The idea for this series of Venuses is to put famous classic Venuses from throughout Western civilization into a contemporary setting and to add modern Venuses of our own time, to see how our ideal of feminine beauty has changed.
Venus, the Roman Goddess of Love was the equivalent of the Greek goddess Aphrodite and has been one of the most important role models for women from antiquity all the way up to the 21st Century.
In antiquity everyone knew the mythology around Venus. The sagas of how she made others fall in love with her or how she made men and gods fall in love with each other with often disastrous results were the stuff of legend. The Trojan war was one such result of her interference.
In our time the power of mass media like newspapers, photography, film and television ensures we constantly see many beautiful celebrities so that we look to the world of and popular culture for our modern female icons: I will call them our modern Venuses.
The name Venus is still the symbol we use for the ideal of feminine beauty, but what do we mean by this ideal in our time?
Apart from sculptures we have a late Roman literary description of what the ideal classical Venus looked like: she had a full curvaceous figure, blonde hair, a high forehead, a rounded milk-white neck, and a pale and clear complexion with a delicate blush which provided the best setting for wearing gold and jewels. The few Greek statues and the many later Roman copies that we know of Aphrodite or Venus were usually tinted and adorned with jewellery. On feast days the jewellery was taken off and the statue bathed in water.
The goddess Venus is often shown when she is taking a bath and she is often looking up as if suddenly disturbed. This makes her look very human. The ritual bath of Venus also had a special significance in her cult of goddess of sexual love though. Bathing itself had a sexual connotation in antiquity, but the bath also cleanses, purifies and restores the body and makes it beautiful to behold.
In our day the world of gods has been replaced by the world of celebrities. The stars of the world of popular culture, of music, film and fashion are icons whom are continuously kept in our eye by an ever attentive mass media.
Unlike Classical Venus, Modern Venus makes her own fortune however, she is a business woman and has her own retinue of advisors and assistants. We look up to her not merely for her beauty but also for her talent and success.
We show a near insatiable desire to know every little detail about our celebrities and we gossip about them and their triumphs, but also their problems, troubles and social faux-pas. As in the case of the ancient Venus, our celebrities are like us and they are not always impeccably behaved. Many of our Modern Venuses can be said to have serious moral and behavioural issues.
Compared to classic Venus our contemporary Venuses are under more pressure regarding their looks. They often have to satisfy quite punishing contemporary ideals of thinness and youthfulness and they have to stand out from or have an edge over the competition.
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