Venus of Willendorf 25,000 Bc(E)

The Venus of Willendorf is a visual manifestation of the prehistoric era. The Venus is very small (it can fit in your hand) because the people who created the tiny sculpture were nomads and huntergatherers. The nomads were always on the go, so they needed to make the sculptures small so they could easily take a part of their culture with them while they were on the go. Because of this, the Venus sculpture is called a “mobilary art” piece because it is art that you can take with you. The Venus is anthropomorphic, meaning that the rock is carved in human form to represent the woman. There was a high infant mortaility rate among the nomads, as shown by the many baby skulls found in ravines outside of the caves where the nomads would live by archaeologists. The nomads did not want to keep babies they considered weak because the nomads did not want to hold back their tribe. The Venus has a couple visual manifestations that relate to this time period. The Venus of Willendorf was really a sculpture stressing the importance of child-baring women for that time. For one, Venus has a lot of girth around her body. The girth stresses the idea of survival of her body because more fat suggests more protection and food for the baby. Venus’s breasts, hips, genitals, and buttocks are prominent and are high relief as they really stick out in the sculpture. On the other hand, Venus has no facial features and her arms are scrawny, and her arms do not stick out as much therefore they have low relief. The point of those certain areas having high relief is to show that the woman’s child-baring abilities were more important that her face and arms. The face is also purposely missing because a face identifies us as an individual, but Venus is meant to be universal and representative to all women, so no face is given. The Venus of Willendorf also has a pubic triangle which you can clearly see, which is important because the Pubic Triangle is where childbirth is given. The Medium Red ochre...