Venus And Minerva, The Ancient Goddesses In Greek Mythology

Venus and Minerva were and still are two of the most well-known goddesses in ancient mythology. However, one could say that based on the most famous stories, these goddesses are known for being very different. Venus the roman goddess, also known as Aphrodite in Greek mythology, is recognized for being the goddess of love and beauty. She is said in many stories to be the most beautiful and desired by all. Minerva (or Athena in Greek) on the other hand, is identified as the goddess of wisdom and warfare. She is sometimes compared to be a wiser and less blood thirsty version of Ares, the god of war. The two glaring features of Ernesto Gazzeri’s statue are the warlike helmet and the flaunting of physical features. Based on the lack of iconography …show more content…
Ernesto Gazzeri’s statue goes against what Minerva is known for by showing off Athena’s body. Both the breasts and stomach are shown instead of featuring amour or weaponry like in most Minerva/Athena statues. When looking at a large collection of ancient Athena statues, almost all of the statues depicted the Greek goddess both wearing a helmet, and having her body cloaked in cloth. Most of the pictures also contain her holding a weapon such as a spear or lance. Ernesto Gazzeri’s statute on the other hand, has neither her wearing the helmet or any other sort of weapon. On top of these differences, when searching for any nude ancient statues of Athena, I could not find any exposing her body or breasts like in Gazzeri’s statue. Conversely, an ancient Aphrodite statue search would bring up more comparisons to this unidentified …show more content…
Because of this, most of her statues display her body, including her breasts, legs, and stomach. On a google image search, under ancient Aphrodite statue, a popular amount exposed these same features of the goddess Aphrodite. In Jenner Brocks essay, she concludes the statue is of Athena, focusing on her pureness and wisdom rather than her war features. Without regard to most ancient Aphrodite statues, Brock writes “Her hair is arranged in a traditional Roman style and her drapery, which covers only half of her body, slips diagonally downward across her lower torso, inviting the viewer to anticipate its fall. “ In her analysis of what she claims to be Athena’s body, Brock failed to recognize the similar fall of drapery seen on numerous other ancient Aphrodite statues. Because she was the goddess of sex and love, these already exposed features and the spectator awaiting for more of the figure to be exposed underneath the drape, would relate back more to a goddess of sex rather than a goddess known for