Alan Howes ruffled lots of west-London feathers in 1952 with the creation and public placement of his Aphrodite. Public reaction was vociferous and negative. Howes' Portland stone treatment of standard iconography shows the goddess binding her hair in a pool-side scene. The sculpture was nicknamed "Bulbous Betty" and branded a "sacrilege to Aphrodite" in articles published in local press.
For more on this, click OGCMA0142NOTAphrodite_Howes
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I think that probably calling the statue a sacrilege to Aphrodite is an overreaction. I rather like the treatment, personally.
ReplyDeleteFiona Keating's Feb 2010 article is very well documented: http://thegreen.greatbritishlife.co.uk/article/a-nation-of-prudes-richmond-aphrodite-bulbous-betty-west-london-local-history-feature-18006/
ReplyDelete"...ante igitur humana forma quam homines, eaque erant forma di immortales. Non ergo illorum humana forma sed nostra divina dicenda est." Cicero, De Natura Deorum.
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