DIGITAL COLLECTIONS

Help

Search

Advanced Search

Find results with:

Add another field

Search by date

to

Searching collections:

Visual Resources Center Digital Image Collection

Add or remove collections

Home Venus of Willendorf, front view.

Reference URL

Share

Add tags

Comment

Rate

To link to this object, paste this link in email, IM or document

To embed this object, paste this HTML in website

Venus of Willendorf, front view.

View Description

Loading content ...

you wish to report:

Your comment:

Your Name:

Submit

Cancel

...

Back to top

Powered by CONTENTdm®

Larger Image	Larger image may be viewed by UofL faculty, staff, and students only (log-in required using ULink username/password) at: http://echo.louisville.edu/login?url=http://vrc-web.louisville.edu/Jpegs/320/325-22.jpg
Title	Venus of Willendorf, front view.
Alternative Title	Nude woman, from Willendorf, Austria; Woman, from Willendorf, Austria.
Date	28,000-25,000 BCE?
Cultural Context	Western European European Austrian
Style/Period	Paleolithic Upper Paleolithic Stone Age Prehistoric
Theme	Sculpture (visual work) Statues Statuettes (statues) Figurines Figurative art Figures (representations) Front views Women Nudes (representations) Nudity
Subject	Sculpture Figurines Women Nudes Breasts
Description	"The vast majority of prehistoric sculptures depict either animals or humans. In the earliest art, humankind consists almost exclusively of women as opposed to men, and painters and sculptors almost invariably showed them nude […]. When archaeologists first discovered Paleolithic statuettes of women, they dubbed them 'Venuses,' after the Greco-Roman goddess of beauty and love, whom artists usually depicted nude. The nickname is inappropriate and misleading. Not only does no evidence exist for named gods and goddesses in human form during the Old Stone Age, but also it is doubtful these figurines represented deities of any kind. […] One of the oldest and most famous of the prehistoric female figures is the tiny (only slightly more than four inches tall) limestone figurine of a woman that long has been known as the Venus of Willendorf after its findspot in Austria. Its cluster of almost ball-like shapes is unusual, the result in part of the sculptor's response to the natural shape of the stone selected for carving. The anatomical exaggeration has suggested to many that this and similar statuettes served as fertility images. But other Paleolithic stone women of far more slender proportions exist, and the meaning of these images is as elusive as everything else about Paleolithic art. Yet the preponderance of female over male figures in the Old Stone Age seems to indicate a preoccupation with women, whose childbearing capabilities ensured the survival of the species. […] One thing at least is clear. The Venus of Willendorf sculptor did not aim for naturalism in shape and proportion. As with most Paleolithic figures, the sculptor did not carve any facial features. Here the carver suggested only a mass of curly hair or, as some researchers have recently argued, a hat woven from plant fibers - evidence for the art of textile manufacture at a very early date. In either case, the emphasis is on female fertility. The breasts of the Willendorf woman are enormous, far larger than the tiny forearms and hands that rest upon them. The carver also took pains to scratch into the stone the outline of the pubic triangle. Sculptors often omitted this detail in other early figurines, leading some scholars to question the nature of these figures as fertility images. Whatever the purpose of such statuettes, the makers' intent seems to have been to represent not a specific woman but the female form."(Excerpt, pp.17-18)
Material	Limestone Rock Stone (rock)
Measurements	approx. 4 1/4" high
Technique	Carving (processes) Sculpting
Work Type	Sculpture Figurines Statues
Repository	Naturhistorisches Museum (Vienna, Austria)
Source	Kleiner, Fred S., and Christin J. Mamiya. Gardner's Art Through the Ages. 12th ed. Belmont, CA: Thomson/Wadsworth, 2005. (fig.1-4, p.19)
Rights	Photo credit/reproduced in Kleiner courtesy: © Archivo Iconografico, S.A./Corbis.
Digital Publisher	University of Louisville Department of Fine Arts/Allen R. Hite Art Institute Visual Resources Center
Format	image/jpeg
Digital File Name	VRC 325-22.jpg
Rating

DIGITAL COLLECTIONS

Find results with:

Searching collections:

Home Venus of Willendorf, front view.

Venus of Willendorf, front view.

Description

Tags

Comments