Antiquity
According to Greek mythology, Aphrodite was born as an adult woman from the sea, which also perpetually renewed her virginity. A motif of the goddess wringing out her hair is often repeated. The subject was often repeated in Antiquity, a fourth-century sculptural representation from a Gallo-Roman villa in Aquitania (Louvre) testifying to the motif's continued viability in Late Antiquity.
Apelles' painting was brought to Rome, but was in badly damaged condition by the time of Pliny: listing Apelles' best paintings, he noted " Venus emerging from the sea, dedicated by the late Augustus of blessed memory in the shrine of Caesar his father, which is called "The Anadyomene", praised in Greek verses like other works, conquered by time but undimmed in fame."
The image of Venus Anadyomene is one of the very few images that survived in Western Europe in its classical appearance, from Antiquity into the High Middle Ages. Jean Seznec instances two images of Venus among constellations illustrating 14th-century Provençal manuscripts of Matfre Ermengau of Béziers' Breviari d'amor, in which Venus is represented nude in the sea: "This extraordinary conservatism may perhaps be explained by the fact that the culture of the last pagan centuries remained alive longer in Provence than elsewhere."
Read more about this topic: Venus Anadyomene
Famous quotes containing the word antiquity:
“We do not associate the idea of antiquity with the ocean, nor wonder how it looked a thousand years ago, as we do of the land, for it was equally wild and unfathomable always. The Indians have left no traces on its surface, but it is the same to the civilized man and the savage. The aspect of the shore only has changed.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“How do you know antiquity was foolish? How do you know the present is wise? Who made it foolish? Who made it wise?”
—François Rabelais (1494–1553)
“We gladly put antiquity above our age but not posterity. Only a father doesn’t begrudge his son’s talent.”
—Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe (1749–1832)