Super Safi’s Monday Morning Musings 112 – Venus de Milo

Morning Musically-Minded, Medically-Minded, Masticators!

(Today’s post is sponsored by the letter “M”)

Over the past 600+ episodes, The Simpsons has taken us on an amazing journey involving music, science, and food to name a few concepts.

And what better way to start your week, than by discussing some of these concepts Monday morning?

So let’s get started this week by talking about a famous work of ancient art.

In the one hundredth and twelfth episode of The Simpsons, Homer Badman (Season 06, Episode 09), Homer is all excited for getting two tickets to the Candy Convention and takes Marge with him to bring back as many candy free samples as possible.

While there are plenty of free samples to be had, the prize of the ball is a gummy Venus de Milo. Using an accidental distraction from Marge, Homer steals the gummy Venus de Milo.

However, when they get back home, Homer is disappointed that he has misplaced the gummy Venus de Milo.

But when he goes to drop the babysitter, the gummy Venus de Milo is found in a most unfortunate spot.

Showing a complete lack of awareness, Homer grabs the gummy; which is misunderstood as a different indication by the babysitter.

As the babysitter runs off, Homer enjoys his gummy Venus de Milo.

The next day, the babysitter and several community members gather to protest Homer’s behaviour and his “touching”/”grabbing” of her butt.

While society turns against him, and no one believes his Venus de Milo story, the truth comes out when it is revealed Groundskeeper Willie participates in the Scottish practice of secretly recording people.

But have you ever wondered what the Venus de Milo is?

Venus de Milo

The Venus de Milo is an ancient Greek sculpture that was created during the Hellenistic period, sometime between 150 and 125 BC. It was carved from parian marble by Alexandros, a sculptor of Antioch. It was found in pieces on the Aegean island of Melos on April 8, 1820, and was subsequently presented to King Louis XVIII. He then donated it to the Louvre Museum in 1821. Though it was reconstructed to a standing posture, the statue’s arms were never found. An inscription that is not displayed with the statue states that “Alexandros, son of Menides, citizen of Antioch of Maeander made the statue.”

The Venus de Milo is larger than life size, standing 204 cm (6 ft 8 in) high. The  statue is believed to depict Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of love, whose Roman counterpart was Venus. The sculpture is sometimes called the Aphrodite de Milos, due to the imprecision of naming the Greek sculpture after a Roman deity (Venus).

However, some scholars theorize that the statue actually represents the sea-goddess Amphitrite, who was venerated on the island of Milos, in which the statue was found.

The great fame of the Venus de Milo during the 19th century owed much to a major propaganda effort by the French authorities. In 1815, France had returned the Venus de’ Medici (also known as the Medici Venus) to the Italians, after it had been looted by Napoleon Bonaparte. The Medici Venus, regarded as one of the finest classical sculptures in existence, caused the French to promote the Venus de Milo as a greater treasure than that which they recently had lost. The statue was praised dutifully by many artists and critics as the epitome of graceful female beauty.

Now that we’ve learned more about the Venus de Milo, be sure to come back next week when we continue our Monday morning musings with the next episode of The Simpsons.

Did you remember this episode? Have you ever been to a candy convention? If you could eat candy in the shape of someone or something, what shape would it be? What’s your favourite sculpture? What’s your favourite Simpsons arts reference? What about your favourite Simpsons Homer versus society episode? Sound off in the comments below. You know we love hearing from you.