Читать книгу Looking for Aphrodite - David Price Williams - Страница 7

Apparently people travelled from everywhere in the Mediterranean to gaze at this remarkable representation of the Aphrodite of Knidos, Goddess of Love.

But that was not all. Innumerable copies were made of the Knidian Aphrodite by a phalanx of sculptors from Spain to Syria and in that way she became the most celebrated version of the feminine figure ever crafted. The original was said to be slightly larger than life size, but there are unmistakable copies of her, in all sizes, found from one end of the Old World to the other, some as the original in the totally nude form, others with a drape around her midriff, perhaps the most well-known of which is of course the Venus de Milo, in the Louvre museum in Paris.

But what of Knidos, this city whose forward-thinking Hellenistic inhabitants bought the original of the Aphrodite from Athens over 2,300 years ago? What happened to that? And what happened to the famed sculpture itself which changed the whole perception of art and the female form for ever? And is there any evidence remaining of the temple in which the statue had once been openly exhibited, as described by Pliny, so that, as he said, her beauty could be observed on every side?

This narrative seeks to answer those questions. It charts the exploration of ancient Knidos, conducted during an archaeological excavation almost fifty years ago. And at the same time it’s an exploration that launched the author, who was present at the dig, on a trajectory along which he too experienced a revolution in his own way of life, just as the Knidians had done all that time ago, rejoicing in their famed statue.

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