Guelder Roses and the Venus of Milo 1905

Édouard Vuillard captured this still life featuring Guelder Roses and the Venus de Milo. Here, the Venus de Milo, a symbol of classical beauty and ideal femininity, stands silently, partially obscured behind a vase of flowers. The Venus figure echoes through time, evoking ancient Greece, where goddesses embodied ideals of beauty and love. Consider Botticelli's "Birth of Venus," where the goddess emerges from the sea, a parallel to the Venus de Milo. These images share the archetype of feminine beauty. However, the fragmented state of Vuillard's Venus is suggestive of an unconscious state. The Venus de Milo, as a fragmented representation, connects to the concept of melancholia, a profound sense of loss and longing for an ideal that can never be fully attained. Vuillard presents us not just with a depiction of beauty, but with an engagement with the themes of memory and transience. It is a cycle of representation, a dialogue across the ages that evokes profound emotions.