Repose being the first compulsory quality in the representation of Aphrodite, it is not surprising to find that the greatest picture of the goddess extant—the masterpiece of Giorgione—shows her asleep.[h] She rests on a verdure couch in a landscape of which the signs indicate a soft and tranquil atmosphere, with no suggestion to disturb the repose or remove the illusion of life so strongly marked by the skilful drawing. Only the calm sleeping beauty is there without appearance of fatigue or recovery from it: no expression save of perfect dreamless unconsciousness. The work is the nearest approach to a classical ideal that exists in Venetian painting. Titian in his various pictures of Venus reposing never reached the excellence of his master. In all, he painted the goddess in a resting position, sometimes radiant and brilliant, and invariably with a contented expression which precludes sensual suggestions: still there is ever a distinctly earthy tone about the figures. His Venuses in fact are pure portraits. He did not seek to represent profound repose. His most important example is at the Uffizi Gallery,[] the design of which was taken from Giorgione's work. The goddess is a figure of glowing beauty, but the pose indicates consciousness of this fact and calls the model to mind. Perhaps the surroundings tend to accentuate the drawback, for in this, as in most of his other pictures of Venus, the artist has introduced Venetian accessories of the period. Palma Vecchio also took Giorgione's work as a guide for his reposing Venus, but he represents her fully awake with Cupid present.[j] An exceptional work of the subject was designed by Michelangelo, and painted by Pontormo[k] and others. It represents the goddess reclining with Cupid at her head; but the form is entirely opposed to all our conceptions of Venus, for she is seen as a broad massive woman with a short neck, and a strongly formed head—a fit companion for some of the figures in the Sistine Chapel. Proud dignity and a certain majesty are suggested in the expression, but the figure is without the grace and charm usually associated with the goddess. The only other early Italian reposing Venus of interest is Botticelli's, where he shows her in deep thought with two cupids by her side.[l]
In the seventeenth century Venus was rarely represented reposing. Nicholas Poussin has a fine picture on the subject, but unfortunately for the repose a couple of cupids are in action beside the sleeping goddess, while the heads of two satyrs are dimly seen.[m] In the Sleeping Venus of Le Sueur, which was much praised in former times, Cupid is present with a finger to his mouth to indicate silence, but Vulcan is seen in an adjoining room wielding a heavy hammer, the suggestion of repose being thus destroyed. No reposing Venus of importance has since been produced, though a few French artists have treated the subject in a light vein, notably Boucher in his Sleeping Venus, and Fragonard in a delicate composition of Venus awakened by Aurora.
Venus cannot be represented as conscious of her beauty, or the design would immediately suggest vanity. Consequently when shown looking into a mirror, she should be engaged at her toilet, or at least the reflection should be accidental. Titian painted the first great picture of the goddess at her toilet, but this is just completed and her hands are at rest.[n] The attitude would be extravagant were it not that any suggestion of satisfaction is overcome by the artist making Cupid hold the mirror, and giving Venus an expression of unconcern as she glances at her reflection. The work suggested to Rubens a similar design, but he shows the goddess dressing her hair, this being apparently the only definite action which may be properly introduced into such a composition.[o] Albani has a delightful picture in which Cupid compels Venus to hold a mirror,[p] and some later artists have represented her adorning her tresses with the aid of a water reflection. The only notable faux pas in a painting of this subject is in the Venus and Cupid assigned to Velasquez, in which Venus lies on her side and looks into a mirror held by Cupid at her feet.[q] There is no suggestion of toilet or accident, and hence the attitude is quite inapplicable to a goddess.
It should be remembered that the province of Aphrodite is to infuse the gentle warmth of love into the human race, and not to attract love to herself. The rays are presumed to proceed from her only, for a mortal having no divine powers would be incapable of reflecting them. Zeus was required to bring about the adventure with Anchises. Hence a voluptuous form should never be given to the goddess, and if an artist err at all in the matter, it should be on the side of restraint lest the art be affected by a suggestion of the sensuous. The surest means of preventing this is to represent the goddess in an attitude of repose, with perfect contentment as a feature in expression. If any action be indicated, it must be light and purely accidental in its nature. To introduce an action involving an apprehension of human failings tends to bring the goddess down to the human level, and thus to destroy the ideal. The Venus de' Medici is a superb sculpture of a woman, but an inferior representation of Venus, for modesty is a human attribute arising from purely artificial circumstances of life, its meaning varying with race conditions and customs. To depict a goddess in an action suggestive of modesty or other antidote to the coarser effects of natural instincts, is therefore an anomaly.
HERA
There is no fixed type in art of the ox-eyed sister and spouse of Zeus, the Queen of Olympus, whose breast heaves ever high, and flaming, with the rushing fire of jealousy; the Virgilian incarnation of bitter rage; yet withal the symbol of eternal Earth, yearly renewing her fruitful youth with the burning kiss of the sun. The sculptors of Greece saw in her only the supreme Matron-Spouse, serenely pondering the march of time beneath the awful sway of her lord. A mantle she wore, and a high-throated tunic, as she looked into space from a square-wrought throne; or she stood in her temple with flowing robe and diadem, inscrutable, before the offerings of an adoring multitude. But nevertheless she was not insensible to the radiance of Aphrodite. Polyclitus did well to place a cuckoo on her sceptre, and who can forget how the lotus and the hyacinth cushioned the ground on the heights of Ida beneath a golden cloud, which held suspended around the glittering couch a screen of sparkling dew?
It is unfortunate that the painter is at a loss to deal with the majestic scenes in great Juno's story. How is he to depict her flying in the celestial chariot between heaven and earth, each leap of the fiery coursers measuring the range of the eye from a lofty peak across the sea to the endless haze? How can he paint her anointed with ambrosial oil which is ever struggling for freedom to bathe the rolling earth in fragrance? He may add a hundred tassels to her girdle; perhaps give her the triple grace-showering eardrops, and even the dazzling sun-bright veil; but the girdle of Aphrodite, which peeps from her bosom, will fail to turn the brains of men, or pierce their hearts with rays of soft desire. And the more dreadful side of Hera's history would equally trouble the despairing artist, for dire anger and jealousy ill-become the countenance of a goddess. The smouldering fire must never leap into flame. Eyes may not flash, not the lips quiver, and the noble brow must be free from fitful thought.
So with Hera there is no middle course for the painter. He must represent her alone, calm and passionless, unfathomable, with a sublime disregard of earth; or else join with his predecessors and drag her down to a mundane level in scenes of trivial fable. But there is room for untold Heras of the higher type.
DEMETER
Matron-Guardian of the yielding soil; heart-stricken wanderer over the earth; mysterious silent Food-Mother whom all men love and the gods revere; eternal life-preserver; fruitful, but passionless save where the vision of Pluto looms, Iasus and Poseidon notwithstanding! Such was the Demeter of the ancient Greeks till the hordes of Alexander mingled her fame with the lustre from Isis and De. So the mourning haute dame of Olympus came nearer the seat of her care, nearer the dread home of her daughter: passed from Homer to Theocritus; from the adoration of the higher priesthood of Greece, to become merged in the Ceres of Rome, the goddess beloved of the lowly, who received the first fruits of the field amidst joyful measures of dance and song. But it is the haute dame that strikes our imagination—the staid and mystic Demeter of Eleusis, and not the Ceres of the Roman lyric. The light-hearted Ceres, as a beautiful woman in the prime of life, may be adorned with poppies and wheat-ears, may stand serene and smiling as a symbol of harvest or the goddess of a Latin temple; but paint her as one will, she will do little more than serve to show how fallen are the idols—how immeasurable is the descent from the stately Earth-Mother whose image would be stamped on the brain of a Phidias.