Introduction horizontally at hip level, and the costume The drapery of the figure is suggestive as masks the break. (A related statue, the well: this is neither the blatantly naked Aphrodite (Roman Venus) was the Poseidon of Melos now in Athens, was goddess of Near Eastern myth, nor the goddess of beauty and erotic love in made in the same way). The use of two fully clad figure of earlier generations of Classical Mythology. According to smaller blocks of marble may have been Greek art. Instead, only the torso is tradition, she was born from the sea cheaper than employing a single, huge nude, and the clothing covers just the foam (aphros) and came to land on block of stone. Aphrodite stands nearly lower half of the body. The garment Cyprus. Her over-lifesized statue in the frontal in a relaxed, sinuous pose. Notice appears ready to slip off at any moment, Wilcox faces you as you enter the front too that her head is fairly small relative however, and the contrast between door, and is a plaster cast of a Greek to the rest of the body, and her features smooth, bare flesh and concealing original of ca. 150 B.C., now in the quite bland. The hair is parted in the drapery invites the spectator to imagine Louvre Museum (Paris, France), along center with locks pulled to the back of the body underneath. Since no one point with fragments of the upper and lower the head and loosely knotted; a few of view is emphasized, one wants to look left arm and hand with an apple. tresses hang down the neck. Attachment at the figure from all angles. All these Inventory no. 399/400. Parian marble. H. holes once held metal earrings and a stylistic characteristics have helped 2.04 m. (6 ft. 2 in.). hairband. scholars assign the figure to the mid-2nd c. B.C. Findspot Her body proportions—somewhat small breasts and rather full hips—made this Cultural Context She was found on the volcanic Greek figure very popular in the 19th c., but island of Melos in the Aegean Sea in contemporary taste has changed. During the Hellenistic period, less 1822. Originally she stood in a niche in a Though both arms are incomplete, traditional views of the gods of Mt. gymnasium, or exercise yard, where men careful inspection of the angle of the Olympus became increasingly popular, exercised in the nude or talked with lowered right shoulder and raised left especially Aphrodite who is shown in a friends (women were excluded). shoulder indicate that both limbs were number of new ways: nude, about to Therefore, she was probably not a cult held to the front and slightly away from bathe, emerging from the bath, or in the statue, but rather a type of decoration the body, with the right arm crossing the company of her son Eros (Cupid). (not unlike modern "garden art"). During torso diagonally. Nevertheless, the Melos statue belongs the Hellenistic period (323-30 B.C.) such historically to an unsettled political sculpture became popular, and Originally, our figure held an apple as a period, when many of the Greek city- eventually the Romans acquired similar love-token awarded by prince Paris of states were losing ground to the tastes. An inscribed base (now lost) Troy. Perhaps a pun was intended, for Romans, who were increasingly names [Alex-] or [Ages-] ander of the Greek word for apple (mêlon) recalls interferring in the world of the Eastern Antioch-on-the-Meander in Turkey as the name of the island and city of Melos. Mediterranean. Little more than a sculptor (see line drawing). Thus she may be a personfication rather century after our Aphrodite was carved, than Aphrodite alone. a pan-Mediterranean Roman empire Iconography and Style emerged (30 B.C.). Whether you admire A drawing of the lost base (see the Aphrodite of Melos as a Viewers often do not realize that this illustration) depicts a cutting for a "masterpiece" or not, she challenges us statue was made from two blocks of vertical strut near the left foot to help to look at her from different historical stone: the torso and head, and the her support the missing attribute. perspectives and artistic points of view. draped lower body. The sections join LIMC II.1.2-176 (Aphrodite/Venus). [LIMC = Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae, a comprehensive myth and art encyclopedia: a copy is available in the reference section of Spencer Art & Architecture Library at KU] Lullies, R., and M. Hirmer. 1961. Greek Sculpture (New Yorki) pls. 254, 255. WILCOX Maggidis, C. 1999. "The Aphrodite and Poseidon of Melos: A Comparative COLLECTION Study," Acta Archaeologica 70. Pasquier, A. 1985. La Vénus du Milo et les of Aphrodites du Louvre (Paris). Pollitt, J.J. 1986. Art in the Hellenistic Age Classical (Cambridge) 167, 168 fig. 92. Ridgway, B.S. 1990. Hellenistic Sculpture II. Antiquities The Styles of ca. 200-100 B.C. (Madison) 167-71, 170 fig. 21, pl. 58. Department of Classics Smith, R.R.R. 1991. Hellenistic Sculpture The now missing base with mortise University of Kansas (Oxford/New York) 65, 81, 242, figs. for a support (herm?) and 305.1-2. inscription:

For more information... "Hagesandros son of Menides from Antioch on the You can learn more about Greek sculpture in CLSX/HA 526: GREEK Maeander [River] made this" ARCHAEOLOGY & ART (Note: this course can be taken for Classics or Art Select Modern Bibliography History credit).

Bieber, M. 1961. The Sculpture of the For more about Aphrodite (Venus) and her stories, take CLSX 148: CLASSICAL Hellenistic Age (New York) 159-60, figs. Study Pamphlet #2 673-75. MYTH. Claridge, A. 1988. Ancient Techniques of Making Joins in Marble Statuary" in cast: Marble: Art Historical Techniques and

Scientific Perspectives on Ancient Sculpture APHRODITE OF (Malibu) 135-62, esp. 146. Hornblower, S., and Spawforth, A. (eds.) MELOS 1996. The Oxford Classical Dictionary For more information about the Wilcox (VENUS DE MILO) (Oxford) 120 (Aphrodite). [abbreviated Collection and Department of Classics, OCD] please visit our websites: Kaltsas, N. 2002. Sculpture in the National http://www.wilcox.ku.edu Archaeological Museum, Athens (Los © Paul Rehak Angeles) 290-91 no. 611 (Poseidon of http://www.classics.ku.edu January 2004 Melos). rev. 10.2016