Who was born from the foam of the sea. Bay of Aphrodite. The place where dreams come true

Bay of Aphrodite. A place where dreams come true.

There is a special place on the island of Cyprus, which is rightfully considered one of the most romantic and mysterious in the entire Mediterranean. This is the bay of Aphrodite.

Here came out of the foam Marine Aphrodite,
And stepping on a stone with a graceful foot,
looked around the most beautiful mountains,
Covering your chic figure with hair.

The bay is located at a distance of 25 km from Paphos on the road to Limassol. Greek name of this place - Petra tou Romiou (Petra tou Romiou) or "Romea's Stone" - in the Middle Ages, the Greeks, as the heirs of the Roman Empire, called themselves Romans.

The bay of Aphrodite, even if you do not believe the legends, in itself is very beautiful place with a magnificent and peaceful landscape, a cozy and harmonious atmosphere.

All this beauty was specially left in its original form. You will not find any infrastructure here. In this wild place there is no dirt from "civilization and the rumble of spaceports", here you just want to admire all this and think about the beautiful.

And now for the legends. One of them tells about the hero of the ancient Greek epic Digenis, who possessed incredible strength.

From time immemorial, the Byzantine guarded the island from frequent attacks from the sea.

The mighty giant warrior, in order to sink the enemy ships of the Saracen pirates, threw huge stones at them.

The ships sank, but the stones remained. One of them is called the "Romean Stone". So it has been standing since then, having fallen into the sea, and at its foot emerald waves have been foaming for many centuries.

But still, most travelers are attracted here by another, more romantic legend.

It says that it was on this beach in 1200 BC. came out of sea ​​foam and the beautiful Aphrodite found a human body.

She is the goddess of beauty, love, fertility, eternal spring and life.

The "Stone of Romeus" is the "Stone of Aphrodite", known far beyond the borders of Cyprus, near which the foam-born goddess first set foot on Cypriot soil.

The beach of Aphrodite and its seabed are covered with rather large pebbles, in some places there are large pitfalls, and the bottom is rapidly gaining depth.

Often there are waves in the waters of the beach, and because of the underwater currents, the water here is quite cool.

It seems that time has no power over this corner of nature, and that the local beautiful scenery has remained unchanged since ancient times.

According to ancient belief, women, having bathed in these waters, gain eternal youth and men - courage and bravery.

Romantics believe that if you swim around the Rock of Aphrodite three times in a row counterclockwise, then your wish will come true.

There is such a variety of bizarre shapes of pebbles on the pebble shore that you are directly amazed at the intricacy of nature.

If you find a heart-shaped stone on the beach, then love will accompany you throughout your life.

In the bay there is a rock hanging over the water, at the base of which there is a small grotto. It was in it, according to the myth, that the goddess of love took baths from spring water, preparing for dates.

Frequent guests of the beach are not only tourists who come here on excursions, but also newlyweds from different countries peace. For them, the trip here has already become a good tradition.

Natural beauty the beach and the surrounding area inspires artists to create many wonderful paintings and photographs.

It is better to go to those places for the whole day, providing good supplies of water, comfortable shoes for long walks over the stones.

It seems like time has stopped. Now a wave will rise, and from the snow-white sea foam, like thousands of years ago, on Sandy shore the beautiful Aphrodite will emerge.

Still, it's time to get back to reality.

Let's go to a cafe, which is not far from the bay, to taste delicious Cypriot fish.

Who is Aphrodite?

Aphrodite is one of the most revered and beloved Greek goddesses. Her importance can be confirmed by the fact that she was one of the twelve great Olympians. Aphrodite is the goddess of love and beauty. She is the patroness of marriage and childbearing, the personification of eternal spring. The forces of Aphrodite were obedient not only to people, but also to the immortal gods, with the exception of Athena, Artemis and Hestia. She blesses women with beauty and gives them a happy marriage, and kindles the fire of true and eternal love in the hearts of men.

There are two versions of its appearance. According to the version proposed by Homer, Aphrodite was the child of the supreme god Zeus and a nymph named Dione, and was born in the usual way. The version proposed by Hesiod is more mystical. According to her, Aphrodite appeared after the castration of Uranus by Kronos. His blood got into sea ​​waters and, mingled with the foam, gave birth to the most beautiful goddess that ever existed. The wind brought her to the shores of Cyprus, where the Ores met the goddess. They crowned Aphrodite with a precious diadem and dressed her in sparkling gold-woven clothes. Wherever the goddess stepped, fragrant flowers bloomed. When Aphrodite appeared on Olympus, all the gods were delighted with her beauty. She made Hephaestus, patron of fire and blacksmithing, her chosen one. Their union of beauty and craftsmanship is the epitome of art. But this marriage was not very happy. Hephaestus spent all the time with his cousin, while Aphrodite communicated with her lovers. From one of them, Ares, the goddess gave birth to three children. The fruit of her connection with Hermes was Hermaphrodite, combining the beauty of both parents. Eros is also considered the son of Aphrodite.

Suddenly, the son stretched out his left hand from an ambush, and with his right, grabbing a huge sharp-toothed sickle, he quickly cut off the childbearing member from the dear parent, and threw it back with a strong swing ... The member was worn over the sea for a long time; and white foam whirled around from the imperishable member. And the girl in the foam was born in that ... (c)

Despite the story of conception, which is so exciting for the heart of every feminist, in depicting the plot of the birth of Aphrodite, the artists - which is quite natural - preferred to write another moment: the appearance of a completely naked goddess from sea ​​waves, with drops running down her body, strands of long hair stuck to her chest, and so on.

And here I will probably surprise you - the plot of this nude has not lost popularity for two and a half thousand years. Aphrodite Anadyomene- this epithet means "surfacing out of the sea", will come out from under the brushes of the court painter Alexander the Great, as well as the favorite painter of Napoleon III, and - Pablo Picasso. Each, of course, in their own way. And there will be a lot of them:

CREATOR It is believed that the idea of ​​Aphrodite Anadyomene came to one of the greatest artists of antiquity - Apelles. He was the court master of Alexander of Macendon, and he wrote it so well that the king, they say, exclaimed: "From now on, no one will paint my portraits except you!". You can understand the feelings of the model - for example, for the city of Ephesus, the artist painted him sitting on a throne in the form of Zeus and holding a beam of lightning in his hands. True, before becoming a permanent painter of the court, Apelles had to work hard - the king did not like the first portrait of Alexander. But when Bucephalus, the commander's faithful stallion, was brought to the picture, the horse neighed joyfully at the sight of his beloved face. "O king, Master chuckled. your horse turned out to be a better connoisseur of painting than you."
This is how interviews should be.

Behind "Alexander the Thunderer" he was already paid 20 talents of gold.
Unfortunately, almost the entire history of ancient painting consists of such tales - after all, nothing has been preserved from the paintings. (Something is known, however, from Roman copies).

By creating your "Aphrodite Anadyomene", Apelles became a pioneer. The image of a naked female body in those days, 4th c. BC, was bold enough - remember Praxiteles, who, sculpting a naked "Aphrodite of Knidos" from hetaera Phryne, had to justify himself before the Athenian court; in addition, the shocked customers did not accept the statue (customers are always scoundrels) and he had to fuse it to others. How things were with painting is not very clear - nevertheless, Apelles' painting immediately became a landmark and caused many imitations.

What exactly was depicted on it is unclear, the old gossip Pliny the Elder in his "natural history" more space devoted to stories about her movements and price. It is believed that the fresco "Birth of Venus" from Pompeii may be a copy of Apelles, but this is only an assumption that is not very compatible with the words of the sources. And they describe it like this: newborn goddess, emerging from the waves, wringing out her hair.

EUREKA The idea to depict Aphrodite in this way came to Apelles, as they say, all of a sudden: he was inspired by the already mentioned hetaera Phryne, the model of Praxiteles. Phryne was very smart, beautiful, and earned a lot of money - for example, after the king of Lydia spent the night with her, he had to raise taxes in his native country to make up for the budget deficit. With all this, she was bashful: it was almost impossible to see her naked. public baths she did not visit, dressed in tight, not transparent clothes, covered her hair, hid her wrists, and she preferred to receive men alone in the dark. (My version - she just kept her exclusivity).

At the sight of Phryne emerging from the waves of the bay back to land, Apelles was inspired and he came up with an image "Aphrodite Anadyomene". Some say that Phryne posed for him for this picture, just as she posed for the sculpture of Praxiteles. Others mention the name of Campaspa - the former mistress of Alexander the Great. According to legend, the king once asked the artist to paint her naked. In the process of posing, Apelles was so imbued with her beauty that he fell in love with her without memory. Alexander presented his concubine to the master, thus demonstrating his nobility (and his characteristic coolness in relations with women).

The painting went to Asklepion - the temple of the god Asclepius on the island of Kos, where she was for several centuries. The fate of the canvas with the beginning of the Roman Empire was not very happy: at the turn of our era, Emperor Augustus took it, however, forgiving the inhabitants of the island in return for taxes in the amount of 100 talents. He placed it in Rome, in the temple of Julius Caesar. By this time, the picture was already damaged in the lower part, but no one undertook to restore it. And the emperor Nero, a well-known perfectionist, replaced the dying work with one of the works of a certain master Dorothea. Since then, no one knows what was there. But many offer their own interpretations.

ATTRIBUTES Let's talk about the paraphernalia that accompanied the newborn goddess in her images. The most symbolically filled in this sense is the painting by Sandro Botticelli "Birth of Venus", who extremely carefully studied all the ancient evidence available to him.

Certainly in "Birth of Venus" the sea must be present (remember that it was he who was fertilized by the cut off genitals of Uranus, that is, it acted as if a mother. No wonder in the late version of the myth Aphrodite is the daughter of Zeus, the supreme god of the next generation, precisely from oceanides Dione). There are marine attributes - dolphins, fish, nereid nymphs. The goddess on the shore is met by her maids - ora and charites, and the winds hospitably blow. Flowers bloom underfoot. Sometimes her usual companions are present - cupids and cupids.

And the two main signs of Aphrodite Anadyomene are the shell on which Aphrodite sailed from the island of Cythera (where she appeared) to the island of Cyprus (where she landed); as well as strands of wet hair, which the goddess squeezes from the sea foam.

The same details, only not so rigidly structured, we see in the paintings of the masters and later times. For example, at the birth of the goddess, the academician Bouguereau has a huge number of people - some kind of centaurs, tritons, at least a dozen cupids, a black dolphin, and so on. Bush is more intimate - his Venus reclines either on a blue satin, or on the waves, and only the fish, staring with a big eye, gives a more obvious hint at the plot of the picture. Unlike Botticelli's painting, where the shell under the feet of Venus is the compositional focus of the picture, Boucher does not have it, and Bouguereau loses it.

SHELL As advanced art historians and culturologists unappetizingly explain, the sea shell in ancient world was the symbol of the vulva. This is not strange - we find the same situation with the Hindus with their yoni. There is no mention that a shell was present in the Apelles painting. Nevertheless, Botticelli did not abandon this attribute, probably relying on the many small ones available to him. archaeological artifacts. The sea mollusk can either be depicted directly, or be indicated with the help of folds of clothing, as we see it on the statue. "Venus of Syracuse".

In the diagram - an example of a yoni: the image of the goddess of Wisdom, used for visualization by tantrists from the Tibetan Kagyudpa sect (or something like that). The energy emanating from the yoni of the goddess forms the leaf of the bodhi tree, under which the Buddha experienced enlightenment. This picture expresses the elemental nature of erotic energy.

She wrote, put up pictures - and she herself became scared.
A heartbreaking thing - these Freudian symbols of yours in the collective primitive unconscious, especially migrate to our modern culture.

HAIR Much calmer is the situation with the gesture of hands squeezing out wet hair - its task is clearly purely aesthetic plus contextual. This path was followed by such masters as Titian, Rubens, Ingres and others. (At Botticelli, the goddess just easily holds a long curl, covering her bosom with it).

Most of the ancient interpretations of the plot of Anadyomena are precisely sculptural. At the same time, raising her hands, she seems to become a female version Diadumen("young man tying a victory armband"). A significant number of variations of this particular pose is further evidence that the Pompeian fresco with the reclining goddess is unlikely to be very similar to the original Apelles, because, as you know, he served as a model for many repetitions.

NEW WORLD By mid. 19th century this plot is very confusing. Countless polished canvases came out of the workshops of academicians. They can be understood - demand gave rise to supply, and what other plot could give such a good justification for the image of a naked woman in the bashful era of Sherlock Holmes, if not Venus or some kind of odalisques? The lack of nudity in the aesthetic treasury of every real man, which today is made up by means of magazines, photographs and the Internet, was difficult to compensate in an age when inventors had only reached daguerreotypes in any other way.

Nevertheless, decency had to be observed in the depiction of nudity. 1863: Queen Victoria is 44, we have just abolished serfdom and Bazarov began to cut frogs; in the States, Scarlett reconciles the green hat. Painting nude.

Left - "bad" example, right - "good":

Alexandre Cabanel, salon artist, paints his "Birth of Venus" and exhibits it at the Paris Salon of 1863. The painting became an incredible success. In addition to its inherent artistic merits, critics praised the composition itself - the fact is that Cabanel, when creating it, relied on the very Pompeian fresco with the reclining Venus, which had just been discovered in those years. The flow of praise became even more intense when Emperor Napoleon III purchased the painting for his personal collection. An example of what happened to an artist if he did not hide behind antique themes is a painting by Manet "Olympia". He creates it in the same year, inspired, as they say, by the success of the Kabanel nude. But he draws a real Parisian on it, calls the work after a prostitute, and in addition, experiments with the style of painting. And what? - Directorate of the Paris Salon of 1864, where he exhibited "Olympia", you have to put two guards in front of her so that the audience does not spit and do not poke her with umbrellas.

I remember a few years ago, when Yair Lapid was still entertaining, not news, his program included a joke of humor from one of the noteworthy wits of Israeli TV.

The joke was about what is the most beautiful and the most disgusting.
The most beautiful thing is imagine: a clear sky, a blue sea, a cheerful sun, gorgeous beach, and a completely naked Pamela Anderson emerges from the water. And sea moisture, and foam falls from her bodies ...

And the most disgusting (ahi magil)? The same thing: the sea, the sky, the sun, the beach, but it comes out of the water ... then followed the name of the most famous Russian-speaking member of the Knesset.

The joke itself is MAGILE, but... that's not the point.

The beautiful nude coming out of the water is one of the most ancient archetypes. No wonder Aphrodite was called foam-born - Αφροδίτη Αναδυομένη .

Name options: Aphrodite Anadyomene, Venus Anadyomene, Birth of Venus, Venus Marina.

Very interesting is the myth cited by Hesiod about the appearance of the goddess of love from the blood and sperm of castrated Uranus, which fell into the sea.

Leading the night, Uranus appeared, and he lay down
Around Gaia, burning with love desire, and everywhere
Spread around. Suddenly left hand
The son stretched out from the ambush, and with his right, grabbing a huge
A sharp-toothed sickle, cut off a cute parent quickly
Member of the childbearing and threw back his strong swing.
And not fruitlessly from the Crown hands he flew mighty:
No matter how many drops of blood spilled onto the ground from a member,
All their land accepted. And when the years turned
She gave birth to powerful Erinnias and great Giants
With long spears in mighty hands, in shining armor,
Also the nymphs that we call Melias on earth.
The father's penis, cut off with a sharp iron,
It was worn by the sea for a long time, and the white foam
Whipped around from the imperishable member. And the girl in the foam
In that one was born ... "
Hesiod, Theogony

Aphrodite Anadyomene - "surfacing, emerging from the sea" - the most popular constant epithet of the goddess and her most famous incarnation. This is an image visual arts starting with the famous but not preserved painting of Apelles, repeated many times by the masters of subsequent eras.

The most famous depiction of the birth of Anadyomene is a painting by the Italian painter of the Tuscan school, Sandro Botticelli.

"Sandro Botticelli "The Birth of Venus""

It is believed that the model for Venus was Simonetta Vespucci, the beloved of Giuliano Medici, the younger brother of the Florentine ruler Lorenzo the Magnificent.

But this plot was popular before the Renaissance and much later.

One way or another, but the fact that the most beautiful can come out of the water in the foam of the sea is known. And the worst thing too: where all sorts of reptiles, monsters, etc. come from. in myths...

There may be a combination ... There, to see the beautiful in the ugly, as the French decadents could do. Here Rimbaud has such a poem “Venus Anadyomene”, which, according to contemporaries, was a reaction to the ten-verses of François Coppé, who represented the ugliness of the century, according to Rimbaud, licked and the poems of Albert Glatigny, who was a wandering comedian and died young from consumption.

In this poem, which in the opinion of many became a turning point in aesthetics, Rimbo literally eradicates the "literary" ideas about the beautiful and desirable, and the decadent Venus, reduced to the caricature image of a prostitute, becomes the object of love desire. And at the same time, there is a frank evidence of the monstrous beauty rising from the old bath, a very wretched, very cheap prostitute.

Venus Anadyomene

Comme d'un cercueil vert en fer blanc, une tête
De femme a cheveux bruns fortement pommadés
D'une vieille baignoire émerge, lente et bête,
Avec des deficits assez mal ravaudés;

Puis le col gras et gris, les larges omoplates
Qui sailent; le dos court qui rentre et qui ressort;
Puis les rondeurs des reins semblent prendre l'essor;
La graisse sous la peau paraît en feuilles plates:

L'échine est un peu rouge, et le tout sent un goût
Horrible étrangement; on remarque surtout
Des singularités qu’il faut voir à la loupe…

Les reins portent deux mots gravés: CLARA VENUS;
-Et tout ce corps remue et tend sa large croupe
Belle hideusement d'un ulcère à l'anus.

There are two versions of the origin of the goddess of love and beauty, Aphrodite (among the Romans, Venus). According to one, she is the daughter of Zeus and Dione, according to another, earlier and most common, Aphrodite was born from the blood of Uranus castrated by Cronus. This blood fell into the sea and formed a snow-white foam, so the goddess of love is also called "foam-born." It happened near the island of Cythera, but the wind carried the foam to the island of Cyprus, on the shore of which Aphrodite appeared.

Like other Olympian gods, Aphrodite was very proud. She severely punished those who did not show her respect. But those who served her faithfully, she bestowed in every possible way. She responded to the prayer of Pygmalion, the Cypriot king, who lived alone on the island and hated women, because he considered them all corrupt.

Pygmalion was also a sculptor. Once, from ivory, he carved a life-size figure of a girl, from which he could not take his eyes off. She was alive. The sculptor admired her for hours and did not notice how he fell in love with the work he created. He began to make gifts to the statue: necklaces, bracelets, rings, bought her luxurious outfits and dressed her himself. He whispered sweet words into her ear. The sculpture did not respond to his confessions. Pygmalion was in despair, he wanted her to come to life.

The time has come to celebrate the days of Aphrodite in Cyprus. Everyone tried to make something pleasant for the goddess of love, brought her different jewelry as a gift. Pygmalion also decided to make a sacrifice. He slaughtered a white heifer with gilded horns and offered her to the altar.

Oh, almighty goddess of love Aphrodite! he exclaimed. “I suffer from love. Help me revive the girl I carved from ivory. For me, there is no one better than her.
Pygmalion talked for a long time about his love for the statue, and then, saddened that he did not hear an answer, he went home. He came to the workshop where his statue stood. Imagine his surprise when, touching her hand, he noticed that it was warm. Moreover, she answered his shake. He looked into her eyes and saw a gleam in them. He smiled, and the sculpture smiled back at him. He spoke and she answered him!

Pygmalion did not believe his eyes - his sculpture came to life. Pygmalion was happy. He named the revived statue Galatea and soon married her. Over time, they had a son, who was named Paphos.

A completely opposite story happened with Narcissus, the son of the river god Cephis and a nymph. Narcissus showed no respect for Aphrodite. This young man, beautiful in appearance, but cold inside, did not love anyone. He rejected the love of beautiful nymphs, only considered himself worthy of love. Aphrodite wanted to punish the selfish. Once, when he crouched down by the stream to drink water, he saw his reflection. He couldn't tear himself away from it. A strong love for himself flared up in his heart. Narcissus did not know that this was punishment from Aphrodite.

Narcissus forgot about food, drink, just looked at himself and admired himself. He had less and less strength left, he could not tear himself away from the stream, and life gradually left him. He died without leaving the spot. The nymphs wanted to bury the beautiful young man, but did not find his body. And in the place where he died, white fragrant flowers grew, they were called daffodils.

But the goddess of love, who so cruelly punished Narcissus, herself knew the torments of love. She fell in love with Adonis, the son of the king of Cyprus. No mortal was equal to him in beauty. For the sake of Adonis, she forgot the sky itself. She stopped dressing beautifully and did not undead herself, as before. She spent all her time with young Adonis. With him she hunted in the mountains and forests of Cyprus for hares, shy deer and chamois, but she avoided a powerful boar, bear or wolf. And Adonis asked she to stay away from these predators. The goddess rarely left the royal son, and leaving him, each time she prayed to remember her requests.

But one day, while hunting in Cyprus in the absence of Aphrodite, Adonis forgot about her request. His dogs drove a terrible boar out of the thicket into a clearing, and Adonis threw his hunting dart at him. But the beast was only wounded. The enraged wounded boar rushed at the young hunter. The unfortunate man did not have time to escape. The boar with its fangs inflicted a deep wound on the young man, he fell to the ground. Aphrodite heard the moans of a dying man and full of inexpressible grief, she went to the mountains of Cyprus to look for the body of her beloved youth. Sharp stones and thorns of thorns wounded the delicate legs of the goddess, drops of her blood fell to the ground, and from this blood then lush roses grew everywhere, scarlet, like the blood of Aphrodite. Finally she found the body of Adonis. The goddess wept bitterly over the beautiful young man who died early. But the sobs of the dead cannot be resurrected.

In memory of her favorite, Aphrodite mixed his blood with divine nectar and turned it into a flower red like blood. Briefly, like the life of a young man, the time of its flowering, the wind quickly blows away the faded petals. This flower is called Adonis.