The Great Venus Victrix, 1914

Pierre-Auguste Renoir (France 1841-1919)

Bronze Height: 1.80 m

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The Sixth Color of the Afternoon

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--Not long from the sea, Venus

Steps forward to her rock,

In a garden of rainbow flowers.

These elements: a broad-based

Body -- statue aslant

But balanced -- in one hand holding

A half-furled wave, her robe, its rough

Profusion widening,

The golden apple she had won

From Paris fecund in her palm.

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--At that moment of change

To the fourth color of the afternoon

The apple sun had blazed, the garden

Flowers brimmed with light. The old man,

Hand tied to its wand, pointed to faults

Which faded with each gesture, as at creation

Adam was thought and formed.

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--All art

Lies in that hair-headdress, crowning the naked

Woman, rippling, classic, curling

Back to the knot, one scroll escaping;

The bird-wing mouth, inward eye secure.

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--At the sixth color of the afternoon,

We range about her as a mirror --

Her symbol -- and she exists inside our eyes,

Morning star at evening. To the old man

She meant: "This is as it should be. I am here."

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----Written for the presentation of the first casting of Renoir's "Venus" to the Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, Massachusetts.

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Barbara Howes, American (1915-1996)
A Private Signal: poems new and selected
Middletown, Conn., 1977, Washington University Press.

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For more information this work:

http://www.renoir.org.yu
http://www.clarkart.edu

For information on the poet:

http://query.nytimes.com/fullpage.html?res=9F03E1D6039F936A15751C0A960958260

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