A Feminist History of Self-Portraiture
Self-representation and subverting the gaze from 40,000 BCE to the present
If you have ever taken an art history class, you have probably come across a photograph of this object:
The Venus of Willendorf, named for a village in Austria near the site where it was found, is a limestone figurine, about 4 and a half inches tall. It was probably carved between 28,000 and 25,000 BC. Since its discovery in 1908, this statue has been the subject of debate about its purpose and function.
The name ‘Venus’ is of course something of a misnomer, as this object predates the Roman pantheon by many centuries. But it has long been applied to the Venus of Willendorf, as well as several other paleolithic sculptures, due to the possible erotic and/or religious purpose of these statues. These Venuses typically have swollen breasts, enlarged abdomens, irrelevant hands and feet. The Venus of Willendorf has tiny hands, which you can see right above her breasts, but other Venuses—like the Venus of Hoele Fels, discovered in a cave in Germany in 2008, lack hands and feet altogether. Likewise, these figurines generally lack faces.
