아프로디테 (Aphrodite). 대영 박물관(The British Museum). 런던(London)

아프로디테 (Aphrodite).

대영 박물관(The British Museum). 런던(London). 영국(England)

britishmuseum.org

 

Lely's Venus (Aphrodite)

Here the goddness Venus is surprised as she bathes, her water jar resting under her left thigh. She crouches naked and attempts to cover herself with her arms and expressive hands. Her beautiful head, with its top-knot hairstyle, is turned nervously to one side, perhaps in the direction of an intruder.

 

Naked Aphrodite was a popular subject with Greek sculptors, as she was with the Romans, who called her Venus. This sculpture was probably made in the 1st or 2nd century AD and is a Roman copy of an earlier Greek original. The original sculpture, now lost, may have been of bronze ormarble, perhaps dating to the 2nd century BC.

 

Like many Greek sculptures of the Hellenistic period, the original statue was designed to create an interplay between artwork and viewer or, in this case, voyeur. Walk around it and you will see how each of the four viewpoints presents a strikingly different aspect of the naked goddess. Tantalisingly, none is fully revealing.

 

In spite of the original intention to create all-round interest, there are signs that this particular copy of the crouching Venus may have been displayed in a niche. on the this sides of the plinth a simple moulding runs around the front part only, and the modelling of the figure is less developed on the back than it is on the front and sides

 

This statue is sometimes known as Lely's Venus, named after the painter Sir Peter Lely (1618-80). He acquired it from the collection of Charles I, following the King's execution in 1649. After Lely's own death, it found its way back into the Royal Collection.

 

Lent by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II

Sculpture 1963. 10. 29. 1.

 

 

The crouching pose in Greek art goes back as early as the 4th century BC, as shown on this painted vase, about 360-350 BC.

Here Peleus seizes the crouching sea-nymph Thetis.

The vase is displayed in Room 20.

 

Marble statue of a naked Aphrodite crouching at her bath

Roman, 2nd century AD

 

In the fourth century BC the sculptor Praxiteles created a life-size naked statue of Aphrodite (Venus). It was placed in a shrine in her temple at Knidos in south-western Turkey. It was an important innovation in classical sculpture, and subsequent Hellenistic sculptors created several new types of nude Aphrodite figures, that further emphasized the sexual nature of her cult. This trend perhaps reflected both the rising social status of women and changes in male attitudes towards women: previously only male statues had been naked.

Most of these statues show Aphrodite ineffectually attempting to cover her nakedness with her hands. The action in fact only succeeds in drawing the viewer's eye towards the sexual areas. In this statue the voluptuous Aphrodite crouches down and turns her head sharply to her right, as if surprised by her audience.

The three-dimensionality of the statue is typical of Hellenistic sculpture, as is the hairstyle with its elaborate top-knot. Another figure of Aphrodite in The British Museum (Sc. 1578) could almost be the same figure standing up. Other versions of the crouching Aphrodite are known: some have an additional figure of Eros, the god of love, while others show the goddess kneeling on a water jar to indicate that she is bathing.

This statue is sometimes known as 'Lely's Venus' since it once belonged to the baroque portrait painter Sir Peter Lely (1618-80). It was subsequently acquired by King Charles I (reigned 1625-49).

B.S. Ridgway, Hellenistic sculpture 1 (University of Wisconsin Press, 1990)

 출처 : http://www.britishmuseum.org

 

 

 

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