Disarmed : the story of the Venus de Milo /

Curtis has produced a fascinating account of the discovery of the famous statue of the Venus de Milo and its acquisition by the Louvre, as well as the intrigues, deceits, and scholarly controversy about whether it was an original work of the fourth century BCE. Curtis discusses the important missing section of the statue's base, which shows that this icon of art history was not by the great fourth-century master sculptor Praxiteles, but a little-known sculptor by the name of Alexandros, son of Menides from Antioch on the Meander River (modern Turkey), who worked in the first half of the first century BCE. In a last chapter, Curtis also looks at how the Venus de Milo served as an icon of visual culture. The book is well written in a popular style for a general audience. However, university students and scholars will also find this book of interest for its documentary approach to the history of the Venus de Milo. ^BSumming Up: Recommended. General readers; lower-division undergraduates through faculty. J. Pollini University of Southern California

The Venus de Milo receives throngs of admirers every day in the Louvre, her white marble luminescent, her pose enigmatic since no one knows the position her missing arms once took. Every bit as iconic as the Mona Lisa, this powerful Greek statue has elicited far less modern research. This combination of ubiquitousness and invisibility inspired Curtis to take a fresh approach to the deliciously convoluted tale of the stone goddess' discovery by a French naval ensign on the unlovely Aegean island of Melos in 1820, and all the anxious and nefarious wrangling, debate, and controversy that followed, including the convenient disappearance of an inscribed base that attributed the statue not to one of Greece's golden age sculptors, as claimed, but rather to a nobody working in the civilization's declining years. His pleasure in his complex subject palpable on every sparkling page, Curtis parses nineteenth-century Europe's fervor for all things classical, provides gossipy profiles of amazingly eccentric officials and scholars, and, finally, renews our appreciation for a masterpiece as beautiful as it is mysterious. --Donna Seaman Copyright 2003 Booklist

In 1820 on the island of Melos, a young French naval officer and a local farmer discovered the hulking halves of an armless statue. The Venus de Milo has since graced car advertisements, adorned matchboxes and inspired artists from Dali to Jim Dine. Former Texas Monthly editor Curtis simply chalks up the Venus's omnipresence to its timeless beauty, and he impressively details an era when the statue seemed "less like a thing than an event." Relating how the French returned to Melos just in time to intercept a Russian boat bearing their treasure away, Curtis dismisses the mythic "fight on the beach" in which the Venus supposedly lost her arms; she had been found without them. Inspired by Johann Winckelmann's theories of Greek art, the Louvre's officials insisted on dating their acquisition to the classical age, rather than to the Hellenistic period of artistic decadence. Hence, the inscribed base that attributed the work to the Hellenistic sculptor Alexandros was conveniently "lost" for a time. For his part, Curtis ventures that the Venus once stood in the niche of a Greek gymnasium and held an apple, symbol of Melos and of the debate that launched the Trojan War. But more compellingly, his sense of a good anecdote revives the myriad characters (often shown among the 21 illustrations) who furiously debated the statue's origin, identity and even placement in the Louvre as late as the 20th century. Such scholars exuded "an enthusiasm for the statue, almost a gratitude for its presence in their lives." This enthusiasm, Curtis's work suggests, is what museum-goers maintain and contemporary critics too often forget; his judicious book may push them to remember. (Oct. 8) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

Poor Venus. Dug up in 1820s Melos, fought over by Greeks and Turks, and then kidnapped by the French and installed in the Louvre. Here's her story, told by a former editor of Texas Monthly. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

A brisk and brilliant trot through the history of one of the world's most famous pieces of sculpture and through the lives of those who fashioned her, lost her, found her, claimed her, bought her, displayed and otherwise adored her. In a stunning debut, Curtis, the former editor of Texas Monthly, has fashioned a highly readable, well-researched and even passionate account of the statue of the half-clad armless goddess. He first takes us to the Greek island of Melos, where, on a trek, he saw signs marking the general area where the Venus was found in 1820 by a farmer who was digging at a site located by a curious French sailor, Olivier Voutier. Thus began this grand adventure. After much dickering and blustering (but no celebrated fight on the beach, despite some claims), the French purchased the Venus from the locals, who thereby earned the wrath of the Ottoman Turks, who controlled the island. The French, annoyed at the British for blustering about their Elgin Marbles, now had their own treasure, which arrived at the Louvre in 1821. From the outset she was controversial. Who was she? Where had she stood? Was she part of a configuration of statues? What had her arms been doing? How should she be displayed? Conventional wisdom had it that she could not possibly have been created during the "cruder" Hellenistic period (but she was)--and the French, says Curtis, probably destroyed evidence that contradicted their prejudices. Curtis reveals things most people don't know: she had earrings, bracelets, choker, tiara (all probably stolen); she was most likely painted (her hair golden, her lips red); she was decoration for a gymnasium--the world's most luscious cheerleader. In his most riveting passages, Curtis summarizes previous theories about her, shows how they were inaccurate, and supplies his own (quite convincing) alternative. Illustrations show her from all sides, but, sadly, there is no drawing of her the way Curtis conceives her. Lush, learned, and surpassingly entertaining. (21 illustrations) Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.