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- Herausgeber: Booksell-Verlag
- Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
- Sprache: Englisch
In "The Venus of Milo: An Archaeological Study of the Goddess of Womanhood," Paul Carus delves into the intricate interplay of art and mythology surrounding one of antiquity's most celebrated sculptures. Carus employs a meticulous scholarly approach, examining the historical context, artistic techniques, and cultural significance of the Venus of Milo, the embodiment of feminine beauty. Richly interwoven with allegorical interpretations and philosophical inquiries, this work emerges from the late 19th century's burgeoning interest in archaeology and classical art, reflecting the era's desire to connect modernity with the chronological depth of human civilization. Paul Carus (1852-1919), a significant figure in the realm of philosophy and science, was a staunch advocate for the integration of Eastern and Western thought. His expertise in comparative religions and philosophy likely informed his fascination with the Venus of Milo, viewing it not merely as a work of art but as a lens into the spiritual and existential queries that define humanity. Carus's approach reveals a preoccupation with the goddess's representation of womanhood and its implications in various cultural narratives. I highly recommend "The Venus of Milo" to scholars, art enthusiasts, and anyone intrigued by the profound connections between art, gender, and cultural anthropology. Carus's compelling analysis provides not just an exploration of a key artistic artifact but also a reflective dialogue on the ideals of beauty and femininity that persist through time. In this enriched edition, we have carefully created added value for your reading experience: - A succinct Introduction situates the work's timeless appeal and themes. - The Synopsis outlines the central plot, highlighting key developments without spoiling critical twists. - A detailed Historical Context immerses you in the era's events and influences that shaped the writing. - A thorough Analysis dissects symbols, motifs, and character arcs to unearth underlying meanings. - Reflection questions prompt you to engage personally with the work's messages, connecting them to modern life. - Hand‐picked Memorable Quotes shine a spotlight on moments of literary brilliance. - Interactive footnotes clarify unusual references, historical allusions, and archaic phrases for an effortless, more informed read.
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Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2019
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The Venus of Milo: an archeological study of the goddess of womanhood
Table of Contents
Introduction
A fragment of marble becomes a mirror for humanity’s shifting ideals, and in its silent grace The Venus of Milo: an archeological study of the goddess of womanhood pursues how an ancient image of divinity came to embody enduring questions about beauty, power, and the feminine.
Paul Carus’s study belongs to the realm of nonfiction that bridges archaeology, art history, and cultural interpretation, written in the early twentieth century when classical antiquity’s meanings were being actively reconsidered by scholars and a broader reading public. Anchored in the famed statue commonly called the Venus de Milo and the ancient figure of Aphrodite, the book situates a single masterpiece within a wide conversation about origins, symbolism, and reception. Carus, known for interdisciplinary work that linked philosophy, religion, and science, brings a methodical yet accessible sensibility to a subject that straddles material evidence and the history of ideas.
Readers encounter a guided inquiry rather than a predetermined verdict. The premise is straightforward: to examine what can be learned about the statue and the goddess it represents by weighing physical features, historical testimony, and comparative context. Carus’s voice is measured, attentive to competing interpretations without sensationalism. The mood is investigative and contemplative, inviting patient observation over easy certainty. The experience is that of a thoughtful museum visit extended onto the page, where the object’s surface details open into questions about origin, purpose, and meaning, and where scholarly restraint frames—rather than forecloses—the reader’s own interpretive engagement.
At the heart of the book are themes that remain resonant: the making of an ideal of womanhood, the role of myth in shaping cultural memory, and the boundary between reverence for ancient beauty and critical historical understanding. The Venus de Milo becomes a case study in how fragments acquire authority, how absence generates imagination, and how scholarly narratives can guide or mislead public perception. Carus explores the tension between timeless aesthetic admiration and the historian’s obligation to context, asking how material remains inform, constrain, or complicate the stories cultures tell about divinity and the human body.
These concerns matter today because the questions they pose have not receded: Who defines beauty, and to what ends? How do museums, scholarship, and popular media construct the feminine ideal? What responsibilities attend the interpretation of artifacts that have become global symbols? Carus’s focus on evidence, reception, and argumentation models a way of reading images that is both rigorous and humane. In inviting readers to reflect on uncertainty as an integral part of knowledge, the book cultivates intellectual humility and critical empathy, offering tools to navigate contemporary debates about representation, heritage, and the power of cultural icons.
Methodologically, the study moves through careful description, contextualization within ancient Greek traditions, and comparative analysis with related depictions of the goddess. Carus draws on available archaeological reporting of his period, classical references, and stylistic reasoning to map the range of plausible interpretations without collapsing them into a single definitive claim. The emphasis falls on how arguments are built—what counts as evidence, how assumptions are tested, and where the limits of inference lie. This disciplined approach lets the reader see the scaffolding of scholarship, transforming a celebrated artwork from passive object of admiration into an active partner in historical inquiry.
Taken together, The Venus of Milo: an archeological study of the goddess of womanhood offers a lucid, historically minded meditation on beauty and belief that reaches beyond a single statue to the larger pattern of how cultures invest images with meaning. It is both an introduction for curious readers and a reflective companion for those already familiar with classical art. Without overpromising certainty, Carus provides clarity, perspective, and a sense of measured wonder. The result is a work that honors the past while sharpening present understanding, inviting readers to look more closely—and think more carefully—about what we see and why it matters.
Synopsis
Paul Carus presents The Venus of Milo as an archaeological and iconographic inquiry into one of the most renowned sculptures of antiquity. He sets out to examine the statue’s discovery, authorship, date, identity, and original pose, grounding each topic in documentary records and material evidence. Carus frames the work neither as pure aesthetic praise nor as speculative mythography, but as a critical study of sources, comparative statues, and technical details. He emphasizes that the figure, commonly called Venus or Aphrodite, attained emblematic status for ideals of womanhood, and he aims to clarify how that association arose. The book advances step by step, following the historical and scholarly trail surrounding the statue.
The narrative begins with the 1820 find on the island of Melos, where a farmer uncovered marble fragments in a terraced niche. Carus compiles early testimonies from local witnesses, French naval officers, and antiquarians concerning the recovery and shipment of the statue to France. He recounts the loss of certain associated pieces, notably a base block reported to bear an inscription, as well as fragments of the arms. These early circumstances quickly shaped the object’s fame and mystery. Carus stresses the importance of primary accounts, sketches, and inventories from the time of discovery to reconstruct what was present on site and what later reached the Louvre.
Authorship and date occupy a central portion of Carus’s study. He reviews claims that an inscription once recorded the name Alexandros of Antioch, which, if accepted, would place the work in the Hellenistic period rather than the classical era of Praxiteles. Stylistic analysis also informs his evaluation: the treatment of drapery, the torso’s rhythm, and the head’s proportions are compared with securely dated examples. Carus outlines the competing positions that favor a fourth century prototype versus a later execution, noting how later scholars addressed the now-missing base. He ultimately weighs the combined textual and stylistic evidence as pointing toward a Hellenistic origin.
Carus next considers the figure’s identity. While the Louvre designation as Aphrodite became standard, alternatives such as Amphitrite or a local sea goddess have been proposed, given the island context. He collects arguments from local cult history and numismatic evidence, including Melian coins that depict Aphrodite with an apple, an attribute echoing the Judgment of Paris. The sculptural type’s partial drapery and serene yet sensuous bearing are assessed against known goddess types. Carus treats the Aphrodite identification as the most consistent with the documented parallels and archaeological context, though he sets out the counterarguments to show where uncertainties originally arose.
The question of the missing arms prompts a detailed assessment of pose. Carus reviews early reports of hand fragments said to hold an apple, later lost, and considers whether such testimony accords with surviving breaks and support points. He surveys reconstruction hypotheses, including a left hand presenting an apple and a right hand adjusting drapery, versus the influential suggestion that the goddess leaned on a shield, akin to the Capuan Aphrodite type. Carus compares dowel traces, weight distribution, and the torso’s twist with analogous statues. He presents the apple hypothesis as archaeologically economical, while acknowledging the enduring appeal of the shield scenario among some scholars.
Comparative analysis with other Aphrodite types strengthens Carus’s argumentation. He contrasts the Venus of Milo with the Cnidian type, the Medici and Capitoline Venuses, and Hellenistic variants such as the Capuan form. Differences in contrapposto, garment handling, and head carriage help situate the Milo figure within a family of designs that balanced modesty with display. Carus underscores how subtle morphological features, like the helical fall of drapery over the hips or the neck’s inclination, contribute to dating and identification. By mapping continuities and divergences, he shows how the statue embodies a late classical ideal filtered through Hellenistic taste and technical refinement.
Having established context, Carus turns to meaning. He discusses the goddess as an embodiment of womanhood, where beauty, fertility, and affection are integrated with dignity and restraint. Without venturing into speculative symbolism, he situates Aphrodite within Greek humanism while briefly noting broader Mediterranean precedents that shaped later receptions. The Milo figure’s power, he suggests, lies in balancing sensual vitality with poise, an equilibrium evident in the sculptural design rather than in lost attributes alone. Carus presents this as an archaeological conclusion: the formal language of the statue communicates its theme, and the surviving marble suffices to express the type’s intended ideal.
Carus also examines the modern reception that elevated the Venus of Milo to a cultural icon. He recounts nineteenth century debates over authorship, script, and national prestige surrounding the statue’s acquisition and display in the Louvre. Casts, photographs, and didactic reproductions propagated a canonical status that sometimes preceded secure scholarly consensus. Carus catalogs major scholarly positions, noting where arguments depend on lost elements and where they rely on extant features. He maintains a measured tone, separating documented facts from conjecture, and uses the reception history to illustrate how reputation can shape interpretation, even as archaeological method seeks to discipline such tendencies.
The book concludes by synthesizing evidence into a cautious, coherent profile. Carus favors identification as Aphrodite, likely of Hellenistic date, plausibly connected with an Alexandros inscription once reported but now lost. Among pose reconstructions, he finds the apple hypothesis consistent with the physical and iconographic record, while acknowledging unresolved details. Above all, he emphasizes the value of treating the Venus of Milo as an archaeological problem: a convergence of discovery records, stylistic analysis, and comparative study. The statue’s enduring resonance, he suggests, derives from its successful articulation of womanhood’s ideal form, conveyed through craft and type rather than through speculative restorations.
Historical Context
Paul Carus’s The Venus of Milo: an archeological study of the goddess of womanhood appeared in 1916 through Open Court Publishing in La Salle, Illinois. Although a scholarly monograph, its “setting” spans two spheres: the Hellenistic Aegean world in which the statue originated, and nineteenth‑century Europe and America where it was collected, displayed, and debated. The physical locus is the Louvre in Paris, where the Venus de Milo has stood since 1821–1822; the intellectual locus is the transatlantic network of museums, archaeological schools, and journals that matured between 1840 and 1910. Carus writes from the Progressive Era, embedding ancient evidence within contemporary scientific historicism and comparative religious inquiry.
On 8 April 1820, the farmer Yorgos Kentrotas uncovered marble fragments in a niche amid ruins near the ancient theatre above the harbor of Klima on the island of Milos (then under Ottoman rule). The French naval officer Olivier Voutier witnessed the find; Lieutenant Jules Dumont d’Urville and the French vice‑consul Louis Brest helped secure negotiations. The Marquis de Rivière, French ambassador to the Porte, purchased the sculpture for King Louis XVIII, who presented it to the Louvre. Crated from Milos via Constantinople and Marseille, it reached Paris in 1821 and was exhibited by 1822. Carus retraces these circumstances to ground his analysis in verifiable provenance.
After the Congress of Vienna (1815) forced France to restitute masterpieces such as the Venus de’ Medici, the acquisition of the Milos statue in 1821 became a matter of national prestige. Displayed as a new emblem of French taste, its missing arms spurred competing reconstructions in the 1820s–1860s, many proposing an apple in the left hand to signify Aphrodite after the Judgment of Paris. Nineteenth‑century reports mention an inscribed plinth naming Alexandros of Antioch and dating the work to the late second century BCE; the base was subsequently lost, fueling controversy over authorship and period. Carus evaluates these claims, weighing Hellenistic stylistic diagnostics against patriotic narratives.
Carus situates the statue in the socio‑political matrix of the Hellenistic Cyclades, ca. 150–125 BCE, when Milos navigated between Macedonian successor powers and an ascendant Rome. The nearby sacred and commercial hub of Delos was declared a free port in 166 BCE, enriching Cycladic workshops and circulating iconographic models across the Aegean. Aphrodite’s civic cults, prominent at Knidos and elsewhere, provided established types that the Milos figure adapts: semi‑draped, monumental, and poised for interaction with an attribute. By reconstructing this milieu—local marble sources, sanctuary dedications, and island trade—Carus argues that “womanhood” here is not abstract idealism but a polis‑embedded religious image.
Between 1846 and 1900, archaeology became an institutional science: the École française d’Athènes (1846), the German Archaeological Institute’s Athens department (1874), and the British School at Athens (1886) standardized training; excavations at Pergamon (1878–1886, Carl Humann) and Troy (1870s, Heinrich Schliemann) expanded Hellenic horizons; and stratigraphic method advanced under Flinders Petrie in the 1890s. Museums multiplied casts and comparative displays. Carus, editor of The Open Court (founded 1887) and The Monist (1890), adopts this climate’s empiricism—typology, measured drawings, and cross‑cultural parallels—framing his study as archaeological rather than purely aesthetic. The book mirrors the period’s confidence that rigorous method could resolve attribution, date, and function.
The statue’s modern biography unfolded during the Greek War of Independence (1821–1830), when philhellenism mobilized European elites. Lord Byron’s death at Missolonghi in 1824 and London fundraising committees dramatized the cause; the London Protocols and the Treaty of Constantinople (1832) recognized an independent Greek kingdom. Philhellenic sentiment intensified demand for Greek antiquities in Paris, London, and Berlin, embedding them in nation‑building narratives. Carus notes how the Venus became a touchstone in this climate—celebrated in France yet emblematic of Greek heritage—and he leverages this duality to discuss ownership, cultural identity, and the risks of reading ancient religion through nineteenth‑century nationalist optics.
Carus’s intellectual milieu also included Progressive‑Era debates on science, religion, and gender. Open Court Publishing, founded by Edward C. Hegeler in 1887 in La Salle, Illinois, promoted monism and the “religion of science”; Carus’s The Monist (from 1890) advanced comparative ethics. In the United States, the women’s rights movement—from the 1848 Seneca Falls Convention to the formation of NAWSA in 1890 and the 1916 birth‑control activism of Margaret Sanger—recast “womanhood” as a political question. Beaux‑Arts classicism at the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition popularized ideal female forms. Carus’s reading of Aphrodite as a historical religious type engages, often critically, these contemporaneous efforts to fix feminine norms.
Read against its era, the book doubles as a critique of cultural nationalism and gender essentialism. By prioritizing provenance, epigraphy, and Hellenistic context over patriotic myth, Carus challenges the Louvre‑centered claim to define universal beauty and, implicitly, the imperial collecting that enabled such claims. His insistence that Aphrodite’s image reflects specific civic cults and social functions exposes the anachronism of Victorian moralizing about the female body. Moreover, by publishing in an educational series aimed at general readers, Carus contests class barriers to specialized knowledge, advocating a cosmopolitan stewardship of antiquities and a historically grounded, non‑dogmatic discourse on womanhood and religion.
The Venus of Milo: an archeological study of the goddess of womanhood
THE DISCOVERY OF A RARE ART TREASURE.
MELOS (Italian Milo), one of the smallest Greek islands, would scarcely be known at all except to specialists in geography or ancient history, had not a happy accident brought to light on one of its hillsides that most beautiful piece of sculpture which ever since its discovery has been known as the Venus of Milo.
Melon means apple, and the island of Melos (the “apple island”) belongs to the Cyclades, being the most southern and western member of that group. It lies almost straight west from the southern tip of the Peloponnesus and in a direction south to south-west from Athens.
Melos was inhabited in ancient times by Dorians who sympathized with Sparta against Athens, but when the Athenians conquered it after a most stubborn resistance they slaughtered the entire Dorian male population and replaced them by Athenian colonists. Since then the island remained absolutely faithful to Athens, in fact it was the last possession which still belonged to Athens when the Ionian confederacy broke up, and the friendly relations between Melos and her metropolis continued even after Greece had become a Roman province.
THE FIELD OF YORGOS BOTTONIS[1].
Cross shows where the Venus was found. (From the Century Magazine, 1881, Vol. I, p. 99.)
On this island of Melos, a peasant by the name of Yorgos Bottonis and his son Antonio, while clearing away the stones near the ruins of an ancient theater in the vicinity of Castro, the capital of the island, came accidentally across a small underground cave, carefully covered with a heavy slab and concealed, which contained a fine marble statue in two pieces, together with several other marble fragments. This happened in February, 1820.
The Rev. Oiconomos, the village priest who guided the finder in this matter, invited M. Louis Brest[2], the French consul of Melos, to see the statue and offered it to him (in March of the same year) for 20,000 francs. M. Brest does not seem to have been in a hurry to buy, but he claims to have written to the French minister at Constantinople. One thing is sure, no answer had come by April when His French Majesty’s good ship “Chevrette[3]” happened to cast anchor in the harbor at Melos and an ensign on board, Monsieur Dumont d’Urville, went to see the statue. The inability to sell it had brought the price down, and the finder was willing to part with it to the young Frenchman for only 1200 francs. M. d’Urville was more energetic than M. Brest and as soon as he reached Constantinople the French Minister at once authorized a certain Count Marcellus[5], a member of the French embassy, to go to Melos and procure the statue.
Count Marcellus arrived on the French vessel “Estafette” in May, but found that the statue in the meantime had been sold to a certain Nikolai Morusi for 4800 francs and had just been placed aboard a little brig bound for Constantinople, the home of the buyer. At this juncture the three Frenchmen, M. Brest, M. d’Urville and Count Marcellus, decided not to let their treasure so easily escape them, so M. Brest protested before the Turkish authorities that the bargain had been concluded, declaring that Bottonis had no right to sell his prize to any other party. They even threatened to use force and, being backed by the French mariners of the “Estafette,” said that under no conditions would they allow the statue to leave the harbor.
While the three Frenchmen claimed that France was entitled to have the statue for 1200 francs they were willing to pay not only 4800 francs, the price promised by Morusi, but 6000 francs. The new buyer had not yet paid and so the peasant was satisfied with the cash offered him, while the Turkish authorities did not care either way. Thus it came to pass that the valuable marble was transferred to the French warship on May 25, 1820, (so at least runs the original report without the fantastic story of a battle) and after much cruising was carried to Constantinople where it was placed on the “Lionne,” another French ship bound for France and destined to bring home the French Minister, Marquis de Rivière. The “Lionne” reached France in October, 1820, and the statue was delivered at the Louvre in February, 1821.
DUMONT D’URVILLE’S REPORT.
THE most important passage of Dumont d’Urville’s report[1] about the discovery of the statue reads in an English translation thus:
“The Chevrette set sail from Toulon on April 3 (1820) in the morning, and anchored on the sixteenth in the roadstead of Milo....
“On the 19th I went to look at some antique pieces discovered at Milo a few days before our arrival. Since they seem to me worthy of attention I shall here record the result of my observation in some detail....
“About three weeks before our arrival at Milo a Greek peasant digging in his field ... came across some stones of considerable size. As these stones ... had a certain value, this consideration encouraged him to dig still further, and so he succeeded in clearing out a sort of recess in which he found a marble statue together with two hermae[4] and some other pieces, likewise of marble.
THE SITE OF MELOS FROM THE PORT.
White cross shows where the Venus was found. (From the Century Magazine, 1881, Vol. I, p. 99)
“The statue was in two pieces joined in the middle by two small iron tenons. Fearing he would lose the fruit of his toil, the Greek had the upper part of the two hermae carried away and deposited in a stable. The rest were left in the cave. I examined all very carefully, and the various pieces seemed to me in good taste, as far as my slight acquaintance with the arts permitted me to judge of them.
“I measured the two parts of the statue separately and found it very nearly six feet in height; it represented a nude woman whose left hand was raised and held an apple, and the right supported a garment draped in easy folds and falling carelessly from her loins to her feet. Both hands have been mutilated and are actually detached from the body. The hair is coiled in the back and held up by a bandeau. The face is very beautiful and well preserved except that the tip of the nose is injured. The only remaining foot is bare; the ears have been pierced and may have contained pendants.
“All these attributes would seem to agree well enough with the Venus of the judgment of Paris; but in that case where would be Juno, Minerva and the handsome shepherd? It is true that a foot clad in a cothurnus and a third hand were found at the same time. On the other hand the name of the Island Melos has a very close connection with the word μῆλον which means apple. Might not this similarity of the words have indicated the statue by its principal attribute?
