Woman of Willendorf
The art can be defined as the application of skills of art to imitate and design, engrave, paint , architecture, or sculpture that results in the production of visible, beautiful forms. An artifact can be considered as an application of human art. Amazingly most of the artifacts found do represent the images of females. Reports indicate that male artifacts have been discovered recently. Once an artifact has been found, the scholars use a variety of methods to estimate the age of the object.
Woman of Willendorf is among the oldest and famous artifacts and categorized under a Paleolithic period or stone age. The figurine is dated about 24,000 BCE. The artifact was discovered in 1908 Austria village in Willendorf by archaeologist Josef Szombathy. The figurine of the female has a height of 11.1 cm. Scholars have argued that the human ancestors were nomadic and could carry the artifact by palm. The figurine was named by scholars initially name as Venus of Willendorf. Venus represents the Roman goddess of beauty and love. Later, the name was changed to “Woman of Willendorf” since the term Venus represented a goddess and was misleading. The paper argues the likely interpretations of the figurine and makes the comparison with contemporary popular culture.
The artist paid attention to emphasize anatomy, areas responsible for the reproduction process, and child-rearing. Woman of Willendorf breasts, deep navel, wide hips, and pubic region were emphasized. However, the artist failed to emphasize on head and limbs. The emphasized areas could possibly indicate the fertility of women and their ability to rear a child; hence, the ability of survival of future generations. The absence of facial features such as eyes, ears, and nose and emphasis on concentric circles in the head has been interpreted differently by scholars. Some scholars argue it represents braids, and she was facing downwards, others argue she was wearing a tight-knit cap that she had pulled downwards. The lower arms have barely visible, and legs are halfway. These can be interpreted that women were supposed to lie down or to be carried, and that implies their primary purpose was for reproduction. The figure image is shown below.
Previously, no written records were indicating the purpose of the artifact or the exact age of the artifact. The current interpretation of an artifact is guesses of the functions, and there are modern methods such as radiocarbon and relative dating of trying to estimate the age of an artifact. Scholars have provided a different interpretation of the same artifact. Hopefully, a similar explanation will be provided by scholars regarding a particular artifact. After the knowledge of writing in the 19th century; the artist have been dating and inscribing their names on a piece of art. The naming of an object usually provides the message of an artifact. In contrast, in olden times, the naming of an object could be misleading as the case of Woman of Willendorf. The archaeologists are still making more discoveries of artifacts, and perhaps better explanations of already discovered artifacts will be provided