Aphrodite de Cnide
See also: Aphrodite (homonymy)
The Aphrodite de Cnide is a sculptor type upright allotted to the Greek sculptor Praxitèle representing the goddess Aphrodite, naked, carrying the right hand in front of its sex and holding of the left hand a clothing. The statue appeared in the temple of the goddess in Cnide; she is the first known representation of complete female nudity in the large Greek statuary.
Literary testimonys
The type is known many literary testimonys, the first of which that of Pline Old the:
“We quoted among the sculptors the age of Praxitèle which exceeded itself in the glory of the marble. Its works are in Athens with Ceramics, but above all works, not only of Praxitèle, but of all the ground, it there in Venus; much one makes the voyage in Cnide to see it. ”
According to the ancient tradition, the sculptor takes for model his mistress, celebrates it courtesan Phryné, after it bathed naked in the sea at the time of the Éleusinies - the painter Apelle painting on its side the Venus anadyomene. Praxitèle carries out in fact two statues of Aphrodite, one vêtue and the other stripped. The citizens of Cos buy the first, considered to be “modest and severe” while those of Cnide acquire the second which, placed in a temple which makes it possible to observe it of face like back, becomes much more famous than the other as of Antiquity. Several famous anecdotes tell how Cnide refuses then an purchase offer however very generous and how an young man, fallen in love with the statue, tries to be linked there after being hidden in the sanctuary. Several epigram S of the Greek Anthologie embroiders on the same topic:
Cypris seeing Cypris with Cnide, écria
Alas, alas! Where Praxitèle it saw me naked!
Known alternatives
Venus de Cnide is known by very many counterparts. One generally gathers them in two big families: the “anxious” type, where the goddess, surprise, seek to be dissimulated and the “serene type”, where the goddess seems rather to indicate her sex that to hide it. Anxious type, the best copies are the Aphrodite Braschi and the Venus of the View-point , found one does not know where, then bought by a pope, and moulded at the request of the king of France François I {{er}} bronzes some.
August 1st
| Random links: | Courceroy | Canton of Mortrée | Torch Quintin Adams | Manuae (Cook islands) | ASF Andrézieux | Ressorts_d'orme,_le_Dakota_du_Sud |