Focus on Venus de Milo and discuss the Reception.
No ancient source can be securely identified as discussing the Venus de Milo, and there are neither enough surviving ancient statues, nor enough evidence about how ancient Greeks judged artistic quality, to judge how the sculpture would have been received in the ancient world.  Pausanias, who described many of the great artworks he saw on his travels, apparently did not mention the Venus, and thus presumably did not consider it a great masterpiece.  Today the Venus de Milo is perhaps the most famous ancient Greek statue in the world, seen by more than seven million visitors every year.  It established itself as a key part of the Louvre's antiquities collection soon after its discovery.  At this time, the Louvre had recently lost several major works following the Napoleonic Wars, as objects acquired by Napoleon were returned to their countries of origin.  The Venus was soon one of the most famous antiquities in Europe; in the 19th century it was distributed in plaster casts, photographs, and bronze copies.  A plaster cast was sent to the Berlin Academy in 1822, only a year after the Louvre acquired the Venus, and a cast was displayed at The Crystal Palace.The Venus de Milo has been the subject of both literature and the visual arts since its discovery.  More than 70 poems about the Venus have been published.  In the 19th century paintings of the Venus often depicted statuettes of the figure, for instance in Honoré Daumier's The Connoisseur.  19th-century artists also used the Venus as a model: Max Klinger based the Minerva in his Judgement of Paris on the Venus de Milo; Eugene Delacroix may have used it for Liberty Leading the People.In the early 20th century, the Venus de Milo caught the attention of the surrealist movement.  Erwin Blumenfeld and Clarence Sinclair Bull both made photomontages based on the Venus.  Max Ernst used the Venus in his "instruction manuals"; René Magritte painted a plaster copy of the Venus, making her body pink, her robe blue, and leaving the head white; and Salvador Dalì based several paintings and sculptures, including his painting The Hallucinogenic Toreador, on her.  In contemporary art, Niki de Saint-Phalle has used a reproduction of the Venus in a performance, Yves Klein produced a copy in International Klein Blue, and artists including Arman, Clive Barker, and Jim Dine have all made sculptures inspired by the Venus.The iconic status of the Venus de Milo has meant that in the 20th century it has been used in film and advertising: a poster for the 1932 film Blonde Venus shows Marlene Dietrich as the Venus de Milo, while in 2003 Eva Green, wearing only a white sheet and black arm-length gloves, recreated the sculpture in The Dreamers.  Actresses have frequently been compared to the Venus: an article in Photoplay in 1928 concluded the Joan Crawford was the Hollywood actress whose measurements most resembled the Venus de Milo, Clara Bow and Jean Harlow were both photographed as the Venus for magazines.  Advertisements for Kellogg's cornflakes, an early speakerphone made by General Telephone & Electronics, Levi's jeans and Mercedes-Benz cars have all used the Venus.In contrast with the popular and artistic appreciation of the Venus, since Fürtwangler re-dated the sculpture to the Hellenistic period scholars have been more critical. In his History of Greek Art, Martin Robertson argues that the sculpture's reputation is due more to propaganda than to its own artistic merit. Scholars have concentrated on studying copies of classical sculpture mentioned in ancient sources, such as the Aphrodite of Knidos, than the Venus de Milo, even when those copies are generally considered to be technically inferior to the Venus; Elizabeth Prettejohn argues that this is due to classicists' bias towards written sources over visual ones.
ancient Greek Martin Robertson Max Ernst Jean Harlow Salvador Dalì General Telephone & Electronics speakerphone Clara Bow Hellenistic period Pausanias The Crystal Palace Max Klinger photomontage Joan Crawford Hellenistic Aphrodite of Knidos Liberty Leading the People The Dreamers Marlene Dietrich The Hallucinogenic Toreador cornflakes Louvre Arman Photoplay International Klein Blue Yves Klein Aphrodite Berlin Academy Napoleonic Wars Levi's Blonde Venus surrealist movement Niki de Saint-Phalle Mercedes-Benz Paris Clarence Sinclair Bull Jim Dine Erwin Blumenfeld Eva Green Eugene Delacroix Clive Barker René Magritte Honoré Daumier contemporary art Venus Kellogg's