How Does the Venus de Milo Work?

Although she's one of the most famous figures in European art, a lot is still mysterious about the Venus de Milo. Learn what we do and don't know about her in this episode of BrainStuff, based on this article: https://entertainment.howstuffworks.com/arts/artwork/venus-de-milo.htm

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Brainstuff, a production of I Heart Radio, Hey Brainstuff.
Luren Bobebam here. She's one of the most recognizable figures
in the art world, but she's shrouded in mystery ever
since Louis the eighteenth donated her to the Louver in
eighteen twenty one. She's captured the attention and praise of
audiences and historians, but many are still baffled by her origins.

(00:25):
So who is Venus de Milo and what exactly happened
to her arms? The half draped, armless marble statue of
a goddess that many of us know as the Venus
de Milo likely represents one of two figures who aren't
technically Venus, the Roman goddess of love, sex, beauty and fertility,
but rather either Aphrodite, Venus's Greek counterpart, or Amphride, the

(00:48):
goddess queen of the Sea and wife of Poseidon. But
when the statue was discovered in eighteen twenty on the
Greek island of Milos and presented to Louis, who in
turn donated her to the Louver, no one was quite
sure what to make of her. For the article this
episode is based on has to work spoke via email
with Andrew Stewart Nicholas C. Petris, Professor of Greek Studies

(01:09):
Emeritus at UC Berkeley. He said, when the Louve acquired
the statue in eighteen twenty, the British Museum had just
acquired the Elgin Marbles, universally attributed to the fifth century
BC sculptor Phideous, generally acknowledged by ancients and moderns as
the greatest of Greek sculptors. Since she was obviously later
stylistically but still classical, she was immediately attributed to Praxilites,

(01:34):
the greatest fourth century BC sculptor and universally acknowledged master
of the female nude epitomized by the love goddess Aphrodite.
A base found with her signed by the sculptor Alexandro's
of Magnesia on the Meander, a city not founded until
the third century b c. E was thus immediately and
conveniently lost. According to Stuart, a German archaeologist is credited

(01:58):
with discovering Venus de Biolo's true root as a Greek
neo classical statue, not a classical one, but the revelation
didn't come until the late nineteenth century. When he realized
that her drapery was clearly Hellenistic and probably created in
the second century BC. Despite her real identity, the statue
is still often tied to an older era. Stewart said

(02:20):
she still is regarded as a masterpiece of the classical genre,
partly because we have so few originals of her size,
state of preservation and quality. If you've never seen her
in person, you may not know how much larger than
life she really is. The Venus de Milo stands some
six ft eight inches tall that's about two hundred and
four centimeters. Some details of her original appearance are known.

(02:42):
For one thing, she originally wore metal jewelry, including a bracelet, earrings,
and headband. Since there are fixation holes remaining in the
appropriate locations on the statue, the marble that she's carved
from may have been embellished with painting, gilding, silvering, or
other coloration that's since faded or fallen away. And at
some point she did in fact have arms, but they

(03:03):
were never found. Stewart said, the right arm is broken away,
its hand originally grasped the top of her drapery. The
bust legs, left arm, foot base, and herm socketed into
the base, were carved separately and doweled on with iron
dowels set and lead, a common technique. A herm, by
the way, is a square pillar that's topped with a

(03:25):
carved statue of a god's head, often hermes, hence the name.
Stewart said that at the end of Antiquity, a time
period that signifies the transition from the Greco Roman period
to the Middle Ages, someone removed Venus's limbs in order
to take the metal dowels and recycle them. Quote. The
best bet, in my opinion, is that she held an

(03:46):
apple in her outstretched left hand, which would have rested
on the herm. Such an arm was found in a
nearby niche and is represented in a nineteenth century drawing
in the louver. The apple would be both her personal
accessory or attribute her toke and prize at the Judgment
of Paris, and a pun on the name of the island,
since the Greek for apple is Milan and apple's feature

(04:07):
prominently on Hellenistic million coins. The Judgment of Paris is
a Greek myth that's central to Venus de Milo's many
symbolic ties. It describes a contest between three goddesses Aphrodite, Hera,
and Athena for the prize of a golden apple addressed
to the fairest. Stewart wrote all about this in his
book Art in the Hellenistic World. An introduction quote from

(04:31):
that book dedicated to the gods of the Gymnasium in
which she was found. She would have symbolized the ties
of affection that united the Melians who exercised there. Moreover,
Greeks had long understood the judgment of Paris as symbolizing
a man's three principal life choices, war Athena of politics,
Hera or love Aphrodite. Stewart says that because they were

(04:55):
at the time largely engaged in Warren politics, that third category,
love of marriage and home life, were attractive or aspirational.
He said that Venus's multidimensional appeal quote would have created
the sense of an in group among the Gymnasians clientele,
satisfying at one stroke the demands of local piety and
this culture's overriding desire to connect. But this is just

(05:20):
one theory how stuff works. Also spoke with Elizabeth Wayland Barber,
Professor Emerita of Archaeology and Linguistics at Occidental College and
author of Women's Work the First twenty thousand years Women,
Cloth and society in early times, She thinks Venus's missing
arms were very much engaged in a different and meaningful

(05:41):
domestic activity. She said, while studying the origin and development
of textiles in the Eastern Hemisphere, I found copious evidence
that women were always doing most are all of the
textile related work. The Venus de Milo is an exactly
the position used at that time and place for spinning bread,
the part of the job that took the most time,
so women were spinning every moment they could find. Barbara

(06:05):
says that although the statue's arms are long gone, the
musculature sculpted in her shoulders and upper back suggests that
they were raised in just the position required for spinning,
and her eyes are focused on the exact spot one
would have to watch as they spun, she said. Also,
Aphrodite a k A. Venus was viewed by the Greeks
as the goddess of spinning as well as of procreation,

(06:28):
but the two are closely linked, both by the umbilical
cord attached to the new baby and by the fact
that in both spinning and baby making you start with
a formless blob and create something remarkable out of it,
seemingly by magic. Whatever the case, we can all agree
that the Venus de Milo is one of the most
enduringly fascinating, albeit puzzling products of the Hellenistic period. Today's

(06:56):
episode is based on the article Venus de Milo the
most famous arm a statue in the world on how
Stuffworks dot Com, written by Michell Konstantinovski. Brain Stuff is
production of by Heart Radio in partnership with how stuff
works dot Com, and it is produced by Tyler Klang.
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