I wanted to share my fave sculpture of all time:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winged_Victory_of_Samothrace
I often felt weird about the shape of my wide muscular legs (well a bit flabby in the back) but I went to Louvre in 2011 and got to see the statue in all its glory and wow she has hugely proportioned legs. I am not sure about the Hellenistic age, but I guess they didn’t have emaciated gals? (or didn’t want to show them off?)
My favorite sculpture as well. Amazing that they don’t know the name of the sculptor.
This is mine: Circe by Australian sculptor Bertram Mackennal. I love her planted feet and spidery, powerful fingers.
This is mine.
My mom and I worked a ton of jigsaw puzzles when I was growing up and one of them was this statue with a black background. I fell in love with the milky color, shine, and the beautiful curves of it. Pure perfection.
You’re missing your arms and your head?
Good thing you’ve got your wings!
My favorite sculptor is Bernini. His David is terrific, but I really like the detail on The Rape of Prosperina.
Here’s mine. The cool thing is that there is no “front.” Every viewing angle has something pointing at it. It’s truly 3D.
That’s an impressive statue, size and all that, but couldn’t you have picked one with a head?
Why would they? Emaciation was not something to celebrate as beautiful, and public art was not supposed to be a downer.
And think about it: Niké/Victory would of course be portrayed as vigorous and fit to be on the march - a waif would get stomped in battle.
I love this! I love the statue and I love that you feel this way about it
and I think whenever you are feeling low you should throw your arms out wide and shout “I have the shape of Winged Victory!”
Man, I really wish I spent more time appreciating sculpture, or at least properly cataloging my own favorites from my hazy cloud of memories…
Really, though, the first “favorite” that comes to mind is the Veiled Lady by Bazzanti, with a seemingly transparent veil. I understand that Monti also did quite a number of “translucent” veiled marble busts. Wonderfully eerie illusion.
Amazing how the stone looks soft, and warm.
Those are all beautiful too.
Never saw that transparent effect before, really fascinating!
I’m constantly amazed that a person can obtain that level of skill in a single lifetime. If I had started sculpting as soon as I was able to hold tools and lived to be 100 I would never achieve that level of perfection.
I know! It really looks like sheer fabric.
Someone here in Chicago did a large scale copy of the nike and dipped it in shiny shiny gold (in case you want to imagine what your shape would look like in Goldfinger):
Not a great image but the best I could find. It is something so strange that it works.
I wish people wouldn’t do shit like these. They take something beautifully sublime, and turn it into trash.
The golden one might be seen as a bit tacky, but what’s your beef with the reconstruction? I don’t think it was done for aesthetic value, just to get an idea of what the sculpture might have originally looked like before all her extremities went missing. OK, it’s hardly great looking, but I don’t think it pretends be more than something knocked together in Photoshop, so whatever. There have been plenty of attempts at visualizing the sculpture in its original state over the years.
The way she looks in the Louvre today already involves some touching up, anyway. The original right wing is missing, and the one she has now is just a plaster cast, made as a mirror image of the left wing. The original right wing was likely in a somewhat different position. She’s also had a boob job. The left breast and parts of the torso is a plaster reconstruction, done so the left wing could be connected to the torso.
Obviously, the restorers opted not to reconstruct the arms and the head, which I think we can all agree was for the best. In some other cases, though, restorations have gone all the way. For instance, The Callipygian Venus (yes, that means “Venus with the nice ass”) in Naples was originally missing her head, and she’s had a new one made, not just once, but twice, first in the 16th and then in the 18th century. Her arms and one leg have also been replaced from the damaged originals.
That’s not something we would do to an ancient statue today, as we prefer the more authentic fragmented approach, but attitudes change.
(Her buttocks, however, are real. And spectacular.)
Since this has turned out to be a discussion of sculpture rather than the OP’s legs, moved to Cafe Society (from MPSIMS).
