The Venus de Milo: an inspiring piece of art

Today, almost 200 years ago, on the Greek island of Milo a farmer found an ancient statue broken in two parts. He hid the antiquity from Turskish authorities, since it was that romantic period of the struggle for the Greek independence, in whihc the English poet Lord Byron lost his life. However, some Turkish officers managed to find and take the statue from the poor farmer.

Fortunately a French navy officer, Olivier Vourtier, noted the cultural value of the Venus and informed the French ambassador in the Ottoman Empire. After some negotiations a deal was reached and the Venus de Milo was bought and brought at the Louvre Museum, where it is still today.

French people instantly fell in love for the Venus while French authorities greatly propagandized the statue since, after Napoleon’s defeat, France had to return to Florence the Medici Venus, maybe one of the most magnificent statue of the ancient times. So the Venus de Milo represented a great opportunity to try to replace that classical masterpiece. Critics, artists and scholars quickly started to praise the virtues and qualities of the statue. The only detractor was Renoir who never disguised his distaste for the Venus, calling it the “big gendarme”.

Also known as Aphrodite of Milos(Venus is the latin name for the goddess of love), it is likely to had been made by Alexandros of Antioch, though initially it seemed to be the work of Praxiteles. It was created around 130–100 BC, it is made of Paros marble and its size is 203 cm. The sculpture lacks part of the arm and the original pedestal.

Aphrodite shows her bare chest down to the waist, where her legs are covered by a dense drapery. The body clearly composed a balanced tension, recalling the classical chiasmus. The statue had a complex play of chiaroscuro in the folds of the drapery and in the wavy hair.

The statue has been supposed to represent Venus Victrix, who is going to give the golden apple to Paris. This version is consistent with the name of the island wherethe Venus was found: Milos means apple in Greek. Further fragments of a forarm has been found near to the location of the Venus.

The Venus is clearly a mirror of the dominant thought during the Hellenistic period. The stance of Aphrodite is natural and spontaneous, very different from the heroic composure of the previous classical Venus statues. The Hellenistic vision of the world was more relaxed about the political and cultural meaning of art and so it was able to commit itself only to the search of harmony and equilibrium. It is worth mentioning that the Venus statues are of great value due to their idealization of feminine beauty in their usual half-naked representations, which were rather sporadic for a society, the Greek one, so centered around masculine beauty. Male sculptures were more common and usually completely naked.

I conclude this post with an astonished glance at this masterpiece, which through centuries has reached our eyes, mantaining unchanged its ability to impress our minds with its elegance.