Description
Although the Aphrodite of Milos is widely renowned for the mystery of her missing arms enough evidence remains to prove that the right arm of the statue was lowered across the torso with the right hand resting on her raised left knee so it would seem to hold the sliding drapery wrapped around the hips and legs in place. There is a filled hole below her right breast that originally contained a metal tenon that would have supported the separately carved right arm.
The left arm was held out below the eye level of the statue, above a herm and held an apple. The right side of the statue is worked more carefully and finished in greater detail than the left side or back, indicating that the statue was intended to be viewed in profile from its right. The left hand would have held the apple up into the air further back inside the niche the statue was set in. When the left hand was still attached, it would have been clear to an observer that the goddess was looking at the apple she held up in her left hand.
The statue would have been painted, as was the Greek custom for statuary, adorned with jewellery, and positioned in a niche inside a gymnasium. The painting of the statue along with the bedecking in jewellery were intended to make it appear more lifelike. Today, all traces of any paint have disappeared and the only signs of the armbands, necklace, earrings and crown are attachment holes.
The twisting stance and strong projection of the knee, as well as the rich, three-dimensional quality of the drapery, are typical of Hellenistic art of the third century BC and later. Moreover, the sensuous juxtaposition of flesh with the texture of drapery, which seems about to slip off the figure, adds an insistent note of erotic tension that is thoroughly Hellenistic in concept and intent.
Read more about this topic: Venus De Milo
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