MOIRET Ödön
1883, Budapest – 1966, Vienna

Venus anadyomene

1914
Ruskica marble

Venus Anadyomene is an iconographic type of Aphrodite “rising (from the sea)”, originating in antiquity. The birth of the goddess is related by Hesiod, according to whom Aphrodite arrived from the white waves of the sea. In a tradition of later origin she stepped out of the seashell in which she was born.
Ödön Moiret breaks with the representation customary since Botticelli, in which the goddess appears triumphant, standing on the seashell; his Aphrodite has just awoken, is stretching out, as if indeed in the moment of birth. The naturalistic approach to the body is tempered by the Art Nouveau stylization of the hair, the seashell and the water. The most unusual is the composition itself: there are hardly any more examples of a sitting Venus. Moiret may have taken another antique iconographic type of the love goddess for his model, the so-called Crouching Aphrodite, considered by some to be another representation of the birth of Venus. What is certain is that the Crouching Aphrodite of Rhodes did serve as an inspiration for another statue by Moiret, the 1919 Resurrection (Reflection). In its light, it is fair to assume that his Venus is also related to this iconographic type.