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Nude Today with Dr. William A. Lipsmacker
Saturday, January 12, 2008
This week: The Venus de Milo
Saturday, January 12, 2008
This week: The Venus de Milo
She stands head and shoulders over the
crowd. Venus de Milo: even in her mutilated
state, she is so beautiful the room is a little
hushed.
I came between Christmas and New Year to
spend those precious, liminal days with an
absolute: beauty. How, one wonders, gazing
at that sleek, twisting torso, could the art
world’s taste have ever favoured her dumpy
older sister, the Venus de’ Medici?
Yet they did. Venus de Milo’s beauty only
entered our popular imagination once the
French lost custody of the podgy Venus de’
Medici (in John Evelyn’s baffling phrase, a
‘miracle of art’). Some revisionists claim the
French then bruited the loveliness of Venus
de Milo as a diversion, overcompensating for
the greater treasure they had lost. I can’t
see it. Comparing the two nude goddesses
today, the idea seems laughable. I can only
suspect the whole thing is some complex
insurance fiddle the details of which have
been lost to us.
And yet we can never truly know: for while
Venus de Milo stands starkly cropped,
crowd. Venus de Milo: even in her mutilated
state, she is so beautiful the room is a little
hushed.
I came between Christmas and New Year to
spend those precious, liminal days with an
absolute: beauty. How, one wonders, gazing
at that sleek, twisting torso, could the art
world’s taste have ever favoured her dumpy
older sister, the Venus de’ Medici?
Yet they did. Venus de Milo’s beauty only
entered our popular imagination once the
French lost custody of the podgy Venus de’
Medici (in John Evelyn’s baffling phrase, a
‘miracle of art’). Some revisionists claim the
French then bruited the loveliness of Venus
de Milo as a diversion, overcompensating for
the greater treasure they had lost. I can’t
see it. Comparing the two nude goddesses
today, the idea seems laughable. I can only
suspect the whole thing is some complex
insurance fiddle the details of which have
been lost to us.
And yet we can never truly know: for while
Venus de Milo stands starkly cropped,
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unrestored and utterly magnificent, the Venus de’ Medici has had
prosthetic forearms mortared on and suffered countless other
earnest indignities, all attempting to return a departed glory to her
11 marble fragments. This unhappy restoration has instead given
us a goddess who appears to have been caught in the changing
room at Evans. Perhaps before the Frankensteins of marble got
hold of her she was indeed as lovely as they say. Now we can only
advise her to pull the curtain all the way across.
Let us not distract ourselves with disappointments from the main
event: divine beauty. The beauty of Venus de Milo is unearthly – her
face is an impassive mask, the nose dropping straight from her
forehead in a perfect line, the head exactly three times as long as
the bridge. Her breasts know nothing of physical laws. And yet the
fold of her drapery and her slim, toned musculature speak of a keen
eye for a real model. Venus de Milo is a reminder of the tension
between the power of the ideal and the need for knowledge of the
real. We must have the vision of perfection – Venus de Milo, Marilyn
Monroe, Christie Brinkley – but we also need the topless woman
walking towards us out of the shower, her towel just dropping to
reveal the crease where one thigh rises to meet her belly. When we
have both the woman and the goddess, as here, we are
unstoppable, both driven to seek sublimity and at home in the
physical world. Venus de Milo shows just what it was the Ancient
Greeks had going for them.
This tall block of stone from a forgotten Greek gymnasium is a
totem of civilisation. It stands over us and reminds us to reach for
impossible beauties. And in the sensuous dip of her navel and the
careful styling of her hair, she also reminds us of the necessity of
our wives and girlfriends.
Here we must always turn away from the Venus, for time has left
her beautiful but less than welcoming. In her youth, she held out
the apple that told her she was the most beautiful of all the
goddesses. Today she is sublime, but no longer cuddly. For that we
need a human love, as Frank Sinatra understood in Love Is Just
Around The Corner.
prosthetic forearms mortared on and suffered countless other
earnest indignities, all attempting to return a departed glory to her
11 marble fragments. This unhappy restoration has instead given
us a goddess who appears to have been caught in the changing
room at Evans. Perhaps before the Frankensteins of marble got
hold of her she was indeed as lovely as they say. Now we can only
advise her to pull the curtain all the way across.
Let us not distract ourselves with disappointments from the main
event: divine beauty. The beauty of Venus de Milo is unearthly – her
face is an impassive mask, the nose dropping straight from her
forehead in a perfect line, the head exactly three times as long as
the bridge. Her breasts know nothing of physical laws. And yet the
fold of her drapery and her slim, toned musculature speak of a keen
eye for a real model. Venus de Milo is a reminder of the tension
between the power of the ideal and the need for knowledge of the
real. We must have the vision of perfection – Venus de Milo, Marilyn
Monroe, Christie Brinkley – but we also need the topless woman
walking towards us out of the shower, her towel just dropping to
reveal the crease where one thigh rises to meet her belly. When we
have both the woman and the goddess, as here, we are
unstoppable, both driven to seek sublimity and at home in the
physical world. Venus de Milo shows just what it was the Ancient
Greeks had going for them.
This tall block of stone from a forgotten Greek gymnasium is a
totem of civilisation. It stands over us and reminds us to reach for
impossible beauties. And in the sensuous dip of her navel and the
careful styling of her hair, she also reminds us of the necessity of
our wives and girlfriends.
Here we must always turn away from the Venus, for time has left
her beautiful but less than welcoming. In her youth, she held out
the apple that told her she was the most beautiful of all the
goddesses. Today she is sublime, but no longer cuddly. For that we
need a human love, as Frank Sinatra understood in Love Is Just
Around The Corner.
Venus de Milo was noted for her charms,
But strictly between us, you're cuter than Venus,
And what's more you got arms.
But strictly between us, you're cuter than Venus,
And what's more you got arms.
© lizardmagazine.com, 2008
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