Artistic differences between the Venus of Milo and the birth of Venus
As a starting point to make the comparison between the two works, we will proceed with a brief presentation of the same. We are going to speak in the first instance of the Venus of Milo, sculpture of the Hellenistic era in ancient Greece dated between 130 and 100 to. C. Its authorship is not known with certainty, but this is attributed to Alejandro de Antioquía, since on the pedestal on which the sculpture itself is sustained we find an inscription with its name. Although the belief also has, that the possible author will simply be in charge of the pedestal and not the sculpture itself. With which its authorship would be unknown, but in it we can observe influences of the Praxitel and Fidias sculptors. The sculpture measures about 2.11 meters high.
The next work for presenting is the birth of Venus, which is dated between 1482 and 1485, its author is the famous painter Sandro Botticelli. It is a picture corresponding to the Renaissance era, it was painted in the municipality of Tuscania, Italy. The painting measures approximately 1’80 meters high and 2,75 meters long. We can visit the picture at the Uffizi Museum, which is located in Florence.
Comparative formal analysis
If we observe carefully both representations of the pagan deity;In both Venus de Milo and Botticelli’s picture, we can appreciate that the goddess is in a counterpoint, but in a different way. In the case of Milo’s Venus, the body’s weight is sustained by the right leg, thus releasing the left leg of the body load of the sculpture;But when we refer to the Venus of Botticelli we obtain a counterpox contrary contrary to that of the Venus of Milo. The left leg in this case is responsible for holding all body load, leaving the right leg free. It is important to mention that the case of the birth of Botticelli the goddess is slightly displaced to the right.
If we stop at the looks of the goddesses, in both cases they break the frontality of the work and reaffirm their positions in imbalance, since their eyes go to indeterminate areas. If we observe the gaze of the Venus of Botticelli, it gives the feeling that the goddess is observing something that is located outside the canvas, specifically her gaze escapes from the work on the lower right part. While, in the sculpture of the Venus of Milo, the look of this escapes from the upper left.
If we observe the positions of the arms, in the case of the representation of the goddess by Botticelli;We see how he tries to cover his breasts with his right arm, although he only manages to cover one successfully since he shows the other. While with his left arm he covers his groin helping himself from his long hair.
In the case of Milo’s sculpture, we do not have the arms present in this. Even so, it is believed, by the position of the rest of his left arm, that he would cross the sculpture slightly while his other arm would be in charge of holding the goddess’s robe. What the goddess Venus of Botticelli have in common is that both, one using the robe and another their long hair, as we have mentioned before, cover their English respectively as a sign of modesty.
If we observe the silhouettes of both deities, in the case of Venus de Milo we see how it presents a relaxed possession in addition to having exaggerated curves to highlight the formal beauty features. The author wants to show us the goddess of love and fertility with a relaxed and sensual anatomy since this was the beauty canon of the time.
As counterpart, in the case of Botticelli Venus compared to Milo’s, we are not intended to show a relaxed and sensual goddess as a beauty canon but rather we want to express a deity with pure intelligence and supreme knowledge. Since it is conceived with faults and posture thinner than those offered by Greek sculpture.
The author tries to show us beauty as an attribute of the divine, which is presented to Venus naked on the canvas as a symbol of immateriality since it is the deity that represents beauty and love, concepts that are unalterable in time.
Comparative iconographic analysis
In both sculptures we can observe, as we have mentioned in the formal analysis, that cover the groin area, one helped by one robe and another with its long hair. This fact indicates that both deities are clear examples of representation of a political venus.
This type of representations of Venus try to highlight the concepts of chastity, virtuosity and modesty. Even so, setting ourselves more in Greek sculpture, it is important to mention that it represents the curves more exaggerated as a sample of the beauty canon of the Hellenistic time. As mentioned in formal analysis. In both works we are represented by a Venus goddess that conveys a feeling of calm and relaxation, but for different purposes. In Milo’s sculpture we observe how we are presented to the deity with a passive posture, in addition to his face expressing sadness, this can be clearly seen in his lost gaze. This sadness is probably given by the conflicts that were happening at the time, which were given by conflict situations in ancient Greece after the death of Alexander the Great.
In the case of Botticelli’s work, we are presented with a naked goddess in the center of the work, creating a harmonious composition. We try to naturalize Venus’s nude since in times before the Renaissance the appearance of naked woman was not common. But the author shows a goddess in a relaxed position, with a lost look that escapes the canvas, thus tried to legitimize the representation of female nude in a work of art, using the goddess of love and fertility for this purpose.
Comparative context of the works
When we talk about the context in which these two works were created, they are very different from each other, since obviously there is a clear temporal distance between these two pieces.
If we focus on Botticelli’s work, it was painted in a very specific context. With the appearance of the Renaissance, a new current of thought that moves away from theocentrism began to emerge, with more notoriety. This current is that of anthropocentric humanism, which focuses more on locating man as the center of things. In the artistic context that concerns us, we find that in the Renaissance the classic myths will be represented again, such as the Venus of the Botticelli canvas, in which the hidden truths of human nature were found. Thanks to the protection provided by the medici family, the author of the work was able to paint this canvas without fear of reprisals that could arise from the Catholic Church. The commission of this picture was Botticelli from Lorenzo Pierfrancesco de Médicis, who entrusted him to represent the birth of this pagan goddess.
As for the context in which Milo’s Venus was made, it is a figure with an artistic style of the Hellenistic period of ancient Greece. During this period in Greek art we see how sculptures are created with an exaggerated realism, by the canons of beauty that were had at the time, a fact that we can appreciate in this sculpture and in its voluptuousness both in their figure and in the pronunciation ofthe hips, which emphasizes in a very good way the contrast that occurs with respect to the sculpture waist.
Bibliography
- CLOWER CARBÓ, ANTONIO. "The Venus of Milo". Historical history and heritage;2008.
- Haguen, Rose-Marie & Rainer. The secrets of works of art. Germany: TASCHEN, 2005.
- Hamiaux, Marianne. Les Sculptures Grecques 2. Paris: Réunion des Musées Nationaux, 1998.
- Hamiaux, Marianne. Les Sculptures Grecques 2. Paris: Réunion des Musées Nationaux, 1998.
- Haguen, Rose-Marie & Rainer. The secrets of works of art. Germany: TASCHEN, 2005.
- CLOWER CARBÓ, ANTONIO. "The Venus of Milo". Historical history and heritage;2008.
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