Topic Essay Question #1

ESSAY #1c
COMPARE & CONTRAST – Mother Earth, Fertility, Love and More?

QUESTION: Describe the functional purpose of the Venus of Willendorf and the Venus De Milo. How is their imagery similar? How is it different? Find a third Venus example to compare and contrast these two to and describe why you selected it.

PART 1

SUMMARY:  This question helped me realize that the female form is the international symbol of fertility.  Its just that over time that symbol changed from being curvy to being thin and slender.


REASON:  I think that the main reason for answering this question was to gain insight on how the female form and fertility have always been around and play a big role in art.

PURPOSE:  The purpose was to show me how fertility and the female form was used a lot in art and hasn't changed much over the years.
DIRECTION:  It has shown me that the female form is still just as important to art today as it was back then but now being thin and not as plump is what is considered beautiful.


IMPRESSION: The biggest one for me was realizing the dates in which all of these pieces were made and how little the concept changed, that was cool.


PART 2
In the times of old, women were looked upon to be a symbol of fertility and motherhood. They often were full figured and considered to be beautiful. Which is much different than how we as a society see women today. us looking at models that look so thin that if a wind was to come by that they might just fall over. This is what I'm going to talk about, the images of the Venus of Willendorf, the Venus De Milo and also the painting The Birth of Venus, and how they all relate and or don't relate to each other.

The Venus of Willendorf is a clear image of fertility, just based off of her curves alone. The Venus of Willendorf was found in 1908 by the archeologist Josef Szombathy, she is only four and three eights inches tall and is made from a type of limestone,  it is said that she was made sometime between 24,000 and 22,000 BCE. (http://arthistoryresources.net/willendorf/willendorfdiscovery.html) When she is compared to the Venus De Milo who I have personally seen while in the Lourve in Paris there is not much that is diffrent between them. The first thing that comes to mind is that the Venus De Milo or aka Aphrodite of Melos (Art History, 4th Edition, M. Stokstad/M.W. Cothren, p. 157) has a face unlike the Venus of Willendorf. Also taking into account that the Venus De Milo is the goddess Aphrodite, who is known to be the goddess of love. "Aphrodite was found on the island of Milos by French excavators in the early nineteenth century."(Art History, 4th Edition, M. Stokstad/M.W. Cothren, p. 156) The Venus De Milo is also somewhat clothed with "the rich three-dimensionality of the drapery" (Art History, 4th Edition, M. Stokstad/M.W. Cothren, p. 157) that is around her waist. Her stance is also something to be looked at since you don't see people pose in this way all the time it gives her an erotic feeling since the drapes are falling off of her body. (Art History, 4th Edition, M. Stokstad/M.W. Cothren, p. 156)  She is also quite tall standing at 6' 8" and is made from marble.  It is believed that she was made somewhere between 150 and 100 BCE.  (Art History, 4th Edition, M. Stokstad/M.W. Cothren, p. 157)

The Venus that I picked is the painting called The Birth of Venus which was made by Sandro Botticelli in 1486.(http://suzannehill.suite101.com/meaning_in_the_birth_of_venus-a17743) The main reason that I picked her as my Venus was because my art mentor talked about how much she had to talk about it in her art history class, so I thought that I would put it in here for her.  The painting has the same elements of the Venus De Milo and also the Venus of Willendorf.  The Birth of Venus painting has the same dreamy gaze and twisted stance as the Venus De Milo(Art History, 4th Edition, M. Stokstad/M.W. Cothren, p. 157) in my opinion.  Instead of cloth to cover her she has her hair that has the same quality's.