Aphrodite goddess of sea foam. Birthplace of Aphrodite

I remember a few years ago, when Yair Lapid was still hosting entertainment rather than news programs, his program included a humorous joke from one of the noted wits of Israeli TV.

The joke was about what is the most beautiful and the most disgusting.
The most beautiful thing is to imagine: clear sky, blue sea, cheerful sun, gorgeous beach, and a completely naked Pamela Anderson comes out of the water. And sea moisture and foam fall off her body...

And the most disgusting thing (ahi magil)? The same thing: sea, sky, sun, beach, but it comes out of the water... followed by the name of the most famous Russian-speaking Knesset member.

The joke itself is MAGICAL, but... that's not the point.

The beautiful nude emerging from the water is one of the most ancient archetypes. No wonder Aphroodite was called foam-born - Αφροδίτη Αναδυομένη .

Name options: Aphrodite Anadyomene, Venus Anadyomene, Birth of Venus, Venus Marina.

A very interesting myth cited by Hesiod is about the appearance of the goddess of love from the blood and sperm of castrated Uranus, which fell into the sea.

Leading the night behind him, Uranus appeared and lay down
Near Gaia, burning with love desire, and everywhere
Spread around. Suddenly left hand
The son reached out from ambush, and with his right hand, grabbing a huge
A sharp-toothed sickle, quickly cut off a dear parent
The penis is fertile and threw it back with a strong swing.
And it was not in vain that he flew from the mighty hands of the Crown:
No matter how many drops of blood poured out of the penis onto the ground,
The land accepted them all. And when the years turned around,
She gave birth to powerful Erinnyes and great Giants
With long spears in the hands of the mighty, in shining armor,
Also the nymphs, which we call Melia on earth.
The father's reproductive member, cut off with a sharp iron,
By sea for a long time rushed around, and white foam
Whipped around from the imperishable member. And the girl in the foam
It was born in that..."
Hesiod, Theogony

Aphrodite Anadyomene - “emerging, emerging from the sea” - is the most popular permanent epithet of the goddess and her most famous hypostasis. This is the image visual arts starting with the famous but unsurvived painting of Apelles, repeated many times by masters of subsequent eras.

The most famous image of the birth of Anadyomena is a painting by the Italian artist of the Tuscan school Sandro Botticelli.

"Sandro Botticelli "Birth of Venus""

It is believed that the model for Venus was Simonetta Vespucci, the lover of Giuliano de' Medici, younger brother Florentine ruler Lorenzo the Magnificent.

But this plot was popular before the Renaissance and much later.

One way or another, it is known that the most beautiful things can come out of the water in sea foam. And the worst thing too: where do all sorts of reptiles, monsters, etc. come from? in myths...

There may be a combination... There you can see the beautiful in the ugly, as the French decadents could. Here Rimbaud has a poem “Venus Anadyomene”, which, according to contemporaries, was a reaction to the ten lines of François Coppet, who, according to Rimbaud, represented the ugliness of the century, slicked down, and the poems of Albert Glatigny, who was a wandering comedian and died young of consumption.

In this poem, which according to many became a turning point in aesthetics, Rimbaud literally eradicates “literary” ideas about the beautiful and desirable, and the object of love’s desire becomes the decadent Venus, reduced to a caricatured image of a prostitute. And at the same time, there is frank evidence of the monstrous beauty of a very wretched, very cheap prostitute rising from an old bathtub.

Venus Anadyomene

Comme d'un cercueil vert en fer blanc, une tête
De femme à cheveux bruns fortement pommadés
D'une vieille baignoire émerge, lente et bête,
Avec des déficits assez mal ravaudés;

Puis le col gras et gris, les larges omoplates
Qui sailent; le dos court qui rentre et qui ressort;
Puis les rondeurs des reins semblent prendre l'essor;
La graisse sous la peau paraît en feuilles plates:

L'échine est un peu rouge, et le tout sent un goût
Horrible étrangement; on remark surtout
Des singularités qu’il faut voir à la loupe…

Les reins portent deux mots gravés: CLARA VENUS;
-Et tout ce corps remue et tend sa large croupe
Belle hideusement d'un ulcère à l'anus.

Aphrodite's Bay. A place where dreams come true.

There is a special place on the island of Cyprus, which is rightfully considered one of the most romantic and mysterious in the entire Mediterranean. This is Aphrodite's Bay.

Came out of the foam here sea ​​Aphrodite,
And stepping on a stone with a graceful foot,
I looked around the most beautiful mountains,
Covering your gorgeous figure with your hair.

The bay is located 25 km from Paphos on the road to Limassol. The Greek name for this place is Petra tou Romiou or “Stone of Romeo” - in the Middle Ages, the Greeks, as the heirs of the Roman Empire, called themselves Romans.

Aphrodite Bay, even if you don’t believe the legends, is itself a very beautiful place with a magnificent and peaceful landscape, a cozy and harmonious atmosphere.

All this beauty was specially left in its original form. You won't find any infrastructure here. In this wild place there is no dirt from “civilization and the roar of cosmodromes”; here you just want to admire it all and think about the beauty.

And now about the legends. One of them talks about the hero of the ancient Greek epic Digenis, who possessed incredible strength.

From time immemorial, the Byzantine guarded the island from frequent attacks from the sea.

The mighty giant warrior, in order to sink the enemy ships of the Saracen pirates, threw huge stones at them.

The ships sank, but the stones remained. One of them is called the "Romey Stone". And so it has stood ever since, having fallen into the sea, and at its foot the emerald waves have been foaming for many centuries.

But still, most travelers are drawn here by another, more romantic legend.

It says that it was on this beach in 1200 BC. came out of sea ​​foam and found human body beautiful Aphrodite.

She is the goddess of beauty, love, fertility, eternal spring and life.

The “Stone of Romea” is the “Stone of Aphrodite”, known far beyond the borders of Cyprus, near which the foam-born goddess first set foot on Cypriot soil.

Aphrodite Beach and its seabed are covered with fairly large pebbles, in some places there are large underwater rocks, and the bottom quickly gains depth.

There are often waves in the beach area, and due to underwater currents the water here is quite cool.

It seems that time has no power over this corner of nature, and that the beautiful landscape here has remained unchanged since ancient times.

According to ancient belief, women, after swimming in these waters, gain eternal youth, and men - courage and bravery.

Romantics believe that if you swim around Aphrodite's Rock three times in a row counterclockwise, your wish will come true.

On the pebble shore there is such a variety of bizarre shapes of pebbles that you are simply amazed at the intricacy of nature.

If you find a heart-shaped stone on the beach, then love will accompany you throughout your life.

In the bay there is a rock overhanging the water, at the base of which there is a small grotto. It was there, according to myth, that the goddess of love took baths from spring water in preparation for dates.

Frequent guests of the beach are not only tourists who come here on excursions, but also newlyweds from different countries peace. For them, a trip here has already become a good tradition.

Natural beauty the beach and surrounding area inspires artists to create many wonderful paintings and photographs.

It is better to go to those places for the whole day, providing good supplies of water, comfortable shoes for long walks on the stones.

It seems as if time has stopped. Now a wave will rise, and the beautiful Aphrodite will emerge from the snow-white sea foam, just like thousands of years ago, onto the sandy shore.

Still, it's time to return to reality.

Let's go to a cafe not far from the bay to taste delicious Cypriot fish.

Who is Aphrodite?

Aphrodite is one of the most revered and beloved greek goddesses. Her importance can be confirmed by the fact that she was one of the twelve great Olympians. Aphrodite is the goddess of love and beauty. She is the patroness of marriage and childbirth, the personification of eternal spring. Not only people, but also immortal gods, with the exception of Athena, Artemis and Hestia, were obedient to the powers of Aphrodite. She blesses women with beauty and gives them happy marriage, and in the hearts of men kindles the fire of true and eternal love.

Two versions of its appearance are common. According to the version proposed by Homer, Aphrodite was a child supreme god Zeus and a nymph named Dione, and was born in the usual way. The version proposed by Hesiod is more mystical. According to her, Aphrodite appeared after Kronos castrated Uranus. His blood got into sea ​​waters and, mingling with the foam, gave birth to the most beautiful goddess that ever existed. The wind brought her to the shores of Cyprus, where the goddess was met by Ora. They crowned Aphrodite with a precious diadem and dressed her in sparkling gold-woven clothes. Wherever the goddess stepped, fragrant flowers bloomed. When Aphrodite appeared on Olympus, all the gods were delighted with her beauty. She made her chosen one Hephaestus, the patron of fire and blacksmithing. Their union of beauty and craftsmanship is the epitome of art. But this marriage turned out to be not very happy. Hephaestus spent all his time with his cousin, while Aphrodite communicated with her lovers. From one of them, Ares, the goddess gave birth to three children. The fruit of her relationship with Hermes was Hermaphrodite, combining the beauty of both parents. Eros is also considered the son of Aphrodite.

There are two versions of the origin of the goddess of love and beauty Aphrodite (Venus among the Romans). According to one, she is the daughter of Zeus and Dione, according to another, earlier and most widespread, Aphrodite was born from the blood of Uranus, castrated by Kron. This blood fell into the sea and formed snow-white foam, which is why the goddess of love is also called “foam-born.” This happened near the island of Cythera, but the wind carried the foam to the island of Cyprus, on the shore of which Aphrodite appeared.

Like other Olympian gods, Aphrodite was very proud. She severely punished those who did not show her respect. But she gave all kinds of gifts to those who served her faithfully. She responded to the plea of ​​Pygmalion, the Cypriot king who lived alone on the island and hated women, because he considered them all corrupt.

Pygmalion was also a sculptor. One day he carved a life-size figure of a girl from ivory, from which he could not take his eyes off. She looked as if she were alive. The sculptor admired it for hours and did not notice how he fell in love with the work he created. He began to give gifts to the statue: necklaces, bracelets, rings, bought her luxurious outfits and dressed her himself. He whispered sweet words into her ear. The sculpture did not respond to his confessions. Pygmalion was in despair, he wanted her to come to life.

The time has come to celebrate the days of Aphrodite in Cyprus. Everyone tried to do something nice for the goddess of love, bringing her various jewelry as a gift. Pygmalion also decided to make a sacrifice. He killed a white heifer with gilded horns and brought her to the altar.

Oh, omnipotent goddess of love Aphrodite! - he exclaimed. - I suffer from love. Help me bring to life the girl I carved from ivory. For me, there is no one better than her in the world.
Pygmalion talked for a long time about his love for the statue, and then, saddened that he had not heard an answer, he went home. He came to the workshop where his statue stood. Imagine his surprise when, touching her hand, he noticed that it was warm. Moreover, she responded to his squeeze. He looked into her eyes and saw a sparkle in them. He smiled, and the sculpture smiled back at him. He spoke and she answered him!

Pygmalion could not believe his eyes - his sculpture came to life. Pygmalion was happy. He named the animated statue Galatea and soon married her. Over time, they had a son, who was named Paphos.

A completely opposite story happened with Narcissus, the son of the river god Cephisus and a nymph. Narcissus showed no respect for Aphrodite. This young man, handsome in appearance, but cold inside, did not love anyone. He rejected the love of beautiful nymphs, only considering himself worthy of love. Aphrodite wanted to punish the selfish man. One day, when he leaned down to a stream to drink water, he saw his reflection. He couldn't tear himself away from it. Strong love to himself flared up in his heart. Narcissus did not know that this was his punishment from Aphrodite.

Narcissus forgot about food and drink, he just looked at himself and admired himself. He had less and less strength left, he could not tear himself away from the stream, and life gradually left him. He died without leaving his spot. The nymphs wanted to bury the beautiful young man, but did not find his body. And in the place where he died, white fragrant flowers grew, they were called daffodils.

But the goddess of love, who so cruelly punished Narcissus, herself experienced the torment of love. She fell in love with Adonis, the son of the king of Cyprus. None of the mortals was equal to him in beauty. For the sake of Adonis, she forgot the sky itself. She stopped dressing beautifully and did not pamper herself as before. She spent all her time with young Adonis. With him she hunted hares, shy deer and chamois in the mountains and forests of Cyprus, but she avoided the powerful boar, bear or wolf. And she asked Adonis to stay away from these predators. The goddess rarely left the king's son, and every time she left him, she begged him to remember her requests.

But one day, while hunting in Cyprus in the absence of Aphrodite, Adonis forgot about her request. His dogs drove a terrible boar out of the thicket into a clearing, and Adonis threw his hunting dart at it. But the beast was only wounded. The enraged wounded boar rushed at the young hunter. The unfortunate man did not have time to escape. The boar inflicted a deep wound on the young man with his fangs, and he fell to the ground. Aphrodite heard the groans of the dying man and, full of inexpressible grief, went to the mountains of Cyprus to look for the body of her beloved young man. Sharp stones and thorns wounded the tender feet of the goddess, drops of her blood fell to the ground, and from this blood then lush roses grew everywhere, scarlet like the blood of Aphrodite. Finally she found the body of Adonis. The goddess wept bitterly over the beautiful young man who died early. But weeping cannot resurrect the dead.

In memory of her favorite, Aphrodite mixed his blood with divine nectar and turned it into a flower as red as blood. Short, like the life of a young man, the time of his blossoming, the wind quickly blows away the faded petals. This flower was called Adonis.

Suddenly, the son extended his left hand from ambush, and with his right hand, grabbing a huge sharp-toothed sickle, he quickly cut off the childbearing member of his dear parent, and threw it back with a strong swing... The member rushed across the sea for a long time; and white foam bubbled up around the imperishable member. And the girl in the foam was born in that... (c)

This is how the goddess Aphrodite was born.

Despite the story of conception, which is so captivating for the heart of every feminist, in depicting the plot of the birth of Aphrodite, artists - which is quite natural - preferred to paint another moment: the appearance of a completely naked goddess from the sea waves, with drops flowing down her body, strands long hair, stuck to her chest, and so on.

And here I will probably surprise you - the plot of this nude has not lost popularity for two and a half thousand years. Aphrodite Anadyomene- this epithet means "emerging, emerging from the sea", will come from the brushes of the court artist Alexander the Great, as well as the favorite painter of Napoleon III, and Pablo Picasso. Everyone, of course, has their own version. And there will be many of them:

CREATOR It is believed that the idea of ​​Aphrodite Anadyomene came to the mind of one of greatest artists Antiquity - Apelles. He was the court master of Alexander the Great, and painted it so well that the king is said to have exclaimed: “From now on, no one will paint my portraits except you!”. You can understand the model’s feelings - for example, for the city of Ephesus, the artist painted him sitting on a throne in the form of Zeus and holding a beam of lightning in his hands. True, before becoming a permanent painter of the court, Apelles had to work hard - the tsar did not like the first portrait of Alexander. But when Bucephalus, the commander’s faithful stallion, was brought to the picture, the horse neighed joyfully at the sight of his beloved face. "O king,- the master grinned, - your horse turned out to be a better connoisseur of painting than you.”
This is how interviews should be done.

Behind "Alexander the Thunderer" He has already been paid 20 talents of gold.
Unfortunately, almost the entire history of ancient painting consists of such tales - after all, nothing from the paintings has survived. (Something is known, however, from Roman copies).

Having created your "Aphrodite Anadyomene", Apelles became a pioneer. The image of a naked female body in those days, 4th century. BC, was quite bold - remember Praxiteles, who, sculpting a naked "Aphrodite of Knidos" with the hetaera Phryne, he had to justify himself before the Athenian court; in addition, the shocked customers did not accept the statue (customers are always scoundrels) and he had to fuse it with others. It is not very clear what happened with the painting - nevertheless, Apelles’ painting immediately became iconic and caused many imitations.

What exactly was depicted on it is unclear; the old gossip Pliny the Elder in his "Natural History" more space dedicated to stories about its movements and price. It is believed that the fresco "Birth of Venus" from Pompeii may be a copy of Apelles, but this is only an assumption that does not really fit with the words of the sources. And they describe the picture like this: the newborn goddess, emerging from the waves, wrings out her hair.

EUREKA The idea to portray Aphrodite in this way came to Apelles’ mind, as they say, suddenly: he was inspired by the already mentioned hetaera Phryne, Praxiteles’ model. Phryne was very smart, beautiful, and earned a lot of money - for example, after the king of Lydia spent the night with her, he had to raise taxes in his home country to make up for the budget deficit. Despite all this, she was bashful: it was almost impossible to see her naked. Public baths she did not attend, dressed in thick clothes, not transparent clothes, covered her hair, hid her wrists, and she preferred to receive men alone in the dark. (My version is that she was simply protecting her exclusivity).

At the sight of Phryne emerging from the waves of the bay back onto land, Apelles was inspired and came up with the image "Aphrodite Anadyomene". Some say that Phryne posed for him for this painting, just as she posed for the sculpture of Praxiteles. Others mention the name of Campaspe - ex-lover Alexander the Great. According to legend, the king once asked the artist to paint her naked. In the process of posing, Apelles was so imbued with her beauty that he fell madly in love with her. Alexander presented his concubine to the master, thereby demonstrating his nobility (and his characteristic coolness in relations with women).

The painting went to Asklepion - the temple of the god Asclepius on the island of Kos, where it remained for several centuries. The fate of the painting with the beginning of the Roman Empire was not very happy: around the turn of our era, Emperor Augustus took it, although in return he forgave the inhabitants of the island taxes in the amount of 100 talents. He placed it in Rome, in the Temple of Julius Caesar. By this time, the painting was already damaged in the lower part, but no one undertook its restoration. And Emperor Nero, a famous perfectionist, replaced the dying work with one of the works of a certain master Dorothea. Since then, no one knows what was there. But many offer their own interpretations.

ATTRIBUTES Let's talk about the paraphernalia that accompanied the newborn goddess in her images. The most symbolically filled in this sense is the painting by Sandro Botticelli "Birth of Venus", who extremely carefully studied all the ancient evidence available to him.

Of course, in "Birth of Venus" the sea must be present (let us remember that it was it that was fertilized by the severed genitals of Uranus, i.e. it acted as if it were a mother. It is not for nothing that in the later version of the myth Aphrodite is the daughter of Zeus, the supreme god of the next generation, precisely from oceanids Dion). There are marine attributes - dolphins, fish, Nereid nymphs. The goddess is met on the shore by her maids - oras and harites, and the winds hospitably blow. Flowers are blooming underfoot. Sometimes her usual companions are present - cupids and cupids.

And the two main signs of Aphrodite Anadyomene are the shell on which Aphrodite swam from the island of Cythera (where she appeared) to the island of Cyprus (where she landed); as well as strands of wet hair that the goddess squeezes out of the sea foam.

We see these same details, only not so rigidly structured, in the paintings of masters of later times. For example, at the birth of the goddess, academician Bouguereau has a huge number of people present - some centaurs, newts, at least a dozen cupids, a black dolphin, and so on. Boucher is more intimate - his Venus reclines either on blue satin, or on the waves, and only a fish, staring big eye, gives a more obvious hint about the plot of the picture. Unlike Botticelli's painting, where the shell under the feet of Venus is the compositional focus of the picture, Boucher does not have it, and in Bouguereau it is lost.

SHELL As advanced art historians and cultural experts unappetizingly explain, the sea shell in the ancient world was a symbol of the vulva. This is not strange - we find the same situation among the Hindus with their yoni. There is no mention of the presence of a shell in Apelles's painting. However, Botticelli did not abandon this attribute, probably drawing on the many small archaeological artifacts available to him. Sea clam can either be depicted directly or be indicated using folds of clothing, as we see on the statue "Venus of Syracuse".

The diagram shows an example of a yoni: the image of the goddess of Wisdom, used for visualization by tantrics from the Tibetan sect of Kagyudpa (or something like that). The energy emanating from the goddess's yoni forms the leaf of the bodhi tree, under which the Buddha experienced enlightenment. This painting expresses the elemental nature of erotic energy.

I wrote it down, framed the pictures - and I became scared myself.
It’s a heartbreaking thing - these Freudian symbols of yours are in the collective primitive unconscious, especially migrating into our modern culture.

HAIR Much calmer situation with a hand gesture squeezing wet hair - his task is clearly purely aesthetic plus contextual. Such masters as Titian, Rubens, Ingres and others followed this path. (In Botticelli, the goddess just lightly holds long curl, covering the womb with it).

This plot, due to its visual applied interpretation, is well suited for fountains. In the photo from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, drops of water are even visible; it is not very clear whether it is constantly flowing, but in Giambologna’s original it obviously was flowing:

Most ancient interpretations of the plot of Anadyomena are sculptural. At the same time, raising her hands, she seems to become female version Diadumena("a young man tying a victory band"). A significant number of variations of this particular pose is another evidence that the Pompeian fresco with the reclining goddess is unlikely to be very similar to the original by Apelles, because, as is known, it served as a model for many repetitions.

NEW WORLD K ser. XIX century This plot has gotten very confusing. Countless polished canvases came out of the academicians’ workshops. They can be understood - demand gave rise to supply, and what other plot could provide such a good justification for the depiction of a naked woman in the bashful era of Sherlock Holmes, if not Venuses or some odalisques? It was difficult to compensate for the lack of nudity in the aesthetic treasury of every real man, which today is compensated by means of magazines, photographs and the Internet, in an age when inventors had only reached daguerreotypes.

Nevertheless, decency had to be observed in the depiction of nudity. 1863: Queen Victoria is 44, serfdom has just been abolished and Bazarov has started slaughtering frogs; in the States, Scarlett reconciles the green hat. Nude people are drawn.

On the left is a “bad” example, on the right is a “good” example:

Alexandre Cabanel, salon artist, writes his "Birth of Venus" and exhibited it at the Paris Salon in 1863. The painting began to enjoy incredible success. In addition to its inherent artistic merits, critics praised the composition itself - the fact is that Cabanel, when creating it, relied on the same Pompeii fresco with a reclining Venus, which had just been discovered in those years. The flow of praise became even more intense when Emperor Napoleon III acquired the painting for his personal collection. An example of what happened to an artist if he did not hide behind an ancient theme - a painting by Manet "Olympia". He created it in the same year, inspired, it is believed, by the success of Cabanel's nude. But he draws a real Parisian woman on it, calls the work after a prostitute, and in addition, experiments with the style of painting. And what? - Directorate of the Paris Salon of 1864, where he exhibited "Olympia", we have to put two guards in front of her so that the audience doesn't spit or poke umbrellas at her.