It is often adorned with golden and jeweled necklaces bestowed upon her by the Horai, the goddesses of the seasons. The poet also describes Aphrodite's breasts as "pale and desirable. Aphrodite often appears naked, but when clothed she wears fine garments dyed with flowers. She often wears a dark blue robe to symbolize her emergence from the ocean. Around her waist she exhibits a magical, golden girdle that perfumes the air with the scent of balsam and cinnamon.
World View. Born from the foam in the waters of Paphos, on the island of Cyprus, Aphrodite has a couple of origin stories. According to Hesiod's "Theogony," she rose from the sea when the Titan Cronus killed his father Uranus and threw his genitals into the sea um, yikes.
However she came into the world of Greek mythology, the Goddess of Love and Beauty is best known for her stunning aesthetic, but she's also a powerful, immortal deity capable of stirring up romance among gods and mortals. Here are seven of the most beautiful facts you may not know about Aphrodite. Aphrodite was such a force, even her accessories held otherworldly abilities.
Her belt sometimes called a "magic girdle" had the power to inspire desire and cause men and gods to hopelessly fall for whoever's wearing it. She was generous with that trinket too — she loaned it to Queen Hera so she could distract Zeus from the Trojan War.
Zeus married Aphrodite off to Hephaestus who was known for being Apparently the King of the Gods felt some kind of poetic justice in matching the stunning goddess up with someone who was less than a looker. But marriage didn't stop Aphrodite from getting hers — her long list of lovers included gods like Ares and men like Anchises. But she perhaps had the strongest connection to Adonis, who was also kind of her surrogate son?
Mythology is crazy. Aphrodite could have had just about any god or man she wanted — just about. The few who somehow resisted her allure didn't meet very happy endings. Take Hippolytus for example. He chose Artemis over Aphrodite, so the latter made his stepmother Phaedra fall in love with him and both wound up dead.
Sculptors had more freedom than painters to imagine the goddess in different poses and situations. Often these poses emphasized her feminine shape and attractiveness to the male gaze. Images of Aphrodite have persisted through time, always reflecting the contemporary ideals of beauty. Greek artists imagined all the gods as paragons of physical perfection, but Aphrodite was thought to be particularly ideal. As the goddess of beauty, she represented the most desirable female form possible.
Because the gods were perfect representations of human bodies, writers saw little need to detail their physical attributes. The beauty of the gods, particularly Aphrodite, could be understood without detail.
The gods could also change their forms. They often changed their appearances to suit their purposes. This shape-shifting also allowed artists to portray the gods in a way that reflected the physical idea of their own time and place.
Aphrodite could have dark hair in one place and be blonde in another. Thus, our modern interpretation of Aphrodite has been filtered through the ideals of female beauty from not only Greece and Rome, but long after as well. Medieval artists gave her a high forehead and Renaissance painters showed her with flowing blonde hair because those were the ideals of their times.
The written descriptions of Aphrodite were open-ended enough to allow artists to show her in a way they thought was beautiful for centuries. While later artists were influenced by the paintings and sculptures of Rome and Greece, they had the license to show the goddess of beauty in a way that made sense within their own cultures. This tradition continues in art today. The goddess of beauty can be recognized across cultures, however, because she is shown as desirable.
Even when precise views on beauty have changed, it is possible to recognize the often seductive poses of Aphrodite with no other attributes or symbols attached. She was shown then and for many centuries later with light skin, full hair, round breasts, and full hips.
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