After telling you Artemis and her girl-gang of nymphs, today we take you into the world of Aphrodite. The Greek goddess of beauty, carnal love and fertility, she's probably better known by her Roman name: Venus.
Adolf Hirémy-Hirschl, The Birth of Venus, circa 1888, Private collection.
Even today, Aphrodite is the archetype of beauty: " She's got it / Yeah, Baby, She's got it "as Shocking Blue sang in 1969. But before a group of Dutch rockers erected her on top of the mountain, what was the fate of our Goddess?
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The birth of Venus
As you may or may not know, the birth of a divinity is usually a story of incredible proportions. Dionysus, for example, was closely linked to theamethystwould have been premature without Zeus' thigh, and Artemis barely out of the womb, had to improvise as a midwife. As for Aphrodite, she was born from the foam of the waves caused by the water landing of Ouranos' family jewels. Missed an episode? Don't worry, we'll polish it up for you.
When we think of the gods of Greek mythology, we often refer to the "Twelve". The Dream Team of Olympus is in fact the third divine generation.
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According to Hesiod's Theogony (late 8th - early 7th B.C.), there were originally five gods and goddesses, including Gaia (Mother Earth) and Ouranos (Heaven), who had many children. As to whether they lived happily ever after as they do in fairy tales... we wouldn't dare say! First of all, Ouranos had an annoying tendency to get rid of his offspring, either by drowning them in the waters of Tartarus or by burying them in the Earth (the methodology varies according to the source). Some managed to escape their fate, however, including Cronos, reputed to be the strongest and cleverest of them all. Fomenting the plan with his mother, fed up with Ouranos' infanticidal behavior, the Titan emasculated his father and threw the latter's genitals into the sea.
Alexandre Cabanel, The Birth of Venus, 1863, Paris, Musée d'Orsay.
And from the foam comes the beautiful Aphrodite. By the very nature of her origin, Venus is linked to the sea, which is why the shell is one of her attributes. We've already mentioned this in our articles on white and the "birthstone of June, but the pearl is also associated with the Goddess of Love. Remember? In ancient Greece, for example, pearls were called "Aphrodite's tears". What's more, the perfection of the pearl in its raw state echoes that of the Goddess.
Venus is also credited with the rose and myrtle for plants, as well as the turtledove and dove.
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A pin-up before her time
Sandro Botticelli, The Birth of Venus, c. 1485, Florence, Uffizi Gallery.
Aphrodite, after a mythological surf session on her shell (thanks to the help of Zephyr, the God of Wind), lands on the island of Cythera. This is the moment that Botticelli chose to depict in his famous painting The Birth of Venus, housed in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence. Enthusiastic readers of our newsletterit may have escaped your attention that this painting has already been featured in our article on the pearl. But we really had to mention it again here. For this work, almost as iconic as Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa, represents a turning point in the representation of the female body.
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Until then, the female nude was reserved for Eve, the apple-crusher of the Christian religion. In fact, the exhibition of the female body was associated with sin and shame. Drawing his inspiration from the statuary of Antiquity, Botticelli frees himself from the Catholic concept and offers the viewer a deliberately erotic, life-size female body.
What's more, Renaissance painters were in search of an ideal of beauty and perfect proportions, and Botticelli's Venus is considered an absolute must of the genre. A neck too long, a dislocated shoulder, the impossibility of standing upright with that hellish sway (called contrapposto in Art History): there are already a few realistic grievances to be levelled against this canon of beauty! Just as we today question the epinal images of women's magazines. Did you know? the representation of Aphrodite in painting has contributed to the standardization of a feminine ideal that continues to this day.
Titian, The Venus of Urbino, 1538, Florence, Uffizi Gallery.
And Venus inspires artists for a far more trivial reason: what better alibi than the Goddess of Love to paint a naked woman in a lascivious pose? In the history of art, Aphrodite is male gaze (or the appropriation by heterosexual cisgender men of the representation of women in visual culture) in all its glory. Let's not forget that, until the 19th century at least, painting was predominantly practiced by and for men. And it's a serious business! From the 18th century onwards, the discipline was divided into more or less noble sub-categories: portraiture, landscape, still life, genre scenes and, finally, history painting, the most prestigious. This consists of depicting characters in a historical, biblical or mythological episode. Any other representation of the nude is considered immoral, as it echoes lust.
Edouard Manet caused a scandal when he officially presented his Olympia (1863) in 1865. For the first time, an artist was no longer hiding behind the false pretext of painting a Goddess, but offering the lecherous viewer a great horizontal. An absolute outcry from the prudish Salons, who clearly need a mythological excuse to wash their eyes. And yet, Manet's reference to academic painting in general, and to the Venus of Urbino in particular, seems obvious.
Among his contemporaries' grievances was the use of yellow undertones in his pictorial treatment of flesh, evoking putrefaction. In the article on color, we told you the extent to which yellow and how Impressionist painters contributed to its slow rehabilitation by adding it to their palette. A contemporary of the movement, Manet was not an Impressionist, but he was a forerunner of modern painting in many respects (notably in his choice of subjects) and inspired many of his counterparts.
Edouard Manet, Olympia, 1863, Paris, Musée d'Orsay.
The jewels ofOlympia, the Aphrodite of the Second Empire
A closer look at the few pieces of jewelry worn byOlympia's model Victorine Meurent reveals that they are quite representative of 19th-century fashion.
For example, her necklace features a large baroque pearl held in place by a black ribbon. In the second half of the 19th century, chokers, sometimes also called "dog collars", were very much in vogue. Those with several strands of pearls were reserved for evening wear. For daytime wear, a ribbon with a precious metal plate in the center, decorated with gems or enamel, was preferred.
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As for the bracelet, according to Julie Manet (the painter's niece and love child of Eugène Manet and Berthe Morisot), it belonged to the artist's mother and contained a lock of her hair. Initiated in the eighteenth century, the fashion for the medallion as a keepsake of a loved one - often a portrait or a braided lock of hair - continued into the following century. Under the influence of Victorian England Victorian Englandthe fashion was for romanticism and sentimental jewelry. To find out more about this eclectic period in jewelry history, take a look at our articles (part 1 and part 2) in the Journal. Rings of varying widths were always popular at the time, and models with a medallion on the clasp were typical of the period.
Finally, while it's difficult to say exactly what kind of earrings earrings, we wouldn't be surprised if those of the servant girl in the background were made of coral. The organic gem was very fashionable in the 19th century, particularly under the two Empires. At the time, coral was fished in abundance along the Mediterranean coasts, and was the envy of all social classes. The shape of the earringsThe shape of the earrings, with their transformation, was also characteristic of the jewelry of the period.
In fact, they closely resemble a pair of hanging sleepers sold on our site. We don't pretend they're the ones worn by Manet's model, but the mystery remains! That's the magic of antique jewelry if it's sometimes frustrating for some not to know their past, we can just as easily imagine one for these veritable fragments of history.
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Muse from the Renaissance to the 19th century, Aphrodite was used by painters not only to depict a sexy nude woman for the sole pleasure of their Boys' Club, but also to create a stereotypical ideal of beauty from which we're still not entirely free.
Did you know? Aphrodite was married to Hephaestus, the God of Fire and Forges, renowned for his ugliness. This was yet another move by Zeus, who felt that the Goddess's great beauty and uncontrollable desire would stir up trouble between the alpha males of Olympus.
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When it comes to antique jewelrywe advise you to follow your heart: at Galerie Pénélope, we only sell unique pieces, just like you. Because even if you weren't born from the foam of the waves... you've got it!