Studying the Greek and Roman Gods and Goddesses - Essay Example

Misti Moreaux Dr. Jessica Locheed VIAR 422 05/09/06 Venus and Aphrodite Studying the Greek and Roman gods and goddesses can oftentimes become quite confusing as several of these deities tend to overlap in their associated domains and responsibilities. This is because the Greeks had already established their pantheon of gods and goddesses prior to their defeat by the Romans as a means of explaining the various trials and tribulations they suffered in the world around them. The Romans had their own group of gods at this time, but they had not yet been organized into family structures and had not developed the depth of detail inherent in the Greek tales (Stone B., 2005). The conquering Romans liked the stories so much, they began adopting them as their own, changing the names of the deities to reflect a Roman heritage rather than Greek. This merging of tales, as well as the passage of time, is what has led to such confusion regarding the exact nature and responsibilities of the goddess Aphrodite, or Venus as she’s called in Rome. “According to Hesiod, when Kronos (Cronos) had cut off his father’s members, he tossed them into the sea. The immortal flesh eventually spread into a circle of white foam... from this foam, Aphrodite was created. Her name literally means foam-born” (Stewart, 2005). Although she is somewhat the daughter of Ouranos, as it was his phallus from which she grew, she has no associated mother and took several lovers, including Adonis (Cotterell, 1980). As the goddess of love, Aphrodite presided over sexual love, affection between people and other social relationships. According to Guerber (1990), she was not only the goddess of lovers, but the goddess of gardens and gardeners. “The rose, lily, hyacinth, crocus and narcissus were sacred to her; so were the dove, the sparrow, the dolphin and the swan” (Guerber, 1990, p. 90). Because the first known temple to Venus was founded in Rome on a day that was traditionally dedicated to Jupiter, Venus became associated with him in much the same way that Aphrodite was associated with Ouranos, which made Dione her mother. She became the wife of Vulcan and the mother of Cupid (Walker, n.d.) and of Aeneas, the founder of Rome. Venus was originally a goddess of gardens and vineyards and later expanded her realm to include love and beauty as she became merged with the Greek conception of Aphrodite (Lindemans, 1999). Like Aphrodite, Venus was not faithful to her husband and took many lovers including Mars and Adonis. Despite her affairs, she was considered the goddess of chastity in women. She was also the bringer of good fortune, the bringer of victory and was associated with the arrival of spring (Stone M., 1976). “She is the bringer of joy to gods and humans. Venus really had no myths of her own but was so closely identified with the Greek Aphrodite that she ‘took over’ Aphrodite’s myths” (Walker, n.d.). The herbs associated with Venus include ylang ylang, mugwort and vervain (Billinghurst, 2003). Despite their obvious connotations to all things pleasurable and sensuous, both goddesses had equally dangerous dark sides. Aphrodite was as well known for her anger, jealousy and tendency to interfere without forethought as she was for her beauty and sensual connotations. “In fact, she can tend to drift into situations with an aplomb only possible through reckless disregard for the future. Aphrodite can be the source of envy arising from a pulsating desire for life and love” (Miller, 2002). The combination of love and power within this individual deity brings into play the possibility of a “union of opposites wherein the lovers are annihilated” (Miller, 2002). This concept of possession is also inherent in the concept of the deity Venus. “The negative side of Venus includes lechery, coldness and isolation” (Billinghurst, 2002). “Venus is a binding force, which may appear as a voluntary involvement or with the strength and dynamism of possession” (Miller, 2002). Thus, while both goddesses shared several characteristics of the other, there are some instances in which the Greek Aphrodite can be distinguished from the Roman Venus. Aphrodite became associated with all types of social relationships while Venus remained primarily associated with the physical action, or inaction, of sexual love. While Aphrodite was given a magical birth that imbued her with the power of the sun and male energies, Venus was born of the god Jupiter and goddess Dione as well as associated with a planet of her own. Although Aphrodite emerged from the waters already a goddess of love, beauty and growing things, Venus started as only a goddess of growing things and gained other attributes as she became more and more associated with Aphrodite. While they both are associated with equally terrifying aspects to their attractive qualities, these fearsome aspects are slightly different from each other. Aphrodite could lead one into an all-consuming passion that burns away individuality while Venus was capable of turning a shoulder so cold as to quench the hottest fire. It is important to keep some of these differences in mind as one compares and contrasts the various features and symbols associated with her as she has been depicted in fine art throughout the centuries. Images and statues of Aphrodite and/or Venus have been created since as early as the fifth century BC in Greece and approximately that old in Rome. This statue is known by two different names, reflecting the dual identity of the goddess of love. A marble copy of a fifth century BC Greek cult statue, “Aphrodite Frejus” or “Venus Genetrix” is currently housed at the Louvre museum in Paris, France and demonstrates the ideal form of beauty and feminine graces held by the Greeks in the fashioning of their gods. She is draped elegantly in a clinging robe of fine mesh that suggests a translucent nature as it seems to show more than hide her underlying figure. The way in which it clings to her body further suggests she has just stepped out of the bath, with the material plastering itself to her moist curves, further denoting the idea of sexuality and desire. An exposed breast demonstrates she is a fully formed woman with generous curves and a sufficient degree of body fat providing her limbs with a pleasing roundness of form and solidity, but neither is she overly proportioned or asexually muscular. She extends an apple in her hand as a symbol of her dominance over the garden as well as a symbol of her fruitfulness. Her hair is styled in tight curls around her face while her head is tilted down somewhat in an ambiguous yet seemingly kind expression. The Venus of Cyrene, by contrast, is a Greek original created sometime during the fourth century BC and not discovered until 1913. “It shows a goddess rising from the sea, probably lifting her arms to squeeze out her wet hair. Beside her is a dolphin with a fish in its mouth” (Morton, 1990, p. 371). Although she is similar to the Aphrodite statue in many ways, the Venus of Cyrene represents a fundamental shift in style. To begin with, her shroud appears crumpled next to her instead of freshly draped around her freshly bathed body. Her stance has taken on a more exaggerated contrapposto pose, placing most of her weight on the back foot and throwing the hips into an opposite angle. This type of pose is both more natural and helps to accentuate the body’s curves. The body appears to be slightly thinner than the Aphrodite statue as well, indicating a shift in the ideals of female beauty to a more sleek appearance that begins to display some of the muscles of the stomach that weren’t apparent in earlier statues. Lacking arms and a head, it is impossible to compare how hair styles or facial features might have compared from one statue to the other, but the slimmer yet more curvaceous form smoothly formed out of the marble manages to continue to speak eloquently of the grace, beauty, sexuality and adoration one would expect a goddess to inspire. The Venus de Milo statue, created sometime during the second century BC, also provides a very Greek view of Aphrodite rather than the Roman Venus. She bears many comparable characteristics to the Aphrodite Frejus statue. “A feature of the Venus is the head, in excellent preservation, which shows what is considered the ideal classical face” (Morton, 1990, p. 205). Like the Venus of Cyrene, the Venus de Milo has also lost its arms, making it impossible to know the exact pose in which she was carved, but it is believed one hand held up the draperies that are loosely wrapped low around her hips while the other possibly held out an apple in the same sort of gesture shown in the Frejus statue. According to Morton, the apple was also a symbol of the Greek island of Melos. Like many of the classical Greek pieces, the Venus de Milo exhibits a serene clear-eyed calm as she looks out at the world, neither coy or afraid nor supercilious or unapproachable. In this respect, she again resembles the earlier Frejus statue. Her hair remains styled in tight curls, but becomes more sophisticated than the Frejus statue in that the de Milo statue’s hair has been parted down the center with the curls forming a crown around her head rather than the blanket tight curls shown in the Frejus statue. Also like the Frejus statue, the Venus de Milo is provided with some drapery to cover her lower extremities, but both breasts and most of her torso area remain exposed in another striking difference from the Frejus statue. Like the Cyrene, this statue is posed in contrapposto that is more exaggerated than the Frejus with more bend in the hips, yet she again retains slightly more weight in her structure. While the musculature is more pronounced in this statue over the earlier Greek version, it is not quite as developed as the Cyrene statue. A Roman statue created also in the second century BC, the Capitoline Venus demonstrates a much greater sophistication in terms of representing the human side of the goddess. In this statue, Venus appears as a shy young woman about to step into her bath. This both explains why she is nude as well as affords her the modesty and chastity she is sworn to protect as some of the duties of her office while still allowing the artist to work with the female nude that was popular in the arts at that time. Her pose seems to be somewhat crouching into herself, though still contrapposto. Her shoulders are curved inward and her upper body hovers protectively over her lower body. Her arms curve inward to shield her breasts and pubic area modestly, but do not actually touch her body. “Her modesty in covering her breasts with her hand only serves to emphasize them, while her head turns shyly to one side. However, the beauty of her body is impaired by the too large head weighed down by the hair and the common facial features” (Morton, 1990, p. 366). The hair style repeats the coronet of curls around the face that has been seen in earlier statues, but is released in the back in a towering cascade of curled ponytail that falls down to her back. While other statues seen so far have feminine-sized heads and necks, the Capitoline Venus has a neck size disproportionate to her body, throwing off the proportions of her head and reducing her aesthetic qualities. After the collapse of Rome, the world was plunged into the Dark Ages eventually emerging from the Gothic period into the period of the Renaissance between 1300 and 1500. In the intervening years, any art created typically had a very religious theme, focusing almost exclusively on figures from the Bible. With the discovery of some of the classic art and architecture of Rome, there was renewed interest in the deities that had once been important to these people. Venus was reborn in statues and paintings throughout this period. Perhaps one of the most well-known of these resurrections is Botticelli’s Birth of Venus. Although not the first image of Venus during the Renaissance, Botticelli displays Venus in the nude, as she was in the classical poses, in such a way that she is made acceptable to his highly Christianized society in which the only nudes generally permitted were Adam, Eve or the crucified Christ figure. Her pose is not quite as natural as her various poses in Greek or Roman statuary as she is carried across the sea on a giant open clamshell that moves through the waves with the power of the wind, depicted as additional characters to the left of her. The nudity in this painting provides various draperies to hide the more objectionable pubic regions while the women, Venus and the wind, are permitted to leave one breast exposed. For the first time, Venus is provided with long, soft, flowing hair that is unrestrained as it moves on the wind. This flowing hair is necessary to cover Venus modestly until she finally reaches the shore where a woman awaits with appropriate clothing for her. Like the Capitoline Venus, her hand attempting to cover her breasts serves only to bring attention to them. Also like the statuary that had been seen before, Botticelli’s Venus has alabaster skin and a cool, reserved approachability in her facial expression as well as a slender, slightly muscular build. By the colonial period, Venus and the ideal feminine image had come a long way. She had again been represented completely nude in paintings such as the Venus of Urbino created by Titian in 1538 and turned her face to the wall in The Toilet of Venus by Diego Velazquez in 1640 to finally indulge herself in splendor under the hand of Francois Boucher in 1751. In his Toilet of Venus, the goddess has gained a bit of weight, losing a great deal of muscle definition in favor of a luscious, rounded and pampered form. She retains the alabaster skin of her predecessors and her hair is in a state of being prepared, neatly coiled onto her head by one of the tiny Erotes, small winged boys who were mythologized as Aphrodite’s attendants. Her distracted, otherworldly attention mirrors that of the depictions of her in other art forms, but there is not much other similarity between this creation and the Greek and Roman counterparts. She is not in a standing pose, but rather is sitting in casual inattention on a richly upholstered divan. She does not seem even conscious of her nudity, but a piece of silken cloth has accidentally into her lap, therefore protecting her most vulnerable and female area. Her breasts are exposed, but only barely, being mostly concealed behind an arm that is gracefully and unselfconsciously resting upon a small table where another of the Erotes is waiting. The image thus displayed is one of pampered, idle luxury in which Venus has lost much of her sense of responsibility for her own duties as goddess and has instead given in to the material and sensual pleasures that can be had in the flesh. Despite the fact that Greek and Roman mythology no longer plays a key role in the lives of most modern world citizens, Aphrodite/Venus remains a topic of interest for artists and sculptors. Artist Nicola Russell has integrated touching soft images of her ideal Venus in several paintings. The incredible change in the ideal of feminine beauty as expressed by a female rather than a male artist is exemplified in Russell’s artwork. Rather than portraying Venus as a solid form, with a specific body type and hard outlines, Russell has opted to give her Venus the ultimate in feminine soft lines. Venus is just barely picked out of the background hues with only slightly changed hues depicting her body, a technique that allows the goddess to merge and blend herself into the image she wishes to present at any given time. Her hair could be long or short, tied or loose, dark or light. While she gives off the impression that she is a young woman, Russell’s Venus does not betray her age to any great degree, representing it more by the presence of the infant Cupid at her side than by any specific facial feature or absence of same. Additionally, Russell chooses not to focus on the body and form of Venus as much as she concentrates on the concept of Venus as the epitome of grace, beauty and love. Eventually becoming one and the same goddess, early forms of art demonstrate a distinct difference between the ideal image of woman in Greece versus the ideal image of woman in Rome as shown in the likeness of the goddesses Aphrodite and Venus. While Greece seemed to prefer women who were slightly heavier built and with a certain classic reserve, including some form of drapery upon the figure, Roman statues display a freer form that allowed for some disproportionality as well as more nudity. In addition, Roman women were depicted as being fairly slender, with highly defined muscles and more naturalistic poses. By the time the Renaissance rediscovered her beauty, Venus was transformed into a dizzying series of images that both modestly concealed her more feminine attributes as well as blatantly, challengingly displayed them before again turning her back and coyly shrouding herself with available materials. As she evolved, Venus also gained the attributes of the ideal noble woman during the colonial period, gaining a ‘pleasingly plump’ appearance and a pampered environment, even to the degree of having attendants to pick out her jewels for her as is shown in Boucher’s paintings. In the new age of feminism and equal rights, Venus has not been forgotten. Today, she is painted by women as a figure of power and grace, yet ambiguous in form and indefinable in feature. Works Cited Billinghurst, Frances. “Magick and the Planets.” Insight Magazine. January, 2003. Cotterell, Arthus. A Dictionary of World Mythology. New York: G.P. Putman’s Sons, 1980, pp. 131-33. Guerber, H.A. The Myths of Greece & Rome. London: Biblo-Moser, 1990. Lindemans, Micha F. “Venus.” Encyclopedia Mythica. (May 26, 1999). May 4, 2006 < http://www.pantheon.org/articles/v/venus.html> Miller, Iona. “The Empress.” Synergetica Qabala. (July 20, 2002). May 4, 2006 < http://zero-point.tripod.com/pantheon/Aphrodite.html> Morton, David Lawrence. Traveler’s Guide to the Great Art Treasures of Europe. Boston: G.K. Hall & Company, 1990. Russell, Nicola. Venus and Cupid. (2000). May 5, 2006 Stewart, Michael. “Aphrodite.” Greek Mythology: From the Iliad to the Fall of the Last Tyrant. (November 14, 2005). May 4, 2006 Stone, Barry. “The Pantheon.” History and Philosophy of the Ancient and Modern World. (July 31, 2005). May 4, 2006 Stone, Merlin. When God was a Woman. New York: Barnes & Noble Books, 1990. Walker, Ethan III. “Venus: Roman Goddess of Love and Beauty.” Infinite Goddess: Embracing the Divine Mother. (n.d.). May 4, 2006 < http://www.goddess.ws/venus.html> Read More