Stuff You Should Know - Short Stuff: Venus de Milo

Episode Date: April 8, 2021

Step into today's short stuff to learn all about the armless wonder! Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart podcast Frosted Tips with Lance Bass. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation? If you do, you've come to the right place because I'm here to help. And a different hot sexy teen crush boy bander each week to guide you through life. Tell everybody, yeah, everybody about my new podcast and make sure to listen so we'll never, ever have to say bye, bye, bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Hey, and welcome to the short stuff. I'm Josh. There's Chuck. Neither one of us have four arms,

which means that this is the short stuff about Venus de Milo. Let's go. That's right. Who resides in the Lula, right? I think since 1821 when Louis the, what is that, 2018th? 18th. No, yeah, the 18th. Man, you threw me off. I always forget how to read those. It's been a while. Yeah, Louis the 18th donated Venus de Milo, one of the most famous, dare I say, statues in the world. Yeah, also just as a little aside, Chuck, if you ever kind of get tripped up by something like that, you're talking to somebody, just swap it out for like a word like Louis the Magnificent, but say it authoritatively and the person will think that that's the name for that particular

Louis. Right, Louis the Overeater. So yeah, so the Venus de Milo first ended up in Paris in 1821, and apparently that was a really good timing because the nation of France was kind of in the doldrums as far as art is concerned, right? Yeah, there's a gentleman that'll make a couple of appearances in this episode. His name is Andrew Stewart, and I think he's a professor, right? Art historian and professor? Yeah, professor of Greek studies at UC Berkeley, emeritus too. Oh well. Yeah, the guy knows what he's talking about. Yeah, so apparently France, they needed their national pride kind of picked up, and apparently Venus went a long way toward doing that. Yeah, because Napoleon had sacked a bunch

of countries and city-states and nations art collections, plundered, and after the French Revolution, well no, that was way after the French Revolution, after Napoleon was banished, we'll say that. France had to give back a lot of that art, so the Louvre kind of got sacked in reverse, and then also the big dumb rival England from France's vantage point, of course, not mine, had just acquired the Elgin marbles, which meant that they had some sculpture by the greatest sculpture of antiquity known to humanity, Phadaeus. Phadaeus. Yeah, I got it. So the Venus de Milo comes along and they're like, this, this, this is the most important thing ever found. Let's bandy it about as much as possible as such. Yeah, and the whole thing with Venus de Milo

is sort of the mystery surrounding the origins and who the artist was and who maybe she had been, she may have been, and of course, the big question is two questions. What happened to those arms? Right. And what were those arms doing? Right. Before they were broken off. Which I have to admit, I'd never thought of until reading this. Oh, really? Yeah, I just never thought of her arms were doing anything of note. It's kind of weird now that I think about it, but the funny thing is, is like you said, she's shrouded in mystery as to her identity, but the one thing we know for certain she is not is Venus, the goddess of love to Rome. She was Greek and produced by the Greeks, so she would have been Aphrodite at best, but we're not even sure she's Aphrodite. She could be

a number of other people that have been proposed or number of other goddesses. It didn't even have to be a goddess, right? No, it didn't. I saw that she could have been an everyday person, but also she was found on Milos, the Greek island, which was really engaged in the sea as far as trade and fishing and all that. So some people have supposed that she was actually Amphotite. Amphotite? Is there an R in there? Amphotite. Thank you, Chuck. Yeah. That she's the goddess of the sea, Poseidon's old lady, as far as bikers would say. Yeah, and Venus was always thought to be classical, but I think they did enough digging and found that she was actually neoclassical and not classical, although they say they sometimes

still refer to her as a masterpiece of the classical genre. Yeah, because she again kind of carries France's national ego on her shoulders. So the idea that she was created by some unknown master far back in antiquity in the classical period is kind of part of France's pride in this thing. But supposedly, yeah, they figured out there was a German archaeologist named Adolf, seriously, Furtrengler. I'd love that man's last name. Furtrengler. That's even better. Who basically said, yes, she's neoclassical. You can tell from how she's dressed. But then I guess they also, when she was found, they discovered a pedestal that had the sculptor's signature that showed that she was very clearly created by a guy named Alexandros of Magnesia, not to be confused with

the milk of Magnesia. I knew you were going to say that. But then they lost it. They conveniently lost this pedestal and said, no, no, this is clearly created by one of the masters. We just don't know which one. Right. So good setup. I think we should take a little break and talk about those arms and dying to know about the arms right after this. Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart podcast Frosted Tips with Lance Bass. The hardest thing can be knowing who to turn to when questions arise or times get tough or you're at the end of the road. Ah, okay, I see what you're doing. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation? If you do, you've come to the right place because I'm here to help. This,

I promise you. Oh God. Seriously, I swear. And you won't have to send an SOS because I'll be there for you. Oh man. And so my husband, Michael. Um, hey, that's me. Yeah, we know that Michael and a different hot sexy teen crush boy band are each week to guide you through life step by step. Not another one. Kids relationships life in general can get messy. You may be thinking, this is the story of my life. Just stop now. If so, tell everybody everybody about my new podcast and make sure to listen so we'll never ever have to say bye bye bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcast or wherever you listen to podcasts. I'm Mangesh Atikular and to be honest, I don't believe in astrology, but from the moment I was born,

it's been a part of my life in India. It's like smoking. You might not smoke, but you're going to get second hand astrology. And lately I've been wondering if the universe has been trying to tell me to stop running and pay attention because maybe there is magic in the stars if you're willing to look for it. So I rounded up some friends and we dove in and let me tell you, it got weird fast. Tantric curses, major league baseball teams, canceled marriages, kpop. But just when I thought I had to handle on this sweet and curious show about astrology, my whole world came crashing down. Situation doesn't look good. There is risk to father. And my whole view on astrology, it changed. Whether you're a skeptic or a believer,

I think your ideas are going to change too. Listen to Skyline Drive and the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Arms. Yeah. So again, never thought that her arms were doing anything. I think I just assumed she was being like, hey, how's it going? I'm just holding my hands out here. Yeah, or maybe like, I don't know kind of thing. But there has been a lot of debate about what was going on with her arms. Apparently at some point, an arm that would fit this statue, the Venus de Milo, an arm holding an apple was found. And they think it's possible, some people think it's possible, that that was originally attached to the Venus de Milo. Yeah. And we should also point out there were some other things missing from the original

statue. Like originally, she supposedly had metal jewelry, bracelet earrings and a headband, because they're little fixation holes on those places in her body. And they think that she might have also been painted at one point. And now that had faded away. And then the arms were, I guess maybe some people might think if they've never looked into it that she never had the arms, but they were broken off because you can see where there were the dowel rods and everything, because it wasn't carved as one big piece. These arms were put on afterward. But yeah, like you said, they found an arm with an apple. And some people were like, well, yeah, she was holding an apple in one of those hands. Which actually fits. There's a Greek myth called the

judgment of Paris about a mythological contest between Aphrodite, the goddess of love, Hera, Zeus's wife and Athena, the goddess of war. And this contest between them was won by Aphrodite, and the prize was an apple. So this would have kind of commented on the judgment of Paris and Aphrodite winning this. And apparently it's symbolic of like the choice that people have in life or that men back in ancient Greece had. So like your choice in life was between love, war, and politics. Aphrodite, Athena, or Hera, and that Aphrodite won. People wanted to live with their heart. That's what this statue symbolized in that sense. Yeah. And that's one take on it. I like this other one a lot. This woman, Elizabeth Whalen Barber, who's Professor Emerita of

Archaeology and Linguistics at Occidental College, which I used to live near. So I'm all about that. She says, you know what, I think, and she even did like this 3D renderings to sort of prove her point. She said, I think she was a regular lady who was weaving thread. And she said, if you look at the angle of the back and ladies were doing all this textile work back then, if you look at her positioning and the way she was leaning and even where exactly she was looking, it looks to me like she was spinning thread. And if you look online, she has their pictures of her 3D rendered spinning the thread. And it looks real enough to me for someone who knows nothing about thread spinning. Well, also, not only that, apparently the musculature of her shoulders and arms would be

about what you would expect for somebody who is spinning. She makes a weird position. Yeah. Well, she makes a really good case. But also, this doesn't even need to be a statue of just an ordinary person because apparently she says Aphrodite was also the goddess of spinning, as well as the goddess of procreation and love. So this would fit still anyway. Yeah, that's a good point. I did see another thing that said from the angle of her back that they said it was one of those things where retroactively you look back and was like, did Mona Lisa have a disease or something? And they said, did Venus de Milo have some sort of spinal condition? Because when you look at the way her back is twisted and angled, it is a very irregular route for the spine. But it's also a

statue. Is it one of those things that would be explained by the spinning position? Well, I mean, she says it matches what could have been a spinning position, but a spinning position could have been hard on your back, maybe. I don't know. I would guess it would be hard on your back for sure. It doesn't sound like something I'd want to do. So the Venus de Milo, if you haven't ever seen it, go see it. It's pretty neat. It's in the Louvre. You can get there pretty easily, especially if you were vaccinated against COVID-19. Fantastic. Since I said COVID-19, everybody, that means short stuff is out. Stuff you should know is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app. Apple podcasts are wherever

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