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Prehistoric art
Course: Prehistoric art > Unit 1
Lesson 2: Paleolithic objectsNude woman (Venus of Willendorf)
Nude Woman (Venus of Willendorf), c. 28,000-25,000 B.C.E., Limestone, 4 1/4" high (Naturhistorisches Museum, Vienna). Created by Beth Harris and Steven Zucker.
Want to join the conversation?
- Do you think this is a fertility figure? Or is it representative of something else?(63 votes)
- Looking at the statue with this question in mind, this seems a reasonable conclusion that might be deduced. The statue does bring images of pregnancy. The round shape is disproportional to the rest of the body - the arms, legs and head. The breasts are full and round. This are features that are common during pregnancy. Also, when we compare it to some of the other figures we see very different appearances of the female body. For example, the right statue athas breasts that are drooping, much more common for women who are older. 2:22(62 votes)
- At, Beth says that "...By giving her the name of a Greek goddess" Isn't Aphrodite the Greek counterpart of Venus, as Venus is Roman? 1:40(56 votes)
- Yep. Good point! I believe you are right. Goddess Aphrodite is Greek and her Roman equivalent is Venus.(40 votes)
- do we know anything about the people 27,000 years ago?(20 votes)
- No we don't, which is why it is from an era known as "Prehistory", which is basically the study of history before written records existed. So it's pretty hard to find anything concrete, anything anyone knows about this era is based on assumption. All we know is that these eras are divided into Paleolithic (30,000-4,000 B.C.E.) and Neolithic (8,000-2,000 B.C.E.)*, and they are further subcategorized based on their habits; were they nomads, or did they build permanent villages? Were they hunter-gatherers or did they produce crop and grow livestock?
One way that prehistoric art can tell us more about the people of that time is its context. Take the Venus of Willendorf; she is very small, only 4 and 3/8 inches - portable, for a nomadic group of people. Her approximate date of creation is 28,000 - 21,000 B.C.E., during the Paleolithic era, when people lived a more nomadic lifestyle.
*You may have noticed an overlap in the time periods that I provided above. Let me explain in a little more detail:
Paleolithic Art: 30,000 B.C.E. - 8,000 B.C.E. in the Near East
30,000 B.C.E. - 4,000 B.C.E. in Europe
Neolithic Art: 8,000 B.C.E. - 3,000 B.C.E. in the Near East
4,000 B.C.E. - 2,000 B.C.E. in Europe(40 votes)
- Who found her? Was it a specific person or was it a team of archaelogists?(13 votes)
- It was discovered in 1908 by archaeologist Josef Szombathy at a paleolithic site near Willendorf, a village in Lower Austria near the city of Krems.-http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venus_of_Willendorf(20 votes)
- Is it possible for today man to truly understand the need or purpose of 28,000-25,000 B.C.E art?(14 votes)
- No, but all art is subjective. We view it with our own biases and viewpoints.(5 votes)
- could it be possible the face was painted on? And faded so we could not see it?(12 votes)
- It could be possible because as far as I know,most of the artifacts found in the prehistoric age are said to have had been painted when they were first created ,but then the paint gradually wore off.(6 votes)
- Whenever I see these, I wonder if they're not simply little trinkets someone carried around with them when they traveled, to remember a loved one at home - and the idea caught on, so many others were made. Labelling it Venus, and making it about fertility is more about how we interpret past civilisations through the lens of thousands of years of evolving into our present "civilisation".(6 votes)
- I feel the same way, looking at this figure and few others, I think they kept such figures in remembrance of a lover or a wife. Kinda like what we do now, carry pictures of loved ones in our wallets or like the world war soldiers who kept pictures of pin-up girls and Marilyn Monroe.(2 votes)
- How do we know how old this figure is?(4 votes)
- We know because of the stratigraphy of its site (study of the layers of sediment)(9 votes)
- Do other cultures have their equivalent of the Venus of Willendorf? It seems like fertility goddesses were pretty abundant in the ancient world.(5 votes)
- You might find this interesting : http://arthistoryresources.net/willendorf/(5 votes)
- Could it be that the figure was a motherly thing to a child?(4 votes)
Video transcript
[MUSIC PLAYING] DR. STEVEN ZUCKER: People
love definitive answers. We really want to have a clear
understanding of everything we see, art historians
especially so. But people also
love to make things. We love to make art. And one of the oldest
works of art in the world yet found, is a small
female figurine that's sometimes simply
called Female Nude, but is still universally known
as the Venus of Willendorf, a name that makes
no sense whatsoever, but really speaks to the lens
that our culture looks through. DR. BETH HARRIS: She
acquired the name Venus when she was found in 1908, in
a village in Austria, called Willendorf. She's only about 11
centimeters high, and she dates from
about 25,000 years ago. So she's really old. And, in the museum in Vienna
where we we're looking at her, in the Natural History
Museum, they've shrouded her in
darkness, in a glass case, illuminated from above. The outside looks
like a great temple, and on it, it says
"Venus of Willendorf." DR. STEVEN ZUCKER: And
in fact, in the temple, there's a little button
because, remember, this is a science museum. Lots of kids, and kids love to
push buttons, and when they do, the white light on the
figurine turns red, and a little flute music starts. Now of course we have no idea if
these people listened to music, what that music would've been. It's really an attempt
to fill in all the gaps. We know almost
nothing about her. We don't know why she
was made, who made her. What we have is the figure,
and virtually no context. It is in some ways an
anthropological object, rather than an art object. DR. BETH HARRIS: By
giving her the name of an ancient Greek goddess,
the goddess of love Venus, we were assigning
meaning to her. A meaning of her being
a goddess figure, and somehow associated
with fertility. DR. STEVEN ZUCKER:
Now, we have no reason to believe any of that is true. I suppose we do have a
little bit more context, and that is, this is only
one of quite a number of female figures that have
been found from this era. This is during the
last ice age, and it's some of the first figural
sculpture that we've seen. What's interesting is that
almost all the sculptures that have been found have
been female figures. DR. BETH HARRIS: We should
say all the figures that have been found so far
are female figures, and they're nude. But they're of different shapes. Some exaggerate the
breasts and buttocks. But others are thin. But maybe in 10
years, or 100 years, art historians
and archaeologists will find male figures. DR. STEVEN ZUCKER: So,
all of this is guesswork. All we've got to look
at is the figure itself. Let's take a close look. DR. BETH HARRIS: She has
no feet, and very thin arms, which she rests
high up on her breasts. And she has no facial features. DR. STEVEN ZUCKER: That's
consistent with almost all the figures from this
period that have been found. There is a careful rendering
of the hair, or perhaps a woven hat that's on her head. Some archaeologists
have suggested that this might be a
reed hat that she wears. DR. BETH HARRIS: Oh. There's the music
and the red light. DR. STEVEN ZUCKER: That's
right, a small girl has just pushed the button. The hands are articulated
ever so slightly, defining the fingers. And archaeologists who have
looked at this carefully have suggested that perhaps the
exaggeration of the stomach, and of the breasts, and of
the head-- those are bulbous shapes throughout--
are partially a result of natural
shape of the stone. This is a limestone object. She's symmetrical,
and it's clearly not something that
was meant to stand up. As you mentioned,
there were no feet. But this is a figure that
would easily fill a hand, and you have the
sense that this is something that was
meant to be held. DR. BETH HARRIS: Carried
in a pocket, perhaps. Something like that. She does fit
comfortably in a hand. We know that she was
originally painted with ochre paint, a
kind of red paint. Beyond that, it's really
hard to say much more. DR. STEVEN ZUCKER:
So, we'll continue to be fascinated by it. Art historians will continue
to try to find answers. And in some ways,
I'm sure we'll always fall into the trap of
reflecting our own interests, and our own needs, as we try
to understand this object. I'm not sure that we'll ever
fully understand it or be able to retrieve its
original meanings. DR. BETH HARRIS: Nope. [MUSIC PLAYING]