Wednesday, September 28, 2011
Venus of Wilendrof
How I view this statue is that it represents reproduction. The woman can be interpreted as being pregnant. She is naked and her genitals are exposed a little and her breasts are big. Women during prehistoric times could have used this statue as a means to help them get pregnant. The statue could have been used as an object of worship too among women who want to have children. Her appearance is important because we see that she is round and that she is naked. Some think that she could be just fat. It is all about how one views this statue. Some could think that tribal men might find fat women attractive. Or a pregnant woman is important to the male members of the tribe because the women can bare sons for them. She is either an object of futility or she is a fat woman that the male tribal members found attractive. Then again she could be a goddess that some tribe worshipped
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Hi Sabrina,
ReplyDeleteI agree with you that this particular figurine may have been made to represent reproduction and, or that of a pregnant woman. Many people find pregnancy to be beautiful. Maybe it was used by those who were having trouble conceiving a child. Maybe they used to help induce conception via spiritual means.
Hi Sabrina. You've brought up some interesting ideas about attractiveness. Really, we have no idea whether the prehistoric artist intended for this sculpture to be beautiful or attractive, right? We can make guesses, but we don't know for sure because writing didn't exist in prehistoric times. We can try to judge whether or not we think this sculpture is beautiful by our own modern terms, but I think we need to be careful that we don't assume that our perception of beauty is the same perception that was held by prehistoric people. In all actuality, we don't know what they thought.
ReplyDeleteI really like that the Witcombe article tries to bring awareness to how definitions for beauty have changed over time (which ties into the controversy regarding the nickname "Venus").
-Prof. Bowen
Hi Sabrina,
ReplyDeleteAlthough the statue is a very tiny piece artwork from Paleolithic ago, she gave us lots of thought of beauty, marriage, and futility. I agree with you about the worship. I believed people who made this statue has many meanings in there. They worship her as God because she blesses people who is pregnant and protecting their marriage.