In a number of recent posts I’ve argued for the impact of book illustrations in shaping our reactions to and impressions and memories of literary works. I suggest that this influence derives in part from the experience of reading a book in conjunction with the illustrations provided with it, as the mental pictures evoked by the words are moulded and directed by the accompanying plates. Separately, though, images on their own have a power to create abiding impressions, a process which we often take for granted.
Various great paintings have become iconic because of the memorable quality of the scene or figure represented and because, over time, that image has come to be the sole way in which we are able to conceive of the subject. Repetition naturally entrenches this, making it ‘natural’ or ‘inevitable’ to imagine the subject in this manner or form. Botticelli’s Birth of Venus has embedded a particular perception of that goddess; the same could very well be said for our mental images of Jesus and Mary, which owe a great deal to the constant repetition of a particular look by Renaissance painters such as Fra Angelico, Raphael and Perugino.
What about literary characters? Once again, the book illustrator is proved to wield considerable power and influence. Is it possible to imagine Lewis Carroll‘s Alice without John Tenniel? He fixed the clothes and the hair for evermore. The same might be said of E H Shepard’s Piglet. The Walt Disney cartoon versions of these characters may be what most people now initially imagine, but they were drawn from the originals.
It might be significant that my last two examples came from children’s literature; the young reader is likely to be especially impressionable and well composed images could well have a greater chance of being absorbed. Confirmation of this appears to come from the Flower Fairy series of books by the English artist Cicely Mary Barker. Recent research has demonstrated how adults raised on these books are now inclined to believe that this species of fairies actually exists. As a result of this, individuals they shape their expectations of what a fairy would look like, if seen, to the ‘canonical’ form of Barker’s paintings. Never mind that the fairies were modelled by little girls attending Barker’s sister’s nursery in their garden in Croydon, dressed up in outfits they’d made themselves: her fairies are now, for many, what real fairies look like.
Images absorbed at an early age are highly influential but, even for adults, seeing can very often be more powerful than reading and imagining alone. The role of Disney films in shaping perceptions has already been mentioned: I’d suggest that Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings series has now indelibly affected the way that generations will conceive of Legolas (and elves generally), hobbits, orcs and so on; equally, can Jane Austen’s Mr Darcy ever now be separated from Colin Firth in a wet shirt? Perhaps during the last fifty to seventy years the cinematic image has displaced the artistic in determining how we feel about and remember dialogue and narrative, but that does not detract from my fundamental argument- that image and word combined reinforce each other. Hence my interest in the illustrated editions of the works of Pierre Louys in particular, and a broader interest in the partnership and interplay between art and literature as found in fine art, limited editions of books.
The Renaissance of Venus (1877) Walter Crane Tate Gallery
The painters of the Symbolist movement were particularly keen upon classical mythological scenes and made good use of the many gods, goddesses and other beings. Aphrodite and her sisters appear quite frequently in pictures. The Birth of Venus is a common scene, sometimes presented in slavish imitation of Botticelli, as is the case with Walter Crane’s canvas of 1877, The Renaissance of Venus. Doves flutter past, myrtle (a plant sacred to Aphrodite) sprouts on the shore and the naked goddess tries to control her billowing hair, whilst looking down demurely to one side. Venus is an attractive young woman, but with quite a muscular frame. We might suppose that Crane wished to represent the intersex aspect of the goddess, but in fact the story goes that his wife objected to him working from naked female models, so he painted instead from an Italian called Alessandro di Marco, a young man popular with many London artists. Allegedly Lord Leighton spotted Alessandro’s physique adapted to become Aphrodite when the picture was first exhibited at the Grosvenor Gallery. Far less inspired is the image of Venus’ Mirror included below, in which Crane’s goddess seems no more than a Victorian lady admiring herself- though admittedly she may be suffering something of a wardrobe malfunction.
Crane, The Mirror of Venus (or, Art and Life)
French painter Gustave Moreau created some comparably conventional pictures: in his Birth of Venus (Venus Appearing to Fishermen) a similar long-haired, slender and youthful blonde emerges from the waves to receive the fishermen’s obeisance, whilst The Birth of Venus/ Naissance de Venus is an even more slavish copy of Botticelli and others. More original is his Venus Rising from the Sea (1866), in which the goddess appears, arms outstretched to support her voluminous locks, whilst attendants offer her pearls and coral. Moreau’s vision of the goddess is always rather pallid and insipid, though, lacking Aphrodite’s energy and power.
Moreau
In contrast, Odilon Redon offers several sensually glowing visions of the same divine birth. The bright pink body of the goddess is revealed within a rosy heart of a shell, as if emerging from a womb (1866 and two from 1912). In a third canvas, dating from 1910, she sits at ease in a deep red shell, watching the breaking waves. In a fourth scene, also from 1912, she floats ashore in a giant nautilus shell. Redon’s images, with their flesh pink tones and the emphasis upon the oyster-like shell, are expressly sensual. One of the ancient symbols of the goddess was the scallop shell, a reference to her birth from the shell as we see in Botticelli and in Moreau’s Naissance, but it also signified the female genitalia and emphasised the goddess’ sexual nature. Indeed, in the play Rudens by Roman author Plautus, two girls who are devoted to the goddess are described as conchas, shells: this term seems to have a double meaning.
Redon, Birth of Venus, 1912
Redon, Birth of Venus, 1912
Swiss Arnold Böcklin is known for his classical scenes, in which he regularly portrayed mythical beings such as sirens, nymphs, centaurs and fauns. He also tackled Venus’ birth several times. His Venus Anadyomene (born of the waves), painted in 1872, is carried across the sea by a monstrous dolphin (another animal closely linked to the goddess in her marine aspects), whilst little cupids with butterfly wings flutter above her head, holding gauzy draperies around her. A Birth of Venus from 1869 rehearses the same scene, but with only a couple of cupids and the goddess’ robes merging into what resembles a waterspout arising from the waves. Another such picture, also called the Green Venus, portrays the goddess walking on water.
Böcklin, Venus Anadyomene
Nearly all of Böcklin’s goddesses seem to be the same staid-looking Germanic matron, who is largely devoid of sexual frisson. This is especially the case with his triptych Venus Genitrix (the mother of the (Roman) people ) of 1895. This version of the goddess attracted official worship under the Caesars in Rome in order to promote maternal qualities and, in addition, to underline Julian family claims to descent from her. Böcklin’s Venus is a respectable wife- who plays a triangle (?)- and is seen with her husband and her children (although the bare bottomed Eros/ Cupid is- admittedly- somewhat at odds with this overall tone. I assume he’s there to bring the two young lovers together). If so, Böcklin’s Venus Dispatching Love of 1901 depicts a slightly earlier episode from this love story. In this image, a rather more voluptuous and wanton Venus is seen reclining beneath a myrtle, sending her son to bring trouble in mortals’ lives.
Venus Dispatching Love, 1901
Sexuality was never far from the work of Aubrey Beardsley (1872-98). His Venus Between Two Terminal Gods (1895) depicts the goddess wearing a long, off-the-shoulder dress, with dark, tousled hair. She faces the viewer impassively, sternly even, as a dove glides in front of her. The statues on either side hold pan-pipes and carry baskets overflowing with fruit on their heads. This is a respectable, slightly intimidating deity, whereas in Eros and Aphrodite, she is blatantly the harlot queen of physical love. We see her from behind, wearing only knee length stockings and reaching between her legs. Eros powders between her buttocks and thighs with a large soft brush, at the same time sporting a large erection; it appears as though they are both getting rather excited by the titivations. The indications of incest- and of a prostitute preparing herself for a client- are typical of Beardsley’s taste. Nonetheless, they are very much in the tradition of Bronzino and the mythology as well.
Symbolist style was adopted by society portraitist John Singer Sargent when he was asked to provide murals for Boston public library. His cycle, titled The Triumph of Religion, covers Egyptian and Assyrian religion as well Bible scenes portraying Judaism and Christianity. The work on the cylce, which is still to be found on the hallway of the third floor of the McKim Building, occupied Sargent between 1890 and 1919.
Astarte, John Singer Sargent
Amongst the pagan gods the artist portrayed is a striking Astarte, painted in 1895, who wears a blue robe and stands upon a crescent moon. She is encrusted with beads and gold ornamentation highly reminiscent of Gustav Klimt. Naked attendants surround her, their hands raised in worship. Her eyes are closed and her lips bear a beatific smile. She is serene and powerful, sparkling with light, and is arguably a great deal more attractive a figure than the rather worthy ‘Mysteries of the Rosary,’ ‘Dogma of Redemption,’ ‘Israelites Oppressed’ or ‘Prophets.’
As Wikipedia succinctly describes, Cradle of Filth are an extreme metal band, formed in Hadleigh, Suffolk, in 1991. Their style has evolved from black metal to a cleaner amalgam of gothic metal, symphonic metal and other metal genres. My interest in them here is the fact that their lyrics are notably well informed by world mythology and religious legend, and the ‘goddess’ in the broadest sense (see, for example, Lilith Immaculate, “the dark moon goddess”)- and Aphrodite more specifically- feature repeatedly in their songs. That their 2010 album was titled Darkly, Darkly, Venus Aversa and featured a title track, The Cult of Venus Aversa confirms this fascination.
Another nice illustration of this is the cover for Cryptoriana (2017) which directly quotes the imagery of Botticelli’s Birth of Venus (see below) mixed with gothic Victoriana.
Aphrodite is mentioned on several of the band’s tracks. In Nocturnal Supremacy she appears as the full embodiment of the goddess of love (and lust). The singer is “enamoured and imparadised [by] Nymph-lascivious Aphrodite,” a fantastic lyric that encompasses so much classical mythology in just a few words. The wine of Bacchus flows and the pair of lovers “wreak erotic maladies where sex and death abide.” There is broad learning behind these songs- consider for example Bathory Aria’s reference to “storm-beached Aphrodite/ Drowned on Kytherean tides.” This is a more dramatic imagining of the Greek myth of Venus, born from the waves on the shore of Kythera. A similar reference is found in Lovesick for Mina, in which the narrator “wishes to be always near her/ Forever or whenever seas recall/ This Aphrodite from my embrace.”
More frequently, Venus is the subject of the songs. She can be a deity of strange sexualities: “Adverse Venus of the rites/ Hearse of perverse appetites” (Vengeful Spirit). In Rise of the Pentagram this association is even more explicit: two lovers are found in a”house of incest [where] when we undressed/ Blasphemies against Venus were rent.” The pair proceed to ““haunt fairy groves/ And hot virgin coves/ Wherein the promiscuous swam.”
In Mistress of the Sucking Pit, from Venus Aversa, sexual passion is even more powerfully evoked after a lover is discovered-
“by the roaring hearth A blaze of golden hair Cascading down an angel’s face To pool about the breasts That man minds have wondered on but only I caress And then I’m yours. The velvet crown Of Venus in my hands… Every mountain, every route My wanton tongue must take To taste that once forbidden fruit.”
Still, she remains a goddess of the ocean: “Storm forth indignant Kraken/ Reborn Venus as thou art… I call thee having wrestled/ The tides from lonely Diana” (Beauty Slept in Sodom).
As observed at the start, the goddess in all her forms is celebrated in Cradle of Filth’s lyrics. There are mentions, variously, of Diana and Pandora, of Artemis and Bastet, of Ashtoreth, Ishtar and Astarte (Persecution Song; Principle of Evil Made Flesh and Lustmord and Wargasm (The Relicking of Cadaverous Wounds)). The goddess can be mighty and terrifying, as well as being an epitome of independent female sexuality. Much of her destructive as well as lustful and sensual potential is summarised in 2010’s Cult of Venus Adversa.
“I am she- Lilith- Mistress of the dark Of Sheba… Whose sweet seductions and wicked rites Lead all too enslaved by the flesh To trespass against God’s holy law And tonight I come for you…
A stunning woman, summoned, Coming scimitar-curved Statuesque, but living flesh Draping nakedness about their pagan saviours She came Lilith, a perfect myth The scarlet whore Skinned in magnificence In her defence She only slew a few of them Born of a sacrifice, a virgin’s price For the merging with a Goddess She prowled the world again Enslaving man With the surging of her bodice…”
Sometimes, of course, Cradle of Filth‘s songs can be a little overwrought, and even portentous, with archaic ‘poetic’ diction, but the lyrics illustrate the abiding power of the supernatural in our imaginations. Even more significantly, the wealth of references in the band’s songs demonstrate beyond question that Aphrodite/ Venus does indeed remain the goddess of modern love and passion.
Paul Cuvelier was born in 1923 in Lens, near Mons, in Belgium. From a young age he showed a very precocious talent for art, often making drawings and paintings outdoors and illustrating stories for his siblings. He became one of the original contributors to Tintin magazine, working as an illustrator from its launch in 1946 until the early 1970s. However, Cuvelier is best-known for his historical adventure series about young Corentin (1946-1974), in addition to which he also drew the young woman Line (1962-1972) and the ground-breaking erotic graphic novel Epoxy (1968). Cuvelier’s graphic novel output was, however, characterised by long intervals of inactivity. He continually drifted between his ambitions as a fine artist and the more financially rewarding comics industry, which resulted in a rather fragmented and unstable record in both. The connecting thread between his activities in these two art forms remained his fascination for the aesthetics of human anatomy.
The artist saw comics as a necessary way to earn money, but his true passion lay in painting and sculpture, especially female nudes, which showcased his passion for life drawing. Cuvelier’s fine art was characterised by a sensuality which has been described as “slumbering eroticism,” although- in fact- exactly the same could be said about some of the art work in his comics.
In 1973 Cuvelier brought the Corentin series to an end and decided thereafter to focus upon fine art. He said that he had found cartoons too restrictive and wished to dedicate himself to what has been called his ‘artistic adventure,’ whatever the commercial risks involved. Fortuitously, Cuvelier’s soon afterwards received the ideal commission- to prepare a special collection of drawings for the Cercle des Bibliophiles. The theme agreed upon was ‘nymphets’ or ‘apprentice Aphrodites.’ This subject matter was perfect for Cuvelier because, throughout his career, he had drawn female nudes, being- as critic Philippe Goddin has written- ‘engrossed by the contemplation of youthful anatomy.’ The attraction, Goddin felt, was that “These bodies have not yet suffered the attrition of life or of time. Adolescent forms captivated him.” The artist himself was in poor and deteriorating health and he may well have envied and wanted to celebrate his young models’ youth and vitality.
Amongst the artist’s later work there are some faux classical ‘centauresses,’ juvenile female centaurs who are cute and amusing; there are also some very free sketches of models posing in underwear, boots and varying degrees of undress. However, it was his works in oils and watercolours for the collector’s edition of ‘Young Aphrodites’ that must be regarded Cuvelier’s greatest triumph and memorial. The published illustrations of ‘fillettes’ (younger girls) or ‘jeunes Aphrodites’ are regarded by many as the finest expression of his sensibility and technical ability, the peak achievement of his life studies.
Cuvelier’s fascination with nude studies is another facet of his art that unites him with the Greek predecessors, whose statues he sought to recreate. It cannot escape any observer’s notice that classical Greek art is full of naked figures. This style seems to originate from a variety of motivations. During the sixth century BCE, a custom became established of celebrating victorious athletes with portrait statues. The Greek habit was to compete in sporting activities naked, so it followed that the statues of the winners showed them unclothed. There was plentiful opportunity to study anatomy, therefore. Alongside these purely mundane interests, Greek religion idealised humans and the natural world, encouraging the study of natural forms and combining that with a search for perfection in beauty. The result was an art that sought to balance realism with an ideal physical beauty; divinity was marked in statues not by giving the figures thunderbolts or haloes, but by giving them superhuman dignity and features. The search for the ideal form was never wholly divorced from eroticism, though: the Olympian gods were fully sexual beings in any event and- as I’ve mentioned before, it seems to have been the case that the statue of Aphrodite in the shrine at Knidos was created deliberately to excite and arouse worshippers. The statue was modelled upon the courtesan Phryne, famous for her lovely white breasts (according to Plutarch, anyway). Divinity, desire and nudity went hand in hand and, likewise, sensuality was never far away from Cuvelier’s drawings. I have returned to these issues in my discussion of John Gibson’s sculpture of the ‘Tinted Venus.’
Detail of standing girl by Paul Cuvelier
The plates for the dual language edition of Jeunes Aphrodites/ Jonge Afrodites depict a collection of girls and young women of various ages, but the most notable pictures feature girls aged about eleven or twelve, perhaps, naked or partially clothed. They are sometimes alone, sometimes in pairs. Some of these images don’t depict ‘Aphrodites’ as such, but they bear a clear sexual charge. One picture shows a nude blonde balancing on one foot as she slips off her pink knickers- this seems to me to be a conscious modern echo of the classical image of Venus fastening her sandal- the goddess looking slightly awkward and undivine as she engages in a very ordinary act. The young Aphrodite’s look is somewhat plaintive, hardly imperious and goddess like, but perhaps it is no more than the look of person (whether divine or mortal) in a mundane activity with their thoughts elsewhere. Here’s Aphrodite Untying Her Sandal from the Louvre, a statue of the first century CE that Cuvelier may have known: she too is probably more concerned with maintaining her balance and fiddling with the lace than looking like the all powerful deity of love.
Several other images from this collection depict young women together as lovers: some are entwined in embraces or making love; a couple of the girls are rather younger, taking off their clothes together and apparently just discovering the awakening of desire for each other.We might think here of Melitta, Chrysis, Rhodis and Myrtocleia in Pierre Louys’ book Aphrodite and the sexually diverse world he sought to create.
Amongst all these plates, there are just a few which more directly evoke Aphrodite. One illustration shows a girl of eleven or twelve standing on a crate, with her dress in folds around her feet. Her left hand is raised to the shoulder, her other arm is crossed over her eyes. Her pose overall subtly imitates a classical statue, but it also puts me instantly in mind of one of the poses adopted by Elizabeth Lynes when she posed for a photograph by her uncle, George Platt Lynes.
A second plate, Girls Before the Sea, comprises the four separate images of young females standing on a sea shore, looking away from us out to sea (see the start of this post). They are all naked, so these are primarily studies on long hair and shapely backs, buttocks and legs. The weather is different in each frame: in one a blonde girl faces a very black and stormy sky and her hair is whipped about by the wind. In another, a second blonde girl stands in front of breaking waves that resemble nothing so much as a very large scallop shell, what strikes me as a clever and subtle reference by Cuvelier to Botticelli’s Venus and to the ostensible theme of the entire book.
Cuvelier’s ‘Young Aphrodites’ are a further and logical development of some of the iconography of the goddess. The artist has chosen to focus upon themes of youth and diversity in the stories of the goddess, aspects of her nature that may sometimes be downplayed but which have always been present and vital in her character. Sexuality is ever-present, but it is far more liberated and diverse than was the case in the past. Many of Cuvelier’s young goddesses seem to be interested in each other, not in the artist or the viewer. Equally, their sexual attraction and potential is stressed, whatever their age. As has been the case for millennia, the sexuality of the goddess is not to be restrained by arbitrary limits.
It seemed that Cuvelier was so inspired by this commission that he planned more work on the same theme. Sadly, however, he died in 1978 in Charleroi, aged only 54, after years of declining health which had been aggravated by mental health problems, poverty and homelessness.
Further reading
Cuvelier’s Young Aphrodites is very rare now and- hence- very expensive, but Philippe Goddin’s Paul Cuvelier- l’aventure artistique can still be obtained at modest prices. The website pigtails in paint has a good selection of his work and the Paul Cuvelier Foundation has a comprehensive display of art works online.
According to Sader Masoch, in his notorious novel of 1870 Venus in Furs (Venus im Pelz), hanging on the wall of masochist Severin’s home is a picture of a woman in fur- a painting of his mistress, Wanda, who treats him so cruelly and humiliatingly during the book. The image Sader Masoch imagined is widely assumed to be inspired upon the picture above by Titian:
“It was a large oil painting, done in the robust full-bodied manner of the Belgian school. Its subject was strange enough. A beautiful woman with a radiant smile upon her face, with abundant hair tied into a classical knot, on which white powder lay like a soft hoarfrost, was resting on an ottoman, supported on her left arm. She was nude in her dark furs. Her right hand played with a lash, while her bare foot rested carelessly on a man, lying before her like a slave, like a dog. In the sharply outlined, but well-formed lineaments of this man lay brooding melancholy and passionate devotion; he looked up to her with the ecstatic burning eye of a martyr. This man, the footstool for her feet, was Severin, but beardless, and, it seemed, some ten years younger.”
Obviously, the painting Sader Masoch imagines is drastically different from that of the great Renaissance master in certain key respects. However, in the context of the book, she far more closely resembles a woman whom the narrator has dreamt of speaking to, the goddess Venus: “Opposite me by the massive Renaissance fireplace sat Venus; she was not a casual woman of the half-world, who under this pseudonym wages war against the enemy sex, like Mademoiselle Cleopatra, but the real, true goddess of love. She sat in an armchair and had kindled a crackling fire, whose reflection ran in red flames over her pale face with its white eyes, and from time to time over her feet when she sought to warm them. Her head was wonderful in spite of the dead stony eyes; it was all I could see of her. She had wrapped her marble-like body in a huge fur…”
Severin’s fur clad Venus is a cruel dominatrix who abuses and despises him. This image, of course, was the one inherited by Lou Reed when he wrote Venus in Furs for the Velvet Underground in 1967. Nonetheless, he did not borrow straight from Sader Masoch:
“Shiny, shiny, shiny boots of leather Whiplash girl child in the dark… Strike, dear mistress, and cure his heart.
Severin, down on your bended knee Taste the whip, in love not given lightly, Taste the whip- now bleed for me.”
Reed’s dominatrix has a whip and boots, exactly like Wanda, but unlike the “full bodied” woman of the painting, she is a girl-child- she is a juvenile mistress of the New York underworld. I often imagine Reed’s junior dominatrix as the Venus in Black Gloves painted by Otto Dix. Here we have a skinny, bony young female, admittedly perhaps a little awkward in her nakedness, which is not a feeling that I imagine is often experienced by Venus herself, nor- for that matter- by Reed’s dear mistress: she stands over her servant as he kisses her boots in ecstatic humiliation. “Ermine furs adorn the imperious”- she seems to exult in her power and control.
Dix, Venus in Black Gloves (1932)
The Venus in Furs established a precedent for later visions of the goddess. She can now be imagined as queenly and divine in the most intimidating aspects of those roles. The sado-masochistic nature of Sader Masoch’s book has added a further layer of complexity to the sexuality of Aphrodite. She was associated in antiquity with prostitution and gay sex; to that we can add bondage and domination. The more youthful aspect of the goddess, as seen in the painting by Dix or in Reed’s lyrics, was not so new though. Aphrodite has been regarded as young- or to have taken younger lovers- since classical Greek times- if not much earlier, when she was known as Astarte and Inanna in the Middle East. As historian Bettany Hughes has recognised, the goddess was as likely to be a randy teenager as a passionate woman, and various ancient sculptures make this perfectly apparent.
Astarte/ Inanna- a Babylonian figurine in the Louvre
A bust based on the Capuan Venus (2nd century CE)
Esquiline Venus, 2nd century CE
Dix’s young Venus is just one of a series of studies of the goddess that German artists produced during the early decades of the last century. Georg Tappert’s Venus von Milo of 1918 is an Expressionist representation of a much more earthy, maternal vision of the goddess. The same in true for George Grosz’s Ländliche Venus (‘Rural Venus’), which he painted in 1945. She is a very homely and believable realisation of the deity- a real woman in a real farmyard. The clogs, socks and scarf make her seem all the more more naked and more authentic, somehow. These realisations of Venus as an everyday peasant wife, one of the ordinary German folk, are in the tradition of ‘Old Masters’ like Rubens, Rembrandt, Titian and others, whose female nudes were always healthy and round. However, Grosz’s Venus may- given the date of the painting- also be something of a rejection of the idealisation of the Deutsche Volk that had gone before.
Tappert Venus von Milo
George Grosz, Ländliche Venus
We turn lastly to Sepp Hilz’s 1939 canvas Bäuerliche Venus (‘Peasant Venus’). Hilz (1906-67) was the son of a painter, who, in turn, studied art in Munich. He began his career in the late 1920s and his depictions of rural scenes found considerable favour and success with the Nazis- he was one of Adolf Hitler’s favourite painters. Hilz exhibited work several times at official Nazi art exhibitions in the Munich House of Art (Haus der Kunst, founded 1937), including- in 1939- the picture of a peasant girl undressing, called the ‘Peasant Venus.’ On July 1st 1943, Hitler appointed him a professor of art and, in the final phase of the Second World War, the Fuhrer designated Hilz as an important and God-gifted painter, a status that saved him from military service. After the war, Hilz became an art restorer, repairing church paintings damaged during the conflict and his own output too became increasingly religious. However, the fact that he had been patronised by the previous regime effectively put an end to his artistic career.
In the painting of the Bäuerliche Venus, an ideal Aryan maiden adopts a classic pose associated with Greek statues of Aphrodite, standing on one leg to pull on her slipper. Her warm knitted socks and slippers give the scene an intimate and domestic mood, rather like Grosz’s Venus, but the pearl choker adds a much more erotic charge. Slim, blonde and young, she is a much more conventionally sexy image of Aphrodite than the previous three paintings. Joseph Goebbels provided an endorsement of this vision of the Germanic Venus by purchasing the canvas after it was exhibited in 1942.
Sepp Hilz, Peasant Venus
Aside from these homely or healthy Teutonic Aphrodites, the fetishistic Venus has assumed a vigorous life of her own. I discuss elsewhere one association with non standard sexual practices. Her affinities with furs, whips and leather have meanwhile been perpetuated, for example, by the controversial modern photographer Joel-Peter Witkin. He has linked the goddess with BDSM in his Venus in Chains, Paris, 2010 and, in work more typical of his consciously challenging style, has adopted a classic Renaissance image in Botticelli’s Venus, NYC, 1982, in which the role of the goddess is taken by a transsexual (see too his Gods of Earth & Heaven, Los Angeles, which also plays on Botticelli’s famous painting).
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