Daily #7

Venus of Willendorf was a very famous statue that was created between 22,000 and 21,000 B.C. that depicts the image of a nude woman. It is only about eleven centimeters tall but it is probably one of the earliest forms of art ever discovered. It was discovered only about 100 years ago in 1908 by Josef Szombathy near Willendorf, which was a small village in Austria. This statue was carved out of limestone and it had leaded the way for similar statues and forms of art, which were eventually referred to as Venus figurines. It is unknown who actually carved it out and where it was carved, and the only thing known was when it was created. It did not have an identifiable head and the size of its stomach symbolized a fertility symbol so pregnant women could have had luck in child birth and they could have a lot of children. It could have also given good luck to fertile land during the agricultural season and good luck to a good hunting season. The main point is that this form of art was one of the first ever created and many sculptors based their work on it.

At the same time in history, many forms of art were taking place, including the famous cave paintings at Lascaux. This was a cave in France that had paintings all over the walls of animals that depicted the hunting season and how it affected the animals. It was discovered in 1940 by four teenagers and it is open to the public since it is so famous. If the cave paintings at Lascaux and the Venus of Willendorf were created roughly around the same time, it means that the people during that time had two things they had to do- have children and go hunting.  The domestication of animals was also occurring during this time so all these events are occurring and are somehow related. I think that these are all related because there was going to be a whole new revolution in agriculture that was going to happen soon. Venus of Willendorf was a token of good luck for fertile land to grow crops and the domestication of animals would help the people use animals to help them with their harvest of crops. This would grow into one of the most prosperous forms of work during that time and it would replace hunting by using the animals for good instead of killing them.