Her form has its full growth of wide hips, deep
torso, broad shoulders.
Nothing has been repressed or fined down to a
canon of art or luxury. A heart beats within her bosom; she is love; with
her neither gold nor applause has anything to do; she thinks of the
children. In that length of back and width of chest, in that strong
torso, there is just the least trace of manliness. She is not all, not
too feminine; with all her tenderness, she can think and act as nobly as
a man.
Absorbed in the contemplation of her beauty, I did not for some time
think of inquiring into material particulars. But there is a tablet on
the pedestal which tells all that is known. This statue is called the
'Venus Accroupie,' or Stooping Venus, and was found at Vienne, France.
The term 'Venus' is conventional, merely to indicate a female form of
remarkable beauty, for there is nothing in the figure to answer to what
one usually understands as the attributes of the goddess. It is simply a
woman stooping to take a child pick-a-back, the child's little hand
remaining upon the back, just as it was placed, in the act of clinging.
Both arms are missing, and there appears to be some dispute as to the
exact way in which they were bent across the body. The right arm looks as
if it had passed partly under the left breast, the fingers resting on the
left knee, which is raised; while the left arm was uplifted to maintain
the balance. The shoulders are massive rather than broad, and do not
overshadow the width of the hips. The right knee is rounded, because it
is bent; the left knee less so, because raised. Bending the right knee
has the effect of slightly widening the right thigh. The right knee is
very noble, bold in its slow curve, strong and beautiful.
Known of course to students, this wonderful work seems quite overlooked
by the mass of visitors to the Louvre, and its fame has not spread. Few
have even heard its name, for it has not been written and lectured into
the popular mind like the Venus de Medici. While I was studying it
several hundred visitors went straight past, without so much as a casual
glance, on their way direct to the Venus of Milo, of which they had read
in their guide-books, and of which they had seen splendid photographs in
every window. One came along, on the contrary, very slowly, carefully
examining the inscriptions upon the altars and various figures; he
appeared to understand the Latin and Greek, and it might have been
expected that he would stay to look at the Accroupie. He did not; he
worked all round the statue, reading every word legible on the base of
the insignificant figures against the wall, and so onwards down the
- salon - . One of the most complete of the guide-books dismisses the
Accroupie in a single line, so it is not surprising that people do not
seek it.
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