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Throughout history, archaeologists and others have suggested that art may have been originally practiced as an attempt to magically control external events such as calling a successful hunt or discovering healing rituals even though there is no definitive proof this was so. By the time of the Ancient Egyptians, the purpose of art seems to have been shifted to being primarily a means of commemorating important people in their society and history. In roughly the same period of time, the Greeks were creating art as an aid to their people for worshipping and honoring their gods and goddesses as well as providing them with a way of preserving their cultural myths. The Romans, who followed the Greeks and inherited many of their traditions and beliefs, adopted elements of the Greek style. Involved in more direct trade with the Egyptians, they fused the Greek and Roman styles to develop an artistic approach that could be called their own. Their artwork was intended to inspire and celebrate their many cultural achievements, including honoring the gods and commemorating the important social and political leaders. It is no surprise to discover that the art of the Middle Ages was dominated by important themes of the Christian religious faith. This was considered the best means of rejecting the Paganism of the fallen Roman Empire which gave it religious, political and educational purposes. The art of the Renaissance, by contrast, was inspired by the re-discovery of more ancient art forms which finally boosted art into the respected professions again because it had a historical and experimental purpose. Since the Renaissance, art has continued to serve a variety of purposes and adopted a number of forms all pulling from the ideas of the past and with the hope of influencing the future. As this skip through art history suggests, art can be used for several purposes, it is often inspired or developed in some way so as to build on the past and the way in which it might be interpreted can vary depending upon the interpretation and understanding of the viewer. These ideas can be found in an exploration of the artwork “The Broadgate Venus” by Colombian artist Fernando Botero.
While most in the general population seem quick to dismiss sculpture as a kind of secondary art before the primary form of expression – painting – sculpture can convey as much meaning to sometimes a greater audience than even the best paintings. “Free-standing sculpture tends to activate a more directly physical and bodily engaged response from the viewer than a painting. Rather than facing the viewer as a surface hung flat against the wall, it intrudes on the surrounding space and has to be walked around rather than just looked at.” Depending upon its size, the sculpture also forces its way into the public space to a larger degree than the painting as well; a condition that can be extended even further based upon the sculpture’s placement. At the same time, it is important when discussing many of the current approaches recently taken to sculpture to include the main ideas behind the “politics of representation.” This idea suggests that there is a division between the content of the artwork and the form of the image which can also be expressed as the visual and the sublime. While the visual necessarily contains the sublime, the sublime cannot have a form or associated visual. This phenomenon derives from the fact that art is not static and concrete upon its completion but instead is permanently interactive with its audience and the political and social ideas of the audience’s present as well as the symbols inherent in the particular forms used and the environment in which it is placed. The postmodern movement brings these ideas forward. “The political and the aesthetic are inseparable, simultaneously present, faces of the postmodern problematic.” All of these ideas must be considered when examining Botero’s “Broadgate Venus.”
The statue itself is a gigantic woman lying partially reclined and looking up toward the sky. Created in 1989, the bronze sculpture is about five and a half meters long, three and a half meters deep and four meters high. It is located in Broadgate Square, an area of the city that was specifically set aside for the display and promotion of large-scale artworks such as this, giving the Venus plenty of company in her present home. Her location is directly above a modern-designed water fountain that, while independently designed by another artist, contributes to the symbolism and meaning of Botero’s design. The woman depicted in the sculpture is well-proportioned and rotund in her features. Her position is lying on her side with her large legs curled comfortably under her and her upper torso twisted up toward the sky. This throws her ample breast upward, brazenly bared to the entire world and the large business buildings that surround her. She is nude with only a cloth-like covering that somewhat covers her lower body and she lies on a platform that elevates her above the bare ground. The material she’s made of gives her a very dark complexion, which may seem out of place in the center of one of London’s business districts, but she does not seem to be too alarmed about her position. Her expression looking up seems to be one of expectation rather than fear or subjugation and her hand is partially raised as if in preparation of accepting some sort of gift from heaven. Her hair is caught together in the kind of loose chignon that is popular in South America and prompts questions about the social and political statement being made in placing such a sensuous, voluptuous figure in this particular location.
References
Burgin, Victor. (1982). Thinking Photography. New Jersey: Humanities Press Intl.
Gombrich, E.H. (1995). The Story of Art. London: Phaidon.
Potts, Alex. (2000). The Sculptural Imagination: Figurative, Modernist, Minimalist. Yale University Press.
Ward-Jackson, Philip. (2003). Public Sculpture of the City of London. Liverpool University Press.