DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.68516#0054
ART-HISTORY AS AN ACADEMIC STUDY
I have spoken of the extreme complexity of the message embodied in
a work of art. I should like to bring that clearly to your minds by a
particular case. As I cannot show you a lantern slide in this building I
have chosen a picture which I am certain everyone here knows almost
by heart, Botticelli’s ‘Birth of Venus’. You know how the willowy,
undulating, nude figure of the Goddess appears, standing on the edge of
a gigantic cockle-shell which floats on the waters of a bay. A Zephyr,
personified by two winged figures, floating in the air blows her towards
the shore, as we see by the wavelets stirred by the shell’s prow. On the
shore a young woman moves, with a dancing motion, towards the
Goddess, holding ready to receive her a richly ornamented mantle. It
is dawn, but already so clear that Venus’s own star is only just visible in
the sky. Behind the attendant maiden is a grove of trees with large
delicately shaped leaves and through the air there falls a shower of pale
roses.
I have given this description just to recall the picture to your minds,
but you see that these words, which are merely a summary of the subject
of the picture, show at once how evocative that is by itself. How all these
images are charged with emotional power! To begin with, the nude
figure, however idealized and etherealized it may be, as it is here, must
carry some vague overtones of sexual feeling. It is probable that here
these would never become present to the consciousness but they would
add a certain poignancy and urgency to other feelings. None the less,
these elements are sufficiently marked to have frightened away at once
many spectators of past generations. These would have been instantly
side-tracked from further response to the artist’s message. Then the
idea of Venus carries with it a whole mass of suggestions which will vary
with the degree of the spectator’s knowledge of Classical poetry. And
at this point again I can imagine the case of a spectator whose receiving
apparatus will jamb. If he has formed very precise images from Greek
poetry and sculpture of how Venus appeared to the Greek imagination,
he may perhaps be so shocked by the distortion which her image has
undergone in Botticelli’s very differently organized spirit that he will
< 18 >
I have spoken of the extreme complexity of the message embodied in
a work of art. I should like to bring that clearly to your minds by a
particular case. As I cannot show you a lantern slide in this building I
have chosen a picture which I am certain everyone here knows almost
by heart, Botticelli’s ‘Birth of Venus’. You know how the willowy,
undulating, nude figure of the Goddess appears, standing on the edge of
a gigantic cockle-shell which floats on the waters of a bay. A Zephyr,
personified by two winged figures, floating in the air blows her towards
the shore, as we see by the wavelets stirred by the shell’s prow. On the
shore a young woman moves, with a dancing motion, towards the
Goddess, holding ready to receive her a richly ornamented mantle. It
is dawn, but already so clear that Venus’s own star is only just visible in
the sky. Behind the attendant maiden is a grove of trees with large
delicately shaped leaves and through the air there falls a shower of pale
roses.
I have given this description just to recall the picture to your minds,
but you see that these words, which are merely a summary of the subject
of the picture, show at once how evocative that is by itself. How all these
images are charged with emotional power! To begin with, the nude
figure, however idealized and etherealized it may be, as it is here, must
carry some vague overtones of sexual feeling. It is probable that here
these would never become present to the consciousness but they would
add a certain poignancy and urgency to other feelings. None the less,
these elements are sufficiently marked to have frightened away at once
many spectators of past generations. These would have been instantly
side-tracked from further response to the artist’s message. Then the
idea of Venus carries with it a whole mass of suggestions which will vary
with the degree of the spectator’s knowledge of Classical poetry. And
at this point again I can imagine the case of a spectator whose receiving
apparatus will jamb. If he has formed very precise images from Greek
poetry and sculpture of how Venus appeared to the Greek imagination,
he may perhaps be so shocked by the distortion which her image has
undergone in Botticelli’s very differently organized spirit that he will
< 18 >