Being of the Venus of Willendorf at 11.1 centimeters in height and aged to ~20k-24k BCE it is quite detailed but only what seemed to be in specific areas. The piece was discovered in 1908 by Josef Szombathy and obviously not of the region since it had been created from limestone which is not native to the area. What got me thinking while viewing this sculpture is, where is the face, where are the arms, why so much detail in sexual spots, and why the big beanie/hat on her head. In these questions some were answered, as it could be that the arms were just taken off somehow and the face was just covered. As for the others they remained unanswered. In this reading I had felt like this sculpture was merely just a doll like toy for children probably since it is so small. While reading I had came about another interesting thing being of it is a sculpture of a woman, they were usually not viewed as being good enough to be painted or sculpted back in those days. Basically in other words they did not receive as much attention or status as the men did. Being of this sense the sculpture gained quite a bit of attention to figure out when it was created and why. When researching Luce Passemard had created the term steatopygous, which is quite the word when trying to say it, but none the less it was to relate to be racial to women tribes of Africa like the Bushmen. Another assumption that got to me was the fact that it was a piece created to tease fat women of the age. The thing that I asked myself was that people, not just women, could be fat back in that time? It had to be a tease of a rich family being able to eat quite a bit in order to gain that much fat on her body but then again perhaps those women in the day just ate the wrong food to get them a lot of body fat. However, since the model was quite big breasted it could’ve just been a goddess, not just a woman. What pointed to this was it was created in a different area anyways and had similarities to the Greek “Goddess of all” or the “Mother of all”. So in conclusion it could’ve just came from a different country while some people went to Australia and happen to drop or leave it while there.
I think you are right on how the person who carved this sculpture did not go in detail for some reasons. For example he/she went on great detail on the sculpture's torso and private area. The areas where they spent the least amount of time was on her head almost as he only wanted to make people look only at the lower part of the sculpture.
ReplyDeleteIt is interesting that there is a lot of detail in certain areas of her body - and that the artist has taken the pains to create the cap/hair on top of the figurine's head. A scholar named Soffer thinks that there is a cap on top of the Venus of Willendorf's head, and she argues that this figurine (and other female figurines like it) have just as much detail in the textiles that they are wearing as the details created for anatomical features. In fact, Soffer thinks that we can even pinpoint the exact type of weaving that was used to create the Venus of Willendorf cap. Perhaps these caps and textiles were part of ritual clothing. We're not sure.
ReplyDeleteIf you're interested in looking at more examples of textiles on prehistoric female figurines, check out the girdle that is placed on the Kostenki "Venus". She also might be wearing a cap, too.
-Prof. Bowen
I feel the detail in the sexual areas has to do with child birth. I feel the breast were made large to represent breast feeding, the middle is round to represent the baby in the womb, and the sexual area is enlarged to represent giving birth.
ReplyDelete