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[Illustration: THE VENUS OF MILO]
THE VENUS OF MILO
AN ARCHEOLOGICAL STUDY OF
THE GODDESS OF WOMANHOOD
BY
PAUL CARUS
ILLUSTRATED
αἰδοίν χρυσοστέφανον καλὴν Άφροδἰτην ᾄσουαι--HOMERIC HYMN.
CHICAGO LONDON
THE OPEN COURT PUBLISHING COMPANY
1916
COPYRIGHT BY
THE OPEN COURT PUBLISHING COMPANY
1916
CONTENTS.
PAGE
List of Illustrations v
The Discovery of a Rare Art Treasure 1
Dumont d’Urville’s Report 5
Viscount Marcellus on his “Souvenirs” 11
Debay’s Drawing 15
Description of the Statue 22
Restorations 27
Recent Theories 42
What the Facts Reveal 51
The Meaning of “Aphrodite” 62
The Cult of Aphrodite 68
The Goddess of War 77
The Descent into Hades 83
The Magna Dea of the Nations 96
The Origin of Woman 121
Aphrodite in Art 145
Classical Hymns 171
Index 179
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
PAGE
The Venus of Milo (Frontispiece).
The Field of Yorgos Bottonis 2
The Site of Melos from the Port 6
Fragments Found at Melos 12
Debay’s Drawing of Venus 16
Head of the Venus of Milo 18
The Head of Tralles 19
The Venus of Milo 23
A Mutilated Statue of Eros 28
Venus with Shield and Pencil 29
Venus with Mirror 30
Venus as Victory 31
Drawing by Hasse and Henke 32
Restoration by Furtwaengler 33
Saloman’s Latest Restoration 34
Restoration by Saloman 35
Venus Sending out the Dove 36
The Mother of the Gods. Painting by Francisca P. Del Mar 38
Venus on the Swan 55
Head of Venus of Milo. Profile view 57
Head of Venus of Milo. Front view 59
Heavenly and Worldly Love. By Titian 66
Birth of Venus. Ludovisi relief 70
Detail from the Ludovisi Relief 72
Winter and Summer 73
Venus and Anchises 75
Venus Victrix 77
Eros in the Underworld 84
Carrying in Procession the Symbol of Istar 97
Isis and Horus 99
Egyptian Representation of the Dead Man and His Soul 99
Astarte and the Dove 100
The Human-Headed Bird 101
Amulet of the Mycenaean Period 102
Isis and the Fish 102
Aphrodite with Rabbit 103
Relief from Boghaz-Köi 104
A Later Astarte 105
A Leaden Idol 105
Astarte in Cyprus 106
The Goddess of Navigation 107
Sargent’s Astarte 108
The Immaculate Conception. By Murillo 109
Kwan-Yon and the Fish 111
A Poem on Kwan-Yon 112
Benten, The Japanese Goddess of Divine Love 113
Kwan-Yon. By Li Lung-mien 114
Kwan Yon as the Buddha 115
T’ien Hou, Queen of Heaven 116
Freya 119
Adam and Eve Called to Account 133
The Creation of Woman 136
Detail from Ghiberti’s Doors 137
The Creation of Woman. By Michelangelo 138
Adam and Eve in Paradise. By Gustave Doré 139
The First Family. By Schnorr von Carolsfeld 140
Primitive Man. By Gabriel Max 142
Babylonian Clay Figures 145
The Venus of Brassempouy 146
Lakshmi 147
Coins of Cilicia, Tarsus, Gaulos and Perga 148
Coins of Perga in Pamphylia 149
Three Artemis Medals 149
Coin of Antiochus Euergetes 150
Istar on a Coin of Tarsus 150
Coins of Emesa, Iasos Caria, Paphos and Lydia 151
The Diana of Ephesus in the Vatican 152
The Diana of Ephesus in Naples 153
Cyprian Aphrodite 154
Archaic Aphrodite with Dove 155
Archaic Venus in Pompeian Style 155
Aphrodite Sosandra by Kalamis 156
Aphrodite and Ares 157
Attic Sculpture of the Fifth Century B. C. 158
Aphrodite of Alcamenes, Known as Venus Genetrix 159
Head of the Cnidian Venus. Profile 160
The Cnidian Venus of Praxiteles 161
The Venus of Praxiteles on a Cnidian Coin 162
Head of the Crouching Venus 163
Venus Crouching in the Bath 164
Venus with the Unguent Jar 165
The Venus of Panderma. Front view 167
The Venus of Panderma. Rear view 168
The Venus Head in the Museum of Bardos 169
Head of the Cnidian Venus. Front view 172
Another View of the Cnidian Venus 175
THE DISCOVERY OF A RARE ART TREASURE.
Melos (Italian _Milo_), one of the smallest Greek islands, would
scarcely be known at all except to specialists in geography or ancient
history, had not a happy accident brought to light on one of its
hillsides that most beautiful piece of sculpture which ever since its
discovery has been known as the Venus of Milo.
_Melon_ means apple, and the island of Melos (the “apple island”)
belongs to the Cyclades, being the most southern and western member of
that group. It lies almost straight west from the southern tip of the
Peloponnesus and in a direction south to south-west from Athens.
Melos was inhabited in ancient times by Dorians who sympathized with
Sparta against Athens, but when the Athenians conquered it after a most
stubborn resistance they slaughtered the entire Dorian male population
and replaced them by Athenian colonists. Since then the island remained
absolutely faithful to Athens, in fact it was the last possession which
still belonged to Athens when the Ionian confederacy broke up, and the
friendly relations between Melos and her metropolis continued even after
Greece had become a Roman province.
[Illustration: THE FIELD OF YORGOS BOTTONIS.
Cross shows where the Venus was found. (From the _Century Magazine_,
1881, Vol. I, p. 99.)]
On this island of Melos, a peasant by the name of Yorgos Bottonis and
his son Antonio, while clearing away the stones near the ruins of an
ancient theater in the vicinity of Castro, the capital of the island,
came accidentally across a small underground cave, carefully covered
with a heavy slab and concealed, which contained a fine marble statue in
two pieces, together with several other marble fragments. This happened
in February, 1820.
The Rev. Oiconomos, the village priest who guided the finder in this
matter, invited M. Louis Brest, the French consul of Melos, to see the
statue and offered it to him (in March of the same year) for 20,000
francs. M. Brest does not seem to have been in a hurry to buy, but he
claims to have written to the French minister at Constantinople. One
thing is sure, no answer had come by April when His French Majesty’s
good ship “Chevrette” happened to cast anchor in the harbor at Melos and
an ensign on board, Monsieur Dumont d’Urville, went to see the statue.
The inability to sell it had brought the price down, and the finder was
willing to part with it to the young Frenchman for only 1200 francs. M.
d’Urville was more energetic than M. Brest and as soon as he reached
Constantinople the French Minister at once authorized a certain Count
Marcellus, a member of the French embassy, to go to Melos and procure
the statue.
Count Marcellus arrived on the French vessel “Estafette” in May, but
found that the statue in the meantime had been sold to a certain Nikolai
Morusi for 4800 francs and had just been placed aboard a little brig
bound for Constantinople, the home of the buyer. At this juncture the
three Frenchmen, M. Brest, M. d’Urville and Count Marcellus, decided not
to let their treasure so easily escape them, so M. Brest protested
before the Turkish authorities that the bargain had been concluded,
declaring that Bottonis had no right to sell his prize to any other
party. They even threatened to use force and, being backed by the French
mariners of the “Estafette,” said that under no conditions would they
allow the statue to leave the harbor.
While the three Frenchmen claimed that France was entitled to have the
statue for 1200 francs they were willing to pay not only 4800 francs,
the price promised by Morusi, but 6000 francs. The new buyer had not yet
paid and so the peasant was satisfied with the cash offered him, while
the Turkish authorities did not care either way. Thus it came to pass
that the valuable marble was transferred to the French warship on May
25, 1820, (so at least runs the original report without the fantastic
story of a battle) and after much cruising was carried to Constantinople
where it was placed on the “Lionne,” another French ship bound for
France and destined to bring home the French Minister, Marquis de
Rivière. The “Lionne” reached France in October, 1820, and the statue
was delivered at the Louvre in February, 1821.
DUMONT D’URVILLE’S REPORT.
The most important passage of Dumont d’Urville’s report[1] about the
discovery of the statue reads in an English translation thus:
“The Chevrette set sail from Toulon on April 3 (1820) in the morning,
and anchored on the sixteenth in the roadstead of Milo....
“On the 19th I went to look at some antique pieces discovered at Milo a
few days before our arrival. Since they seem to me worthy of attention I
shall here record the result of my observation in some detail....
“About three weeks before our arrival at Milo a Greek peasant digging in
his field ... came across some stones of considerable size. As these
stones ... had a certain value, this consideration encouraged him to dig
still further, and so he succeeded in clearing out a sort of recess in
which he found a marble statue together with two hermae and some other
pieces, likewise of marble.
[Illustration: THE SITE OF MELOS FROM THE PORT.
White cross shows where the Venus was found. (From the _Century
Magazine_, 1881, Vol. I, p. 99)]
“The statue was in two pieces joined in the middle by two small iron
tenons. Fearing he would lose the fruit of his toil, the Greek had the
upper part of the two hermae carried away and deposited in a stable. The
rest were left in the cave. I examined all very carefully, and the
various pieces seemed to me in good taste, as far as my slight
acquaintance with the arts permitted me to judge of them.
“I measured the two parts of the statue separately and found it very
nearly six feet in height; it represented a nude woman whose left hand
was raised and held an apple, and the right supported a garment draped
in easy folds and falling carelessly from her loins to her feet. Both
hands have been mutilated and are actually detached from the body. The
hair is coiled in the back and held up by a bandeau. The face is very
beautiful and well preserved except that the tip of the nose is injured.
The only remaining foot is bare; the ears have been pierced and may have
contained pendants.
“All these attributes would seem to agree well enough with the Venus of
the judgment of Paris; but in that case where would be Juno, Minerva and
the handsome shepherd? It is true that a foot clad in a cothurnus and a
third hand were found at the same time. On the other hand the name of
the Island Melos has a very close connection with the word μῆλον which
means apple. Might not this similarity of the words have indicated the
statue by its principal attribute?
“The two hermae were with it in the cave. Beyond this fact there is
nothing remarkable about them. Their height is about three feet and a
half. One is surmounted by the head of a woman or child and the other by
the face of an old man with a long beard.
“The entrance to the cave was surmounted by a piece of marble four feet
and a half long and about six or eight inches wide. It bore an
inscription of which only the first half has been respected by Time. The
rest is entirely effaced. This loss is inestimable; ... at least we
might have learned on what occasion and by whom the statues had been
dedicated.
“At any rate I have carefully copied the remaining characters of this
inscription and I can guarantee them all except the first, of which I am
not sure. The space which I indicate for the defaced part has been
measured in proportion to the letters which are still legible:
:ΑΚΧΕΟΣΑΤΙΟΥΥΠΟΓΥ...........ΑΣ
ΤΑΝΤΕΕΞΕΔΡΑΝΚΑΙΤΟ.............
ΕΡΜΑΙΗΡΑΚΛΕΙ
“The pedestal of one of the hermae also bore an inscription but its
characters had been so mutilated that it was impossible for me to
decipher them.
“At the time of our passage to Constantinople the ambassador asked me
about this statue and I told him what I thought about it, and sent to M.
de Marcellus, secretary of the embassy, a copy of the inscription just
given. Upon my return M. de Rivière informed me that he had acquired the
statue for the museum and that it had been put on board one of the
vessels at the landing. However, on our second trip to Milo in the month
of September I regretted to learn that the affair was not yet ended. It
seems that the peasant, tired of waiting, had decided to sell this
statue for the sum of 750 piasters to a neighboring priest who wished to
make a present to the dragoman of the Captain Pacha, and M. de Marcellus
came just at the moment when it was being shipped to Constantinople. In
despair at seeing this fine piece of antiquity about to escape him he
made every effort to recover it, and thanks to the mediation of the
primates of the island the priest finally consented, but not without
reluctance, to abandon his purchase and give up the statue....
“On April 25 in the morning we doubled the promontory indicated....”
I understand from M. Dumont d’Urville’s report that the statue was in
“two parts” each about three feet high, that both hands were mutilated
and detached from the body,” and that he had reason to believe that the
“left hand was raised and held an apple and the right supported a
garment.” I say “he had reason to believe” it, but he positively speaks
as if he had seen it although this cannot be the case, for he
contradicts this fact by the unequivocal statement that the hands “are
actually detached from the body.” He says, “it represented a nude
woman, etc.” and the word “represented” need not mean that it was
complete with all the limbs intact and in their proper places.
Obviously M. d’Urville here describes the statue restored with the
fragments which were found in the cave, were bought of the finder, the
peasant Bottonis, and are now preserved in a glass case in the Louvre at
Paris. One of these fragments is a hand holding an apple, and there is
also a portion of an arm.
This interpretation is important in so far as discussions have arisen in
later years as to the original position of the hands when attempts to
restore the statue were made, and then the claim was made that the
statue had been found complete, that it had been broken by the French
sailors in its transportation and that the French authorities had been
careless in handling the whole affair.
VISCOUNT MARCELLUS ON HIS “SOUVENIRS.”
It is important to know the facts with regard to the debris found
together with the so-called Venus of Milo, as stated by a second eye
witness, the Viscount Marcellus. He wrote his reminiscences on the Venus
of Milo in a book entitled _Souvenirs_, and the second edition of this
was reviewed by Lenormant. In answer to some objections of the latter
the Viscount published “a last word on the Venus of Milo.”[2]
In this he enumerates as follows the objects brought away from the cave
where the Venus had been found:
“No. 1. The nude upper part of the statue.
“No. 2. The lower draped portion.
“Yorgos, their original owner ... gave me at the same time three small
accessories of the statue found in a field near by.... These were:
“No. 3. The top of the hair commonly called the chignon, etc.
“No. 4. A shapeless and mutilated fore-arm.
“No. 5. Part of a hand holding an apple.
“The last two objects seemed to me to be of the same kind of marble and
of a grain near enough like that of the statue, but I could not tell
whether they could reasonably be assumed to belong to a Venus whose
attitude I no longer remembered....
[Illustration: FRAGMENTS FOUND AT MELOS.[3] Nos. 4 and 5 of Viscount
Marcellus’s list.]
“The primates at the same time sent me the three hermae (Nos. 6, 7 and
8) which were still at Castro, and a left foot in marble (No. 9) which
had been found in the neighborhood of the field of Yorgos lower down
toward the valley where the burial caves are.
“They wished also to give me the inscription found in the same locality
which I had already seen in their town. It is the one which commences
with the Greek words: ΑΓΧΕΟΣ ΑΤΙΟΥ....
“I here repeat that with this exception I took away from Milo everything
which had been taken from the ground with the Venus or near by, and I
have no remembrance of having seen there, much less of having received
or acquired myself, any other Greek inscription which made mention of a
sculptor with a mutilated name, etc. Of course I would be eager enough
with anything that might be able to throw light on the discovery, and
since in my _Souvenirs de l’Orient_ (I, p. 249) I cite an epigraph of
almost no significance I would not wittingly or negligently have omitted
any Greek letters near the excavation or relating to its details.
Neither should it be forgotten that in fact I indicate only ‘three
hermae, some pedestals and other bits of marble debris’ (I, p. 237) as
the result of Yorgos’s successive excavations; and further down (p. 48)
these same hermae and other antique fragments without ever speaking of
any inscription.”
The inscription more completely mentioned by Dumont d’Urville has also
been published by Clarac with only a few insignificant variations. He
adds the missing B at the beginning, reads I in place of E, and has two
Σ’s. It is a votive inscription which has no connection with our Venus.
Being of little value, the authorities of the Louvre did not take good
care of it and it is now lost. The probable meaning of the inscription
is “Bakchios, (son of) Atios the subgymnasiarch (has donated) the arcade
and the ... [he has erected according to a vow] to Hermes, Heracles,
...”
* * * * *
These reports of two eye-witnesses are important not so much for what
they contain as for what they do not contain. Neither M. Dumont
d’Urville nor Viscount Marcellus mentions the name of the artist of the
statue. An inscription is copied by both in which Bacchus, Hermes and
Heracles are mentioned, but no reference is made to the name of
Agesander or Alexander of Antioch as having been seen on a fragment of
the pedestal--an artist who makes his appearance in a mysterious way and
whose acquaintance we shall make in the next chapter. Moreover, since
other pieces of debris were found either in the cave or in a neighboring
field, there is no reason whatever that any one of them, let alone the
left hand holding an apple, should have been attached to our statue.
We shall have occasion to refer to these points again.
DEBAY’S DRAWING.
The famous French painter David happened to be in exile at the time of
the discovery of the Venus of Milo, and, taking an especial interest in
this wonderful piece of ancient art, he induced one of his disciples, a
certain Debay, to have his son Auguste Debay, a young art student, make
a drawing of the statue as soon as it was put up in the Louvre. This
drawing was afterwards published by M. de Clarac in his “Notice” and we
here republish it on account of the importance it has gained as a
document in the history of the statue.
Debay’s drawing shows a plinth bearing an inscription and also
exhibiting a square hole in the ground near the left foot of the statue.
The angle of vision is indicated by the line “_xx_” which shows the
height from which the statue was viewed by M. Debay. The point _a_
corresponds to the place of the eye projected horizontally at a distance
in front which cannot have been more than one and one-half times the
height of the statue. Geometrically this place is determined by the
intersection of two lines
[Illustration: DEBAY’S DRAWING OF VENUS.]
from _a_ and _b_ constructed in a horizontal plane at right angles to
the vertical axis of the statue.
The inscription on the pedestal of M. Debay’s drawing reads:
...--ΑΝΔΡΟΣ ΗΝΙΔΟΥ
... ΙΟΧΕΥΣΑΠΟΜΑΙΑΝΔΡΟΥ
ΕΠΟΙΗΣΕΝ
“ ... andros son of Menides of [Ant]iochia on the Maiandros.”
Since of the last missing letter before the Α the lowest stroke of a
Greek Ξ or of an Σ is discernible in the drawing, the name must have
read “Alexandros” or “Agesandros.” This man cannot have lived before the
third century B. C. because his native city Antioch on the Maeander was
founded by Antiochus I, the second of the Diadochs (280-261 B. C.)
According to Professor Kirchhoff’s view the character of the letters
belongs to the first century and may in his opinion be dated back at
most to the middle of the second century B. C.
We have no information whatever why the plinth was joined to the statue.
All we know about it is that it appears on the Debay drawing and is lost
now, but it continues to be a mystery to archeologists.
Some consider it as genuine and denounce the authorities of the Louvre
for their extraordinary carelessness in having allowed so important a
document to be lost, and others see no reason why this
[Illustration: HEAD OF THE VENUS OF MILO.]
[Illustration: THE HEAD OF TRALLES.]
piece of marble which possessed no significance whatever should be so
highly treasured.
If the piece of the pedestal with the inscription belonged to the
statue, for which assumption, as we have seen, there is no reason
whatever, the statue would be of a comparatively late date, but we
really do not know what the plinth bearing the name “ ... andros” has to
do with the statue.
Archeologists have discovered other heads showing a remarkable
similarity in their features to the Venus of Milo. Among them is a head
discovered in Tralles, Asia Minor, which shows almost the same face as
the Venus of Milo. So close is the resemblance that both seem to have
been made after the same model. It may be that one has been copied from
the other or both chiseled from a common prototype. We here reproduce
the heads of both, after half-tone pictures published by Saloman.[4]
Overbeck believes that the Venus of Milo is not an original. He says:
“It seems permissible to doubt the originality of this composition, and
to refer it back to an older original which we can no longer determine,
as the common prototype of the statue of Milo and of other similar
statues. For this reason there would be no objection to assigning the
origin of our statue to the period of imitation. Although I deem the
dependence of the statue upon an older original assured, I am
disinclined to deny a certain degree of originality, but in those very
features which I deem to be original are the very marks of a late
revision.”
Conze[5] compares our Venus of Milo with the style of the Pergamene
sculptures, and in his essay on the results of the excavation at
Pergamum, page 71, he calls attention to the fact that the warm tone of
the skin and the sketchy method of the treatment of the hair seem
characteristic of a later period, pointing out the similarity of a piece
of Pergamene sculpture with the head of the Venus of Milo.
Shall we assume that this head of Tralles is older than the Venus of
Milo and that we must look upon the art of Pergamum as the school in
which our artist, Agesander or Alexander or whoever he may have been,
drew his inspiration? We have no positive proof on either side but
internal evidence speaks in favor of regarding the Venus of Milo as
original, and we cannot place any confidence in the genuineness of the
plinth in the Debay drawing, so may regard the statue as the work of a
classical, though unknown, Athenian artist, or at least one who worked
for Athens and her temples.
A DESCRIPTION OF THE STATUE.
We have before us in the statue of the Venus of Milo one of the greatest
masterpieces of ancient Hellas, and it is of secondary importance
whether or not it was the artist’s intention to represent the goddess of
love and beauty. Surely this work of art represents womanhood at its
best--a noble feminine figure in full maturity, not a maiden but fully
developed, a wife or mother; and yet not as a mother with a child, nor
as a wife with her husband, but simply as a woman.
There is nothing frivolous about her, no coquetry, nothing amorous. Her
eyes betray not the slightest touch of a sensual emotion, not that
sentimental moistness, τὸ ὑγρόν as the Greeks called it, and thereby the
artist succeeded in transfiguring naked beauty by a self-possessed
chastity unrivaled in the art of statuary.
The consensus of art admirers, which is almost, though not quite,
universal, sees in this marble the great mother-goddess, _das ewig
Weibliche_, idealized femininity, the goddess of beauty and love, whom
the Greeks called Aphrodite and the Romans Venus.
[Illustration: THE VENUS OF MILO.]
The goddess (if we may so call her) stands before us erect in queenly
dignity. Her dress is falling down leaving the upper body entirely
uncovered, and yet in spite of the nudity of the figure we are struck
with its unparalleled purity and nobility of expression.
The statue has suffered many injuries. Both arms have been broken off
and are now lost, and so is the left foot. The tip of the nose has been
restored, and there are scratches and cudgel marks all over the body
which could not be mended without destroying the original work in the
general treatment of the skin. The ears are pierced, so there must
originally have been earrings which robbers had torn away before the
statue was secreted in the cave.
A line in the hair of the statue shows holes which prove plainly that on
top of the head there must have been a coronet like that commonly worn
by Greek goddesses and called by the Greeks σφενδόνη, “sling,” because
with the strings attached it resembles a sling. It was worn especially
by the Queen of Heaven, Hera (the Juno of the Roman pantheon).
Since the arms have been broken off and lost, the artist’s conception
with regard to the posture can only be surmised. The face is calm and
without passion. It wears a commanding expression, apparently with a
suggestion of surprise, even of self-defence.
Judging from the muscles of the left shoulder the left arm must have
been raised. Sometimes it has been claimed that the broken hand with the
apple, which with other debris was found in the neighborhood, belonged
to the statue; and that the apple being the emblem of Venus and at the
same time that of the island of Milo as well, the statue represented the
patron goddess of the island, but this is very doubtful. Archeologists
are not in full accord upon this point for the mere reason that the
fragment of the hand with the apple is of rough workmanship and is
commonly judged as not worthy of the statue; at best it might be
regarded as the work of an ancient restoration. All critics, however,
are pretty well agreed that the right hand must have grasped for the
falling garment, preliminarily held up by the raised knee.
The Venus of Milo is at present the pride of the Louvre at Paris, and
the place where she stands on account of her presence alone may be
likened to an ancient pagan shrine, comparable to the room in the
Dresden gallery where the Sistine Madonna stands, the latter being a
Christian counterpart of the former.
Our Blessed Lady of Milo, as we may call this beautiful representative
of Greek paganism in imitation of Veit Valentin’s name _Die hohe Frau
von Milo_, has always a group of admiring visitors sitting quietly
before her, and there is often a hush in the room which recalls the
sanctity of religious chapels attended by quiet worshipers. There is a
sacred atmosphere surrounding the statue and even the hurried
globe-trotter feels that he has come into the presence of some divinity
that exerts her influence upon the world not by might, but by beauty,
grace and loveliness.
RESTORATIONS.
Many attempts have been made to restore the statue of the Venus of Milo,
and we here reproduce a number of them, but none of them have proved
successful. It almost seems, as the German poet Heinrich Heine somewhere
says, that the Venus of Milo in her helpless condition with her arms
broken off appeals more to our sympathy than in her original condition
of glory when she received the homage of faithful worshipers, and it is
true the very mutilated form is extremely attractive in its present
dilapidated state. Broken by fanatics of a hostile faith, she represents
in dignity and beauty the natural charm of Greek religion at its best.
The hordes of bigoted monks vented their hatred with especial wrath
against the goddess of love and also against her son, Eros, as may be
seen from a figure of this god represented in his daintiest
youthfulness. Here too the marks of the clubs of a furious mob are
visible, betraying the same spirit as in the treatment of the Venus of
Milo. It is the fanaticism of ascetic frenzy in the bitterness
[Illustration: A MUTILATED STATUE OF EROS.]
of its wrath against nature in general and love in particular that
showed itself in these iconoclastic demonstrations.
[Illustration: VENUS WITH SHIELD AND PENCIL.]
We regret now the destruction of the Greek idols as a barbaric warfare
waged upon art. We have begun to sympathize with the vanquished gods,
and archeologists are trying to restore what early Christianity
ruthlessly destroyed or mutilated.
[Illustration: VENUS WITH MIRROR.]
Those restorers of the Venus of Milo who reject the genuineness of the
right hand holding an apple enjoy the greatest liberty in their work of
reconstruction, and we find some of them representing our Venus as
holding a shield on her knee and writing upon it. Others assume that her
right hand holds a mirror, while still others who claim that there is no
necessity of interpreting the statue to be a Venus, believe her to be a
Victory or Niké, and put wreaths in her hands.
[Illustration: VENUS AS VICTORY.
Probably by T. Bell.]
[Illustration: DRAWING BY HASSE AND HENKE.]
Hasse and Henke have treated the problem of restoration from the
standpoint of anatomy, and plausibly claim that the left hand should be
raised higher than other restorers have proposed.
[Illustration: RESTORATION BY FURTWAENGLER.]
The restoration of Furtwängler, according to which the goddess rests her
left arm on a column and holds an apple in her hand, has for a long
time
[Illustration: SALOMAN’S LATEST RESTORATION.]
been considered the most probable, and yet even this can scarcely be
regarded as satisfactory.
[Illustration: RESTORATION BY SALOMAN.]
Mr. Geskel Saloman, a Swedish archeologist, also places a column at her
left side and uses it for her elbow to rest on. In consideration of some
ancient descriptions of a dramatic ceremony performed
[Illustration: VENUS SENDING OUT THE DOVE.
Vase picture after Creuzer, _Deutsche Schriften_, 1846, I, II, p. 238.
Reproduced from the Erbach Collection.]
at Corinth he places a dove on her right hand. The idea is that having
received the apple as the prize of beauty she sends out the dove to her
worshipers to announce her triumph and inform them that they may
celebrate the victory.
Veit Valentin attempts to construct his restoration out of the data
furnished by the marble itself and seems to come nearest to the truth.
He assumes that the goddess, when in the act of undressing for a bath,
finds herself surprised by an intruder. There is no fear or alarm in her
attitude, but she raises her hand in protest with a self-poised
assurance and grasps with her right hand the falling garment which she
attempts to support by a hurried motion of her left knee. We regret that
we have not seen either a picture or a statue of this restoration, but
we are deeply impressed that this idea is most probably correct.
The latest restoration comes from Francisca Paloma Del Mar (Frank
Paloma) who places a child on the left arm of the goddess, and this
conception is defended in a special pamphlet by Alexander Del Mar.[6]
Mr. Del Mar brings out the idea that the reverence in which the great
mother goddess was held among the pagans was not substantially different
in piety from Christian Madonna worship, and this view is brought out in
the painting by the artist
[Illustration: THE MOTHER OF THE GODS.
From a painting by Francisca P. Del Mar.]
Frank Paloma here reproduced. Mr. Del Mar thinks that the pagan goddess
served the inhabitants of Melos as a Christian Virgin. He says:
“What more natural than for the pious islanders of Melos, terrified by
the harsh edicts of Theodosius, to simply burn the pedestal and
inscription belonging to their pagan goddess, and continue to worship
under another name the same embodiment of that holy sentiment of love
and maternity which they had hitherto been accustomed to adore.”
Mr. Del Mar relies on the testimony of Count Marcellus who finally
concluded the bargain in the name of the French government and quotes
him as saying in his _Souvenirs de l’Orient_, I, 255: “It can be
demonstrated that the statue represented the Panagia or Holy Virgin of
the little Greek chapel whose ruins I saw at Milo.”
It seems to us that the statue cannot have carried a child on her left
arm because the marble would show more trace of pressure where the
mother must have touched the babe, even when we make allowance for a
polishing in the restored portions; and we would suggest further that
the arm carrying the child would be held farther down. When a mother
carries a child, her upper and lower arms are naturally at right angles
and the position of having them at a very acute angle at the elbow
appears quite artificial.
The haloes placed upon the heads of mother and child and the apple of
empire in the infant’s hand are attributes belonging to the Christian
era and so constitute other objections to Mr. Del Mar’s restoration. The
halo is of late pagan origin, and in the form of rays it was first used
to characterize gods of light, as for instance Helios and Selene. The
round form of the nimbus is later still and seems to have arisen with
the development of the art of painting. The apple of empire was not used
in the days of antiquity but appears frequently in Constantinople and in
early Christian symbolism.
Without entering into details we leave it to the taste of the reader
whether he would select any of these restorations as a possible solution
of the problem: we prefer to admire the statue as it appears now; for
after all the broken figure still remains dearer to us in its wonderful
and appealing beauty than any of the restorations. We ourselves believe
that modern man will come to the conclusion that in this image in its
present shape we have a noble martyr of ancient paganism. Even the
original statue itself in all its perfection, if it could be restored to
us as it came fresh from the artist’s workshop, could not replace the
torso as we know it now.
This is the reason why we do not take a great interest in the various
restorations of the Venus of Milo, and therefore are not inclined to
undertake a close study of them or to enter into an elaborate
recapitulation of these otherwise quite laudable attempts. We can only
say that none of the restorations here discussed seems to solve the
problem. Nevertheless we do not believe the problem to be beyond the
possibility of solution, and we will state briefly what in our opinion
the facts suggest.
We believe that among all the propositions made by restorers the
simplest one, that of Veit Valentin, alone deserves our interest.
If we consider the dominating motive of the statue we must grant that it
neither belongs to the very earliest times in which Venus was fully
dressed, nor to the latest in which nudity, intensified in its
suggestiveness by prudery, had nearly become the most characteristic
feature of the deity of love. It takes its place in the midst of Greek
art development when the first attempt was made to show the human form,
and this is done in such a way as not to go to the extreme of a complete
denudation but only suggests it and, as it were, with a protest on the
part of the goddess. For the attitude of the statue plainly indicates
that the goddess endeavors to retard the falling garment so as to give
the right arm a moment’s time to grasp it and to hold it up. It is more
than merely probable that the left arm was raised toward an unexpected
intruder in warning not to approach. There is no fear in the expression
of the face, no fright, no anticipation of danger. The whole attitude
makes us suspect that the missing left hand was raised with a forbidding
gesture, expressing the command, _Ne prorsum! Ne plus ultra! Noli me
tangere!_
RECENT THEORIES.
The statue discovered on the island of Milo acquired a fame beyond the
greatest expectations, and the intense interest taken in it frequently
gave rise to bitter discussions about its history and the causes of its
mutilation. Thus it happened that the authorities of the Louvre, or even
the French government itself, were held responsible for the sad state of
desolation in which it now appears.
Accusations were made that this venerable piece of classic art had been
treated with inexcusable neglect, that important inscriptions belonging
to it had been lost, and the claim was even made that the statue was
whole at the time it was found. The dissatisfied parties interpreted M.
Dumont d’Urville’s report in the sense that he had seen the statue
whole, quoting from his description: “It represented a nude woman whose
left hand was raised and held an apple and the right supported a garment
draped in easy folds and falling carelessly from her loins to her feet.”
This in their opinion meant that M. d’Urville had seen the statue
complete in this posture when he bought it. The sentence which runs,
“Both hands have been mutilated and are actually detached from the
body,” according to this contention is to be interpreted that this must
have happened before the French party delivered the statue to the
Louvre, probably at the time when the French marines forced its transfer
from the Turkish brig to the French warship “Estafette.”
The points raised in this discussion overlook some significant facts
which if duly considered dispose of the claim that the statue was whole
and unmutilated when discovered and sold to M. Dumont d’Urville.
Viscount Marcellus enumerates the objects discovered in the cave and
mentions fragments of the statue found in the field nearby. Could he, an
eye witness, have believed that it was whole and unmutilated when he
assumes that a number of separate fragments belonged to it?
It is not impossible that the quarrel between the French marines and the
Turks was a regular fight; that they came to blows, but scarcely to
shots. If there had been any fatalities we would have heard of it in the
first report of the acquisition of the statue; but no serious wounds in
the struggle are mentioned even in the later report, although in it we
learn of a fight on the beach about the possession of the statue, and
this later became humorously exaggerated into a battle involving drawn
cutlases and a bleeding ear.
The discussion was renewed in 1912 by M. Alcard who laid much emphasis
upon the testimony of Lieutenant Matterer, a comrade of M. Dumont
d’Urville. He is claimed to have felt such disgust about the endless
disputes on the original form of the Venus of Milo that he wished to put
an end to them. He says: “When I saw the statue in the hut of Yorgos
Bottonis on whose field it was found, the left arm was attached to the
bust and held an apple over her head.”
This positive statement stands in plain contradiction to the older
records and it seems that the imagination of the valiant naval officer
played his memory a trick after the lapse of nearly half a century.
Perhaps it is impossible to evolve the exact truth definitely, but it
seems to me that we must not estimate these later testimonies too
highly, for it would be more difficult then to explain the actual
condition of the statue and its agreement with the older descriptions,
than now to account for these later depositions of a few excitable and
imaginative men who feel that they have something of great importance to
declare. Moreover, the most important witness, Lieutenant Matterer, is
characterized in these accounts as “an officer of great merit but no
literary cultivation,” which does not seem to make his opinion
especially reliable.
The _Sunday Record-Herald_ of Chicago (Nov. 24, 1912) contains a summary
of this later phase of the discussion as to the condition of the Venus
of Milo from which we quote a few passages that in spite of the
sensational character of the account may be of interest. The American
reporter, relying on his French sources, says:
“The great Thiers began his start in journalism by a study of this Venus
and the riddle of her arms. So when he became president of the French
republic he ordered the ambassador to Greece, Jules Ferry, to make a
trip to Melos and pick up local tradition. Ferry did better. He found
the son and nephew still alive, Antonio and Yorgos Jr. ‘They have grown
to be beautiful old men--white-bearded, ruddy, robust and bright-eyed,’
reported Ferry. ‘Examined separately before the French vice-consul at
Castro they declared steadily, with minute details and explanatory
gestures and poses, that Venus, when they found her, was standing
upright on her pedestal, her right arm sustaining her draperies and her
left arm raised and extended, its hand holding an apple.’”
I assume that the old Greek peasants spoke Greek, and so M. Ferry
probably understood their meaning mainly from their “explanatory
gestures and poses” which might as well have expressed their idea of the
original attitude of the statue as the way in which they actually saw
it.
“The popular story of the countryside also,” continued Ferry’s report,
“is a tale of battle. At fifty years’ distance the recollection remains
and tradition is not yet born. The discovery of the Venus Victrix, the
dispute of which she was the object, the fight on the beach, the victory
of the French and her final abduction violently impressed the
islanders--and the impression remains.”
“The battle of the beach” is described in sensational terms. The French
war-schooner “Estafette” had reached Melos in May 1820, when her
commander Robert saw the Greek brig “Galaxidion” (flying the Turkish
flag) anchored nearby, and to the consternation of himself and
Marcellus, the secretary of the French embassy at Constantinople, there
appeared on shore at the foot of the hill a crowd of Greek and Turkish
sailors laboriously transporting the upper half of the statue toward
that same Turkish brig. The account continues:
“The Greeks and Turks advanced slowly, changing shifts and reposing.
Marcellus and Robert looked in each other’s eyes. ‘There’s just time,’
said Robert. They armed a long-boat full of marines, Marcellus and
Robert with them in command, and reached the shore just as men from a
Turkish long-boat came running to protect their brethren. From the hill
of Castro M. Brest, the French vice-consul, was making good time to the
_mêlée_. Cutlasses and clubs opened the dance.
“The Turks dropped the marble idol. Around Venus it was slash and parry,
kick, bite, jab, gouge and roll. A cutlass takes off a Turkish ear.
Enough carnage! When you fly the Turkish flag you don’t soak the sands
with your life-blood for a graven image made against the law of the
Prophet. The Turks pull for the brig. The French have copped the
peerless one, Venus Victrix, impassive, stares past them at the
white-capped sea, where she was born. Is there a faint smile of
satisfaction on the lovely lips?
“The stretcher had been injured. All were excited. Hurry, the Turks may
return in force! That stretcher is no good. Put rollers under the flat
of the block. Pull on the ropes! _Attention!_ The bust is slipping!
_Malheur_, she’s on her back? _Tant pis!_! Now, my children, yet another
effort! Good old long-boat! Embark! It was hot work, but she’s ours.
Best say as little as possible about it. Monsieur le Vice-Consul, you
will please to arrange the settlement of this annoying episode
diplomatically!
“Negotiations lasted two days. Finally the Turkish brig ceded to the
French the lower part of the statue; but when the ‘Estafette’ sailed for
Piraeus. Venus bore irreparable wounds.
“So they say. Such is said to be the secret--or part of it. Among
fragments of marble gathered up after the battle of the beach were
debris of her arms--in particular of the beautiful left arm which MM.
d’Urville and Matterer had seen entire on her shoulder, lifting the
triumphal apple!”
The report of M. Ferry makes the trip from Paris to Melos worth while
and may have pleased the learned president of the republic, M. Thiers.
The American reporter’s account throws light on the theory suggested by
the results of M. Ferry’s trip:
“Venus Victrix was received in Paris by the Count de Clarac, curator of
the Louvre, then Royal Museum. Did he know of the fight? Perhaps. Was it
to forestall a possible hint that a French war-ship could attack and
plunder the war-ship of a friendly power in profound peace, or to
prevent a dream of the impossible possibility that the marvelous statue
could have been mutilated in any French hands, by accident or otherwise,
that he assumes Venus to have been dug up [in its present condition]?”
The official report of Count de Clarac when the statue was received at
the Louvre runs as follows:
“Bust and front have scarcely suffered from the ravages of time. They
keep the velvety skin of a master of the great Greek period, who, after
polishing, once more skimmed the chisel over the perfect work. But here
and there are slight lesions, due, probably, to careless pickstrokes in
digging her up. The shoulders have been much damaged, traces of cords
indicate that she was dragged along the shore toward the Turkish brig,
and in that fatal passage the shoulders and haunches were scraped and
worn, several finger breadths being taken off the former.”
The fertile imagination of the account changes the Greek brig
“Galaxidion” into a Turkish man-of-war so as to impress the reader that
there is a diplomatic secret to be hidden which might involve the
French authorities into a war with Turkey. The cause, being about the
goddess of love, would be quite romantic but a war is serious enough to
make the authorities wish to avoid it and prefer to cast a shadow of
mystery over the whole affair.
We shall see later that the mutilations of the statue need not have
originated from careless handling on the part of the French marines when
they took possession of the statue.
Here is another passage which describes the nature of the injuries of
the Venus statue without, however, being proof of the battle of the
beach:
“The shoulder has been broken, not merely scraped and worn, by dragging.
And the author of another report, M. Lange, chief restorer of the Royal
Museum in 1820, specialist of vast experience and a workman to boot,
notes certain exfoliations or scrapings of the left arm fragments
‘running straight up on to the shoulder of the statue, and found also on
the back of the hand fragment, which show that these different parts
formed one with the shoulder; and these straight scratches could only
have been made, all following the same direction, when the left arm was
entire!’”
This quotation is made to prove that the arm was still connected with
the statue before it was scraped along the ground, but may not this
scraping have taken place before it was hidden in the cave?
The Louvre’s acquisition of the Venus of Milo proved in some respects a
misfortune to the Count de Clarac. Charles Lenormant, the archeologist,
in a contribution to the _Correspondant_ in 1854 mercilessly attacked
the director of the Louvre and his staff, saying (as reported in the
_Record-Herald_):
“I have always believed that from the beginning to better accredit a
production which is its own best proofs, they designedly caused to
disappear accessories which might derange the idea that they had just
conquered a _chef-d’oeuvre_ of the grand epoch of Greek art. Thus,
besides the arms, they suppressed the debris of an inscription.”
Can we entertain the suspicion that the authorities of the Louvre
purposely destroyed the inscription assumed to have been found with the
debris of the Venus of Milo and that they suppressed facts or the
knowledge of facts which might bear testimony against their cherished
theories as to the provenience of their favorite piece of art? Scarcely!
The inscription, as we have seen, was doubtless lost because nobody
cared for it, for there was no evidence that it belonged to the statue.
WHAT THE FACTS REVEAL.
Of all the statues of classical antiquity the Venus of Milo is the
greatest favorite, not only with the public at large but with art
critics as well, and it is strange that the statue has acquired this
popularity, for it is by no means perfect in conception nor has it been
made by any one of the famous artists. The sculptor is either not known
at all or, if the pedestal bearing the name of Agesandros or Alexandros
actually belonged to the statue, he was a man unknown to fame, and it
seems difficult to point out the reasons which give to this most badly
wrecked piece of marble its peculiar charm.