Venus de Milo (sculpture)
The Venus de Milo is a renowned ancient Greek sculpture representing Aphrodite, the goddess of love. Discovered in 1820 by a Greek peasant on the island of Milos, the statue is notable for its lack of arms, which are believed to have been lost over time. The sculpture is draped in a towel around its hips and has become a symbol of beauty and artistic achievement. Despite its artistic significance, the Venus de Milo has faced various censorship challenges due to its nudity, leading to public controversies in different cultural contexts. For instance, in the 1850s, reproductions of the statue were censored in Germany, and similar reactions occurred in places like New York and Hungary over the years. The statue's representation has sparked debates about art, modesty, and cultural perceptions, illustrating the complexities surrounding the display of nudity in art. Today, the Venus de Milo is housed in the Louvre Museum in Paris, where it continues to attract visitors and provoke discussions about beauty and the human form.
Venus de Milo (sculpture)
Type of work: Sculpture
Date: Created around 130 b.c.e.; discovered in 1820
Sculptor: Unknown
Subject matter: Marble statue of the goddess of love and beauty from Greek and Roman mythology
Significance: This sculpture has been subjected to censorship efforts because of its nude torso
Venus de Milo, the armless sculpture of the Greek love goddess, Aphrodite, received its modern name when it was discovered by a Greek peasant on the island of Milos. Fragments of arms and a pedestal were found at the same time, but have since disappeared. Since then the statue has been a victim of numerous censorship attempts, primarily because of its nudity. It is clothed only in a towel draped about its hips. In 1853, for example, a reproduction of Venus de Milo was tried for nudity in Mannheim, Germany, and was condemned. March, 1911, brought further criticism when Alderman John Sullivan of Buffalo, New York, wanted a copy of the statue covered or removed from public view. The 1920’s found a reproduction of Venus on Palmolive soap labels, but with a white patch across its breasts. Hungarian police banned its picture from store windows around this same time.
In 1852 the Cyprus Tourist Office used the Venus on travel posters it sent to Kuwait. Kuwait’s Sheik Abdullah al Salimal Sebah banned the posters because the figure lacked arms. The sheik was concerned that Kuwaitis would assume that Cypriot women were all hardened criminals when they saw the mutilated female figure. Censorship continued into 1955 when Indiana firemen discovered a full-scale replica of Venus covered with a robe of poison ivy. A midwestern shopping mall refused to allow Venus de Milo to be displayed in shop window in the early 1990’s.