Recalling the arrival of Aphrodite

Aphrodite, the Virgin Goddess of Love. Although there are two accounts of her birth, I enjoy the one from Hesiod. To understand Hesiod's version we must go back to Ge, Goddess of the Earth and her mate Uranus, God of the Sky. As Heaven lies over the Earth, Ge and Uranus produce the 13 Titans, 3 Cyclopes, and the 3 terrible Hundred-Handed. The Titans were important Gods performing functions such as Oceanus, God of the rivers and oceans, and Mnemosyne, personification of memory, and most importantly are Rhea and Cronus because they marry and produce the Olympian Gods. But the Cyclopes are the violent one-eyed giants, thunder, lightning and the thunderbolt, and the Hundred-Handed are the most terrible of all Ge and Uranus' children with their 50 heads and 100 arms.

Needless to say Uranus wasn't happy with the children he produced with Ge and so he hides them within her and Ge suffers great pain. As a result Ge asks for help from Cronus, the youngest and boldest of the Titans. She gives her son one of her sickles and as Night comes to lay over her, Cronus, using the harvesting tool severs his father's genitals and flings them into the sea below. Uranus has now lost his creating force but from his genitals thrown into the sea came a white foam and from this sea foam (aphros), the Greek Goddess Aphrodite is born. Even though she was a bit spoiled and often contemptuous about her beauty, Aphrodite was loved and worshipped as the Goddess of Love.

To me, this sculpture translates all that is sensual and beautiful about the female form and reminds me of how Aphrodite may have arrived on the island of Cypress assured by the gift nature had given her. She is much too contemporary for Aphrodite whose beauty fit the Classical Greek " ideal canon of proportions". For me, the beauty of this sculpture is the natural way her body rides over the sea and how gravity affects the volumes and helps to create a continuous swooping movement of her entire form. I feel her arriving on the wave. This is what inspired me to call this sculpture "Recalling the arrival of Aphrodite".