Tag Archives: Birth of Venus

The Cult of Thin-ness Takes over Art History

Debbie says:

We all (that is, everyone who is aware of fat oppression) know that the image of beauty has gotten thinner over the years. Movie stars are thinner, the definition of “fat” is thinner, and so on and so forth. I’ve known this so long that I’m pretty armored against it. But this post from Daphne P. Winnabago shocked me, and I can’t even begin to imagine how much Laurie will sputter when she sees it.

The great works of art are on a diet:

Here’s the original 19th century neoclassical “Venus with Apple” by Danish sculptor Bertel Thorvaldsen.

real statue

and here’s a “reproduction” you can buy:

thinned Venus

Note that her position is also changed from the original, perhaps because her slenderer legs won’t hold up the original posture. I guess her headdress is different just because it’s different.

At the link above, Daphne also shows us a statuary reproduction of Botticelli’s famous painting “Birth of Venus where the same thing has been done although, as she says, the first misuse is converting painting into statuary.

Holy crap, people! If you can’t leave artists’ images of beauty alone, can’t you at least leave other centuries alone? Do a different statue and call it “based on” “Venus with Apple.” I can’t even get on my normal high horse about “what are we teaching our children?” because I’m too sputtering mad about the perversion of images from another time to fit the fickle tastes of our times.

Thanks to Lynn Kendall for being first of many with the link.