Venus. To the Venus of Melos

by Auguste Rodin

The ancients have obtained by a minimum of gesture, by their modelling, both the individual character and the grace borrowed from grandeur that relates the human form to the forms of the universal life. The modelling of the human being has with them all the beauty of the curved lines of flowers. And the profiles are secure, ample like those of great mountains; it is architecture. Above all they are simple; they are calm like the serpents of Apollo.

Perhaps it is the terms of anatomy that have had the deplorable effect of imposing on the mind the prejudice toward the division of the shapes of the body. The great geometric and magnetic line of life hence remains as if broken in the regard of the passer-by. This theoretical analysis has altered among the uninitiated the sense of the truth.

The work of art protests against this false and factitious idea of division. Those concordant shapes that pass one into the other as undulate the knots of the reptile, and that suddenly penetrate, they are the body in its magnificent unity.

Left to themselves the ignorant see only the apparent details of things; the source of expression, the synthesis alone eloquent, escapes them. It is lamentable that anatomic description gives in some measure support to the plastic ignorance of the multitude, in calling attention, through its terms, to the different parts of which the architecture of the body is composed. Those pedantic words, biceps, triceps, brachial or crural, and so many others, those current words, arms, legs, plastically have no significance. In the synthesis of the work of art, the arms, the legs, count only when they meet in accordance with the planes that associate them in a same effect, and it is thus in nature, who cares not for our analytical descriptions. The great artists proceed as nature composes and not as anatomy decrees. They never sculpture any muscle, any nerve, any bone for itself; it is the whole at which they aim, and which they express; it is by large planes that their work vibrates in the light or enters into the shadow.

Thus from the point whence I am looking at the Venus of Melos, all of the three-quarter profile is streaming with light, while the opposite side bathes in the shadow. Toward the base of this profile one just distinguishes half-tones. Higher up, farther away, the head rises and reigns, modelled by light and shade, while the reposing lines, the sloping lines of the back play together their slow melodies. What condescendence the long gentle lines of that back express, and the flight of the loins into the half-tone! Sublime pride of marble! Tranquil life of the soul of the body! Nature is an uninterrupted harmony.

Consider the Venus from any profile you choose. That we were just admiring is of a beauty that invokes, that imposes the idea of the eternal. But change your position; here is another profile: it is equally marked with the seal of the imperishable. All of them incite admiration and tenderness. They are happy, at ease in the calm air.

That face has the variety and the liberty of a flower, and the artist, leaning attentively over it, rises as one vowed to religion: he has heard Venus speak.

I will walk round her.... Here is another profile that shows me the face. There is shadow in that mouth; a moment ago there was none; to drawing is added modelling, and the lines that hesitated have become decided. The edge of the lips is slightly rimmed, the edge of the nostrils also; these are the signs of youth. The mouth has in it the drawing of the school, but it is on the plane of a master. The error would be to seek the measurement of the lips. It is all in the plane of the head, of the cheek. That cheek, which appears to me lost in profile, that cheek is all of sculpture, as one virtue is every virtue.—O mouth so simple, so natural, so generous! It holds thousands of kisses! Impossible to escape its charm. Even the most ignorant visitor is touched by it. How clearly one sees that the woman has posed for the divinity!

The soul of shapes breathes in the profound life of this thrilling body. I see her magnificent armature of bones as I see her thoughts—all her grace hidden and present, how powerfully organized! In this form sweet as honey, where the eye surprises neither blacks nor violent lights, but where life flows without jerks or starts, clear as live water, one feels keenly the resistance of a resolute and powerful frame! Supported by these bases that will not weaken, sure of their solidity, the flesh bounds with joy as if it would escape the redoubled shadows deepening under the breasts, that they may rise from the torso, whence glowing light would seem to emanate.

And the high adorable face gives to every one gracious welcome of life.