Remember this lady on the right?Many like her were made in prehistoric times, all with creepily similar proportions, and they've been a mystery ever since they were first dug up. The prevailing assumption has been that they're depictions of an ideal female figure, faceless because she is not an individual but an embodiment of all women. Her breasts and belly are so huge because those are the most important parts of her - she is valued not for her strong legs and arms, not for her capable fingers, but for her ability to make babies and feed them, and her stores of fat that will help her survive the winter.
While weight-conscious modern women can appreciate that a flabbier body type was more accepted and appealing back then, I was never quite satisfied with the above interpretation. I accepted it, though, because nothing better was offered and I was not in a position to posit theories of my own even if I had any. (Gosh, I sound like such a writer. Too many college courses.)
But wait! There is a better explanation, set forth in this study. I found out about it just a few minutes ago, and immediately stripped down to see for myself if it was true.
It's a self-portrait.
The Venus's head is always tipped downward, as if she is examining and contemplating her own body. The breasts, closest to the eye, are seen as huge, as is the belly below them. Even a non-pregnant woman with just a little pudge will see her own belly as proportionally similar to the carving's, and not just because she's self-conscious. It just looks that way. Check yourself.
(According to the study, "direct comparisons between the original artifacts or their casts and one's own anatomy is the ideal procedure. Caution is urged to avoid injury to joints and muscles unaccustomed to such maneuvers.")
The legs seem abnormally tapered and short because that's what they look like from a sharp downward angle. The hands are tiny - well, anyone who has tried figure-drawing can tell you that a beginner almost always draws hands way too small for the bodies they're attached to. Even the peculiar position of the butt makes sense when you consider the perspective of a woman looking down over her own shoulder. And she is faceless, not because she is an abstract archetype of womanhood, but because the artist could not see her own face.
The proportions aren't due to a preexisting abstract notion of what a woman is for, and what's her most important attribute. They're due to the limitations of the best and only reference the artist had: herself. She had no mirrors or photos. She could see other women, but she wasn't trying to carve another woman. She was carving her own body, and carving it with amazing accuracy.
Now why would so many women all over prehistoric Europe decide to make sculptures of themselves? According to the study, "As self-portraits of women at different stages of life, these early figurines embodied obstetrical and gynecological information and probably signified an advance in women's self-conscious control over the material conditions of their reproductive lives."
In other words, it's feminism. Like the authors of that classic, Our Bodies, Ourselves, and creators of countless other artistic celebrations of womanhood, these women were taking charge of their physiology and their identities. The "ideal female figure" theory, that the Venuses are objective statements of what a woman should look like (or what men found attractive), now seems foolish and arrogant, and frankly sexist.
A prehistoric woman, relying on her own and her community's strength and ingenuity for her very survival, needed a keen awareness of who she was both physically and socially, of her abilities and strengths as a human being who every day needed food, needed to feed her children, needed to contribute to the needs of the group. And she accepted that identity as her most important reality. She was not comparing herself to anyone else's view of what's right and proper; that's a new development. Abstract ideals are a construct of fairly modern times, invented around the same time as things like personal property and sexual repression. (Here I'm basing my statements purely on my own unfounded, shamelessly illogical opinions, so don't take them as true. Please.)
Now I'll have to add one more item to my long list of creative projects to undertake in the future.
interesting theory, neither provable nor disprovable of course since we can't ASK the individuals who were carving these. major problem with the idea, though - we have no proof that the carvings were made by women, either primarily or even half the time. if the carvings were done by men as well as women even some of the time, then the theory doesn't hold much water.
ReplyDeletestill interesting tho.
The theory makes no sense. If you can't see your head, why would you carve it in the correct position, and not an upright one? You claim that there are contemporary carvings with faces, yet apologize for the lack of fingers. They are both difficult, they are both absent. You can't see your own ass, yet it is over-represented. The "ideal woman" theory may be lacking, but this is a crap alternative. Personally, I'm leaning toward white weapons.
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