Fame
The great fame of the Aphrodite of Milos during the nineteenth century was not simply the result of its admitted beauty, but also owed much to a major propaganda effort by the French authorities. In 1815, France had returned the Medici Venus to the Italians after it had been looted from Italy 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 de Milo statue was praised dutifully by many artists and critics as the epitome of graceful female beauty, however, Pierre-Auguste Renoir was among its detractors, labeling it a "big gendarme".
Read more about this topic: Venus De Milo
Famous quotes containing the word fame:
“There are names written in her immortal scroll at which Fame blushes!”
—William Hazlitt (1778–1830)
“The genuine remains of Ossian, or those ancient poems which bear his name, though of less fame and extent, are, in many respects, of the same stamp with the Iliad itself. He asserts the dignity of the bard no less than Homer, and in his era, we hear of no other priest than he.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“...I, his wife, rested and was warmed in the sunlight of his loyal love, and glorious fame, and now, even though his beautiful life has gone out, it is as when some far off planet disappears from the heavens, the light of his great fame still falls upon and warms me.”
—Julia Dent Grant (1825–1902)