Aphrodite is an ancient Greek goddess associated with love, lust, beauty, pleasure, passion, procreation, and as her syncretized Roman goddess counterpart Venus, desire, sex, fertility, prosperity, and victory. Aphrodite's major symbols include seashells, myrtles, roses, doves, sparrows, and swans. The cult of Aphrodite was largely derived from that of the Phoenician goddess Astarte, a cognate of the East Semitic goddess Ishtar, whose cult was based on the Sumerian cult of Inanna. Aphrodite's main cult centers were Cythera, Cyprus, Corinth, and Athens. Her main festival was the Aphrodisia, which was celebrated annually in midsummer. In Laconia, Aphrodite was worshipped as a warrior goddess. She was also the patron goddess of prostitutes, an association which led early scholars to propose the concept of "sacred prostitution" in Greco-Roman culture, an idea which is now generally seen as erroneous.
The Parthenon is a former temple on the Athenian Acropolis, Greece, that was dedicated to the goddess Athena. Its decorative sculptures are considered some of the high points of classical Greek art, and the Parthenon is considered an enduring symbol of Ancient Greece, democracy, and Western civilization.
The Venus de Milo or Aphrodite of Melos is an ancient Greek marble sculpture that was created during the Hellenistic period. Its exact dating is uncertain, but the modern consensus places it in the 2nd century BC, perhaps between 160 and 110 BC. It was rediscovered in 1820 on the island of Milos, Greece, and has been displayed at the Louvre Museum since 1821. Since the statue's discovery, it has become one of the most famous works of ancient Greek sculpture in the world.
The sculpture of ancient Greece is the main surviving type of fine ancient Greek art as, with the exception of painted ancient Greek pottery, almost no ancient Greek painting survives. Modern scholarship identifies three major stages in monumental sculpture in bronze and stone: the Archaic, Classical (480–323) and Hellenistic. At all periods there were great numbers of Greek terracotta figurines and small sculptures in metal and other materials.
Callimachus was an architect and sculptor working in the second half of the 5th century BC in the manner established by Polyclitus. He was credited with work in both Athens and Corinth and was probably from one of the two cities. According to Vitruvius (iv.1), for his great ingenuity and taste the Athenians dubbed Callimachus katatêxitechnos. His reputation in the 2nd century AD was reported in an aside by Pausanias as one "although not of the first rank of artists, was yet of unparalleled cleverness, so that he was the first to drill holes through stones"—that is, in order to enhance surface effects of light and shade in locks of hair, foliage and other details. Thus it is reported that Callimachus was known for his penchant for elaborately detailed sculptures or drapery, though few securely attributed works by him survive.
The Aphrodite of Knidos was an Ancient Greek sculpture of the goddess Aphrodite created by Praxiteles of Athens around the 4th century BC. It was one of the first life-sized representations of the nude female form in Greek history, displaying an alternative idea to male heroic nudity. Praxiteles' Aphrodite was shown nude, reaching for a bath towel while covering her pubis, which, in turn leaves her breasts exposed. Up until this point, Greek sculpture had been dominated by male nude figures. The original Greek sculpture is no longer in existence; however, many Roman copies survive of this influential work of art. Variants of the Venus Pudica are the Venus de' Medici and the Capitoline Venus.
Venus is the name of two fictional characters appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. The first, was based on the goddess Venus (Aphrodite) from Roman and Greek mythology and appeared in her own series in the 1950s.This character is stated to be the true goddess, who later only had been referred to by her Greek name, Aphrodite. The second character was to be a siren that only resembled the goddess, having been retconned in Marvel story. The similarities between the two characters were a point of conflict in the comics.
San Gregorio Magno al Celio, also known as San Gregorio al Celio or simply San Gregorio, is a church in Rome, Italy, which is part of a monastery of monks of the Camaldolese branch of the Benedictine Order. On 10 March 2012, the 1,000th anniversary of the founding of the Camaldolese in 1012 was celebrated here at a Vespers service attended by Anglican and Catholic prelates and jointly led by Pope Benedict XVI and Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury.
The Colonna Venus is a Roman marble copy of the lost Aphrodite of Cnidus sculpture by Praxiteles, conserved in the Museo Pio-Clementino as a part of the Vatican Museums' collections. It is now the best-known and perhaps most faithful Roman copy of Praxiteles's original.
The Capitoline Venus is a type of statue of Venus, specifically one of several Venus Pudica types, of which several examples exist. The type ultimately derives from the Aphrodite of Cnidus. The Capitoline Venus and her variants are recognisable from the position of the arms—standing after a bath, Venus begins to cover her breasts with her right hand, and her groin with her left hand.
The Esquiline Venus, depicting the goddess Venus, is a smaller-than-life-size Roman nude marble sculpture of a female in sandals and a diadem headdress. It is widely viewed as a 1st-century AD Roman copy of a Greek original from the 1st century BC. It is also a possible depiction of the Ptolemaic ruler Cleopatra VII.
The Venus Genetrix is a sculptural type which shows the Roman goddess Venus in her aspect of Genetrix, as she was honoured by the Julio-Claudian dynasty of Rome, which claimed her as their ancestor. Contemporary references identify the sculptor as a Greek named Arcesilaus. The statue was set up in Julius Caesar's new forum, probably as the cult statue in the cella of his temple of Venus Genetrix. Through this historical chance, a Roman designation is applied to an iconological type of Aphrodite that originated among the Greeks.
In ancient Greek religion, Kanathos in the Argolid was the spring at Nauplia, where Hera annually renewed her virginity. There, Pausanias noted, was "a spring called Kanathos where, so say the Argives, Hera bathes every year and, by so doing, becomes a maiden; it is this story which is of the secrets connected with the rites which they perform to Hera." The unspoken nature of the ritual forbade its being embodied openly or directly in Greek mythology. S. Casson suggested that it was the obscure subject of the so-called "Ludovisi Throne", generally considered to represent the parallel, and far better-known, renewal of Aphrodite, bathing in the sea at Paphos.
The Fur or The Pelt, also called The Little Fur, or Helena Fourment in a Fur Robe, is a c. 1636–1638 portrait by Peter Paul Rubens of his second wife Helena Fourment getting out of her bath and wrapping her voluptuous body in a fur. It is now in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna.
The Dedication of Nikandre is a Greek marble sculpture, made approximately around 650 BCE, held in the National Archaeological Museum, Athens, Greece. Nikandre, a woman from the island of Naxos, dedicated the statue in the temple of Artemis at Delos, the birthplace of Apollo and Artemis. The statue, which was found during archaeological excavation in the 19th century, is one of the earliest surviving korai, or statues of women, and displays one of the oldest inscriptions of Ancient Greek in stone. Its representation and its placement within the existing stylistic periods of Greek sculpture have become the subject of extensive scholarship.
The Kore of Lyons is a Greek statue of Pentelic marble depicting a bust of a young girl of the kore type, conserved at the musée des beaux-arts de Lyon, France. Deriving from the Athenian Acropolis, it is generally dated to the 540s BC. Considered the centrepiece of the museum's antiquities department, the statue was acquired between 1808 and 1810.
The Aphrodite of Syracuse is a statue of the Greek goddess Aphrodite in the National Archaeological Museum of Athens (NAMA) with the inventory number 3524 is dated to the second century AD.
The pediments of the Parthenon are the two sets of statues in Pentelic marble originally located as the pedimental sculpture on the east and west facades of the Parthenon on the Acropolis of Athens. They were probably made by several artists, including Agoracritos. The master builder was probably Phidias. They were probably lifted into place by 432 BC, having been carved on the ground.
The Aphrodite of Rhodes also known as the Crouching Venus of Rhodes is a marble sculpture of the Greek goddess Aphrodite housed in the Archaeological Museum of Rhodes in Rhodes, Greece. It depicts Aphrodite in the crouching Venus pose, where the goddess crouches her right knee close to the ground and turns her head to the right. It is considered to be one of the most important hallmarks of Rhodes today.
The Nike Fixing her Sandal, also known as Nike Taking off her Sandal or Nike Sandalbinder, is an ancient marble relief depicting Nike, the ancient Greek goddess of victory, in the process of fixing or removing the sandal of her right foot. The late fifth-century BC sculpture is the remaining right part of a larger slab from a parapet, which originally adorned the Temple of Athena Nike on the Acropolis of Athens. It is now kept and exhibited in the Acropolis Museum of Athens, in Greece with inventory number 973.
