The mythology of Greece and Rome, with special reference to its use in art

by Otto Seemann

Fig. 17.—Venus of Milo. Louvre.

Aphrodite, or Venus, is notoriously an especially common subject of representation among the artists of antiquity. The task of giving expression to the most perfect female beauty, arrayed in all the charms of love, by means of chisel or brush, continually spurs the artist to fresh endeavours. It was especially among the masters of the later Attic school, who devoted themselves to the representation of the youthful and beautiful among the gods in whom the nude appeared least offensive, that statues of Venus were attempted. The Venus of Cnidus, by Praxiteles, was the most important work of that master; and the people of Cnidus were so proud of it that they engraved her image on their coins. The fact that they ventured to portray the goddess as entirely nude may be regarded as a sign both of the falling away of the popular faith and of the decay of art. Henceforth, except in the case of statues for the temples, it became an established custom to represent Venus and other kindred deities as nude. Venus is further distinguished by a fulness of form, which is, nevertheless, combined with slenderness and grace. The countenance is oval; the eyes are not large, and have a languishing expression; the mouth is small, and the cheeks and chin full and round.

Of the numerous existing statues we can here mention only the most important. First among them in artistic worth is a marble statue larger than life, which was found in 1820 on the island of Melos (Milo), and is now in the Louvre at Paris (Fig. 17). In this statue only the upper part of the body is nude, the lower portions, from the hips downward, being covered with a light garment. One scarcely knows which to admire most in this splendid statue—the singularly dignified expression of the head, or the charming fulness and magnificent proportions of the limbs. The arms are quite broken off, so that we cannot determine the conception of the artist with any certainty. It is supposed that the goddess held in her hand either an apple, which was a symbol of the Isle of Melos, or the bronze shield of Ares. Her looks express proud and joyous self-consciousness.

In the Venus of Capua (so called because found among the ruins of the Amphitheatre) she again appears as a victorious goddess (Venus Victrix). This statue is now in the Museum at Naples. The shape of the nude body is not so vigorous or fresh as that of the Venus of Milo, but somewhat soft and ill-defined.

Fig. 18.—Venus Genetrix. Villa Borghese.

The Medicean Venus, formerly in the Villa Medici at Rome, is better known. It is a work of the later Attic school, in which, at the end of the second century B.C., Greek art once more blooms for a while. It is the work of the Athenian artist Cleomenes, though probably chiselled in Rome. As Venus Anadyomene (rising from the sea) the goddess appears entirely nude. This is the most youthful in appearance of all her statues, and is distinguished by the perfect regularity and beauty of its form, though there is no trace of the lofty dignity of the goddess. “What a descent,” says Kraus in his Christian Art, “is there from the Venus of Milo to this coquette, whose apparently bashful posture is only meant to challenge the notice of the beholder.”

The “Venus crouching in the bath” of the Vatican collection, and the “Venus loosing her sandal” of the Munich Gallery, are creations similar in style. In some imitations of the Cnidian Venus, the most important of which are in Rome and Munich, the goddess wears a more dignified demeanour; and also in the wonderfully graceful Venus Genetrix of the Villa Borghese, at Rome (Fig. 18).

The attributes of Venus vary much according to the prevailing conception of the goddess. The dove, the sparrow, and the dolphin, and among plants the myrtle, the rose, the apple, the poppy, and the lime-tree, were sacred to her.

8. Hermes (Mercurius).—Hermes was the son of Zeus and Maia, a daughter of Atlas. He was born in a grotto of Mount Cyllene in Arcadia, whence he is called Cyllenius. We know the stories of his youth chiefly from the so-called Homeric Hymn.