Capitoline Venus

(piano music) - [Voiceover] We're in the Capitoline Museum in Rome, and we're looking at a copy of an extremely famous Greek sculpture. - [Voiceover] This one is known as the Capitoline Venus, but we know the original as the Aphrodite of Knidos, and it dates from the fourth century B.C.E. - [Voiceover] It was sculpted by Praxitiles who is one of the most famous sculptors from ancient Greece, and Praxitiles' sculpture is known to be the very first example of a full-scale, fully-nude woman. - [Voiceover] More than 50 copies of Praxitiles sculpture survived, so it was clearly a very popular sculpture among the Ancient Romans. - [Voiceover] And there are copies in marble. The original was in marble, but there are also copies in bronze. The Ancient Roman writer Pliny tells us the story of its origin. Praxitiles made two versions of this sculpture and offered them for sale to the city of Cos. One of them was nude, and one of them was fully clothed, and Cos, thinking that it was more proper to take the clothed one, did so, and the Island of Knidos instead bought the nude which became far more popular. - [Voiceover] The people of Knidos built a special sanctuary for her that was in the round. - [Voiceover] Now, through history this sculpture has also come to be known as the modest Venus because she was the woman, although nude, loosely covering herself. - [Voiceover] This seems like a bit of false modesty, getting out of her bath and seeming to cover herself. - [Voiceover] Well, this is the Goddess Venus, who's the goddess of love, beauty but also sexuality, and there are stories that date back to antiquity of men falling in love with her and mistaking her for flesh and blood. - [Voiceover] What's interesting to me is that here in the Capitoline Museum, she's in a round room, very much like the sanctuary at Knidos. There's nothing else in this room to distract us from viewing her. She is presented to us as the epitome of beauty, but female nudity was really new in Ancient Greek art, and that's one reason for her fame. Ancient Greek art was about, for many centuries, the male nude. - [Voiceover] When we think of the Western tradition in art, we think of the female nude primarily, but for the Ancient Greeks, as you said, starting with the Archaic Period, full-scale nudes of young men were common. These were call Kouroi, and you would have a Kouros, a single, male nude, nude from head to toe, standing straight and quite forthright, not covering himself in any way, and there were considered extremely dignified, and in some ways, they are not especially sexual. What's so interesting is that this figure is much more sexualized in the act of covering herself. - [Voiceover] There were earlier female figures in Ancient Greek art, but they weren't nude. There was the female varient of the Kouros called a Kore, and those were often draped in very beautiful, ornate clothing, so this was a real novelty when Praxitiles did this. - [Voiceover] It's interesting to remember that this sculpture was probably painted initially and would have been perhaps even more lifelike, and it reminds us also of the special quality of sculpture that it exists in the round as we do. It takes up space, as we do. It does not require illusion as painting does, just one technical mode. Since this sculpture was originally made in marble, it was designed to have a third leg, that is, a third stabilizing form to create a tripod to help support the extraordinary weight of the stone, and, in this case, that extra bit is carved to look like a vase or a pitcher that's been covered with a cloth. It seems to have just slipped off her, so this idea of both revealing and covering is essential to the sculpture. - [Voiceover] Pliny, who writes about Praxitiles' sculpture of Venus writes about how he surpassed even himself when he carved this figure in marble. (piano music)