the words of the peasants who discovered the statue are cited, which confirm that this fruit was put into the hand of Venus. The assumption has a mythological basis. The goddess of love received an apple with the inscription "fairest" from Paris, who preferred it to Athena and Hera.

But not everyone agrees. There is also a popular version that the location of Venus's body, in particular, the turn of the shoulders and torso, suggests that the goddess was spinning. Accordingly, in one hand she held the yarn, and with the other, she controlled the thread and the spindle.

They confirm their hypothesis by digital reconstruction of the statue, proving that the pose of the statue corresponds to that which the spinner's body takes. Indeed, the position of the sculpture's torso is very similar to that of spinning women. Such a composition was often depicted on antique vessels.

Another version suggests that the sculptor sculpted the goddess of victory, Nika. In one hand she holds the shield of the god of war Mars, and in the other she writes the names of the warriors who became famous for victories in battles. This interpretation explains the proud gaze of the goddess.

There is also a hypothesis about the original pairing of the sculpture. Left hand Venus allegedly rested on the shoulder of Mars, the god of war. There are also less popular assumptions: the goddess is supplied with a mirror or laurel wreath.

Find history.

The famous statue was discovered on April 8, 1820, in the ruins of an ancient city on the island of Milo, by a farmer named Yorgos Kentrotas, together with the French sailor Olivier Coutier. Having changed several owners while trying to export it from the country, the statue eventually ended up in the hands of the French ambassador to Istanbul, the Marquis de Riviere. It was the marquis who presented Venus to the French king Louis XVIII, who, in turn, handed over the statue to the Louvre, where it is located to this day.

Kentrotas found a sculpture with hands, or rather with fragments of hands. They tried to reconstruct them, but the hands turned out to be "too rough and inelegant." Modern art critics believe that this does not mean at all that the hands did not belong to Venus, they just were badly damaged. When the statue was transported to Paris in 1820, both the hands and the original pedestal were lost.

There is a version that the Venus pedestal did not disappear by accident.

The creation of the statue is attributed to Alexandrov of Antioch - it is believed that he carved this masterpiece from stone between 130 and 100 BC. The statue was found with a plinth, on which the name of the creator was engraved. Subsequently, the pedestal mysteriously disappeared.

Perhaps the clue to his disappearance lies in the fact that 19th century art critics decided that the statue of Venus was the work of the Greek sculptor Praxiteles (it was very similar to his statue). This classified the statue as belonging to the classical era (480-323 BC), whose creations were much more prized than the sculptures of the Hellenistic period. To support this version even at the cost of misinformation, the pedestal was removed before the sculpture was presented to the king.

There are numerous reconstructions in which Venus de Milo is depicted with hands in various versions. Be that as it may, but the hands of Venus were holding something.

sources

One of the most famous examples of ancient Greek sculpture is the marble statue of Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of love and beauty. The sculpture was created in the Hellenistic period, between 130 and 100 BC, but, unfortunately, by the time of its "discovery" in modern history, it was already devoid of hands. Depicted slightly larger than the actual size of a person, this work is attributed to Alexandros of Antioch, as evidenced by the now-lost inscription on the plinth. The graceful figure of the goddess has captivated art lovers since its discovery in 1820. The famous sculpture is now on display in the Louvre collection.

Venus de Milo was discovered on the Greek island of Melos, buried in the ancient ruins of the city of Melos (sometimes Milos).

Characteristics and analysis

The statue is made of Parian marble and is about two meters high without a pedestal. The statue is believed to showcase the goddess Aphrodite. Venus is its Roman counterpart. Unfortunately, the sculpture's arms and the original plinth were lost. This is partly due to the fact that initially, when collecting the surviving fragments of the sculpture, the hands were not attributed to her, since they had a more "rough" appearance... Today, however, experts are confident that despite the difference in decoration, the lost fragments belonged to Venus.

It is believed that originally the statue (like other works of ancient Greek sculpture) was painted with colored pigments, which gave it a realistic appearance, and was also decorated with bracelets, earrings and a wreath.

Venus de Milo showcases the technical and creative innovations of the period known as Hellenism. The contrast between the smooth naked skin of the heroine and the voluminous texture of the drapery is skillfully emphasized. The sculpture is filled with erotic tension due to the drapery that is about to slip off. These stylistic features give an idea of ​​the period when the sculpture was created. Overall, the work can be seen as a subtle blend of early and late styles and techniques for creating ancient Greek sculpture.

Everlasting beauty

During the 19th century, Venus de Milo was praised by art critics and experts who awarded the sculpture the title of the standard of female beauty.

Updated: September 16, 2017 by the author: Gleb