Read on Twitter
I kept thinking, this week,of the Venus of Amiens . She's a little thing of about 4cm, carved in chalk, and is aboit 23k years old. Her body has seen the realities of a hard life. Her fupa lops over her hips, indicating fluctuations in weight, stomach shows effects of pregnancies
The Venus of Kostenki, in Russia, shows similar signs of living through hard times, births, and lack of what we, in our self-indulgent world would think of as self-care. Hard to find a gym in the Upper Palaeolithic, as the ice strated to retreat and ecosystems changed
The Venus of Laussel is yiur somewhat gorgeous friend, whose non-Vogue weight still brings all the boys to the yard. Her hips are rounded and ankles tiny, perhaps the most idealised image of all the mobiliary art, although Monruz is a Kardashian, just without the champagne ;)
There's a fair few of these figures, and I've started to think of them as not so much Venus, lady of a good shifting, as much as Our Lady of Imperfect Survival. I've been thinking about those cold times, starvation, times of binged available food, children concieved and born
with little odds of survival to teens, never mind past 30. How precious each day survived must have been, that close to the edge, living like a human mayfly. To last long enough to have sagged boobs, plump hips, enough weight to carry a baby for 9 months, must've been goals
These figures are small. Perhaps carried as amulets to reach the stage where you too were old to have seen a few decades of life, had a full belly, and surviving children. The body scars we despise were enviable, they shouted out, I lived, i learned, and I know stuff
I can help you survive too. They're Queens of Survival. Knowledge. Imagine a time when that was considered beauty enough. How they'd be baffled by our obsessons of glossing bodies over, when life shows on your bones. Here's to Our Ancient Lady of Imperfections!
