quantitative comparison between the italian and french iconography of venus from the middle ages...

8/12/2019 Quantitative Comparison between the Italian and French Iconography of Venus from the Middle Ages to Modern Times

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Quantitative comparison between

the Italian and French iconography of Venus

from the Middle Ages to Modern Times

byK. Bender

http://stores.lulu.com/benderk

1. Introduction2. Time distribution of artworks and artists3. Distribution of topics4. Number of artists and the production law of Lotka5. Conclusions6. References

Acknowledgement

1. Introduction

Two previous papers presented the quantitative analysis of the iconography of Venusin Italian art from the Middle Ages to Modern Times (Bender 2008a-b). The present

paper extends this quantitative approach with a comparison between the Italian andthe French Venus using the topical catalogues of sculptures, reliefs, paintings,

frescoes, drawings, prints and illustrations of identified artists compiled by Bender(2007, 2009). The catalogues list chronologically, under 18 main topics, 1840artworks of 649 Italian artists and 2997 artworks of 977 French artists, respectively.These samples are certainly not random samples which assume that every Venus-artwork in the population of the total number of Venus-artworks would have an equalchance of being included: they are unavoidably biased towards works that have beendescribed in the information sources available to the author. Nevertheless, the largesizes of both catalogues are judged to yield fair samples of the indefinite numbers ofartworks with the subject Venus created by the unknown numbers of Italian andFrench artists, allowing for a thoughtful quantitative analysis and comparison.The methodology of the compilation is fully explained in the Guideline of thecatalogues and has been briefly discussed in Bender (2008a). The basic rules of thismethodology are as follows: The presence of the Roman name Venus (or her Greek counterpart Aphrodite)

in the title of the work - given by its creator or used by the owner - or on a subjectclosely related to Venus, i.c. the story of the Judgment of Paris (where Venusis always depicted) and the Story of Psyche (whenever Venus is portrayed). Noattempt has been made to interpret artworks which seemingly refer to Venus butwhich do not bear her name in the title. In a few cases, however, such artworks are


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identified in the catalogues if the owner or art scholars explicitly refer to Venusin the description of the artwork. Works related to the paleo-historic so-calledVenus are not considered, nor are works related to science-fiction. Digital

paintings were not included. The choice of topic , based on well-established legends and attributes of Venus and

on her classical companions, is decided by interpreting the title and the visual

examination of the artwork as best as possible. In order to limit for practical purposes the number of main topics, certain sub-topics have been groupedtogether in a reasonable way.

Anonymous artists were not included, nor were artworks described by Schoolof, but terms like attributed to , circle of and workshop/studio ofwere accepted. These latter terms were considered a lower level of identificationin the analysis of the Italian artworks. They counted for only 9,6 % of the total andhad no significant effect on the quantitative results (Bender 2008b). Screening theFrench artists for a similar lower level of identification yielded only 2,9 % of thetotal.

The comparison between the two samples is developed hereafter for the time distribution in periods of 50 years of numbers of artworks and artists the distribution of topics and their popularity in different periods the percentage of artists who created Venus-artworks

the application of Lotkas production law, known from informetrics 1.

2. Time distribution of artworks and artists

Time distributions of number of artworks in periods of 50 years for each of the 18main topics are summarized in Tables 1 and 2 for the Italian and French Venus,respectively. These tables include the estimated number of artists creating theartworks in the given periods: an approximation based on birth date and assumed

period of main activity. Both tables list also the percentages of total numbers ofartworks and artists. Graphs of the time distribution of artworks and artists are givenin Fig. 1 and Fig. 2. Fig. 3 shows the comparison between Italian and French worksexpressed as percentages of total number of artworks and Fig. 4 gives a similarcomparison for percentages of artists.The most striking results of the comparison between the Italian and French Venus are(a) the shift over 200 years of the peak production and (b) the still important

production in the 19 th century of the French Venus compared to the Italian Venus. Thehigh numbers of French artworks in the periods 1700-1749/1750-1799 (483 or 16,1%and 785 or 26,2% respectively) is closely related to the production of FranoisBOUCHER: 273 works or 21,5% of the total number in that century. Since there is astrong correlation between the number of artworks and the number of artists in each

period (Fig. 5), the numbers of artists in both groups follow the same trend.

1 Informetrics is a relatively new term and includes bibliometrics.


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T a b

l e 1 . T i m e

d i s t r i b u

t i o n

o f I t a l

i a n a r

t w o r

k s ,

t o p

i c s a n

d a r

t i s t s

T O P I C S / P E R I O D S

- 1 3 9 9 1 4 0 0 - 4

9 1 4 5 0 - 9 9 1 5 0 0 - 4

9 1 5 5 0 - 9

9 1 6 0 0 - 4 9 1 6 5 0 - 9

9 1 7 0 0 - 4

9 1 7 5 0 - 9

9 1 8 0 0 - 4

9 1 8 5 0 - 9

9 1 9 0 0 - 4

9 1 9 5 0 + T O T A L

%

1

A l l e g o r i e s o f

V e n u s /

P l a n e

t

2

2

7

9

7

9

2

2

2

3

1

4 6

2 , 5 0

2 A p o

t h e o s i s /

S a c r i f

i c e /

T r i u m p h

/ W o r s h

i p o f

V e n u s

1

1

3

7

4

3

7

8

1 1

6

3

3

5 7

3 , 1 0

3

A t t r i b u t e s o

f V e n u s

1

2 0

1 3

3

4

7

4

4

3

5 9

3 , 2 1

4 B i r t h o f

V e n u s

/ V e n u s

A n a d y o m e n e /

V e n u s

M a r

i n a

3

1 5

1 8

1 3

1 1

5

5

4

1

9

1 2

9 6

5 , 2 2

5

T o i l e t / B a t

h / V e n u s c r o u c h

i n g

6

2 4

2 0

9

0

7

2

1

0

2

7 1

3 , 8 6

6

V e n u s a n

d A d o n i s

1

1

1

2 2

6 2

5 3

3 1

3 9

2 6

4

1

1

2 4 2

1 3 , 1

5

7

V e n u s a n

d A n c h

i s e s , A

e n e a s

2

2

4

7

1 5

8

9

0

0

2

4 9

2 , 6 6

8

V e n u s a n

d A n t e r o s

/ C u p

i d

3

6 0

7 4

5 6

2 9

3 0

1 8

2 2

5

0

2

2 9 9

1 6 , 2

5

9

V e n u s a n

d C u p

i d s

1

1 3

5

5

1 2

8

9

5 3

2 , 8 8

1 0 V e n u s a n

d J u d g e m e n

t o f P a r

i s / V e n u s w

i t h H e l e n

2

3

2 6

2 5

1 5

1 6

1 3

7

4

3

3

5

1 2 2

6 , 6 3

1 1

V e n u s a n d

M a r s

3

2 9

3 5

1 9

1 1

1 1

1 2

5

0

0

3

1 2 8

6 , 9 6

1 2

V e n u s a n

d o t

h e r G o d s , e t c

3

2 0

2 7

1 6

1 3

1 2

2 4

1 1

3

1 2 9

7 , 0 1

1 3

V e n u s a n

d P s y c h e

3

4 0

2

1

4

6

2

5 8

3 , 1 5

1 4

V e n u s a n d

S a t y r s

2

1 1

8

9

1 6

5

5 1

2 , 7 7

1 5

V e n u s a n

d V u l c a n

2 2

1 5

1 3

1 1

1 7

1 0

2

9 0

4 , 8 9

1 6 V e n u s a s

l e e p

/ U r b

i n o /

V e n u s w

i t h t h e

M u s

i c i a n

1

1 0

1 3

5

3

1

3

3

2

5

4 6

2 , 5 0

1 7

V e n u s s t a

t u e s

1

0

1

1 2

9

5

4

4

5

1 4

6

5

8

7 4

4 , 0 2

1 8

V e n u s u n a c c o m p a n i e d

2

3

4 0

2 3

1 7

4

0

5

7

7

1 8

4 4

1 7 0

9 , 2 4

T O T A L

S

5

8

3 8

3 5 5

3 7 1

2 6 8

1 9 5

1 8 7

1 6 4

9 1

3 1

4 0

8 7

1 8 4 0 1 0 0

, 0 0

%

0 , 2 7

0 , 4 3

2 , 0 7

1 9 , 2

9

2 0 , 1

6

1 4 , 5

7

1 0 , 6

0

1 0 , 1

6 8

, 9 1

4 , 9 5

1 , 6 8

2 , 1 7

4 , 7 3

1 0 0

, 0 0

N u m

b e r o

f a r t

i s t s w

i t h m a

i n a c

t i v i t y i n t h e p e r i o

d

5

8

3 5

9 5

9 1

8 2

6 2

5 4

6 1

4 1

2 3

3 7

5 5

6 4 9

%

0 , 7 7

1 , 2 3

5 , 3 9

1 4 , 6

4

1 4 , 0

2

1 2 , 6

3

9 , 5 5

8 , 3 2

9 , 4

0

6 , 3 2

3 , 5 4

5 , 7 0

8 , 4 7 1 0 0 , 0 0


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T a b

l e 2 . T i m e

d i s t r i b u

t i o n

o f F r e n c h a r

t w o r

k s ,

t o p i c s

a n d a r

t i s t s

T O P I C S / P E R I O D S

- 1 3 9 9

1 4 0 0 -

4 9

1 4 5 0 - 9

9

1 5 0 0 -

4 9

1 5 5 0 -

9 9

1 6 0 0 -

4 9

1 6 5 0 -

9 9

1 7 0 0 -

4 9

1 7 5 0 -

9 9

1 8 0 0 -

4 9

1 8 5 0 -

9 9

1 9 0 0 -

4 9

1 9 5 0 + T O T A L

%

1

A l l e g o r i e s o f

V e n u s /

P l a n e

t

1

1

3

1 0

1 6

5

7

4

1 4

6 1

2 , 0 4

2 A p o

t h e o s i s /

S a c r i f

i c e /

T r i u m p h

/ W o r s h

i p o f

V e n u s

4

3

2

1 8

5 0

1 9

1 6

4

1 1 6

3 , 8 7

3

A t t r i b u t e s o

f V e n u s

1

2

2

6

5

4 4

9

1 0

1 1

1 1

1 0 1

3 , 3 7

4 B i r t h o f

V e n u s

/ V e n u s

A n a d y o m e n e /

V e n u s

M a r

i n a

1

1 2

2 1

4 1

6 8

3 3

4 8

7 1

4 1

3 3 6

1 1 , 2

5

T o i l e t / B a t

h / V e n u s c r o u c h

i n g

3

8

6

3 7

6 6

2 4

4 0

1 2

3

1 9 9

6 , 6 4

6

V e n u s a n

d A d o n i s

9

2 3

2 6

3 7

5 2

3 0

1 6

5

1 9 8

6 , 6 1

7

V e n u s a n

d A n c h

i s e s , A

e n e a s

2

8

1 7

2 5

1 6

1 2

1

8 1

2 , 7 0

8

V e n u s a n

d A n t e r o s

/ C u p

i d

8

7

2 0

7 7

1 4 6

4 9

6 5

2 4

1

3 9 7

1 3 , 2

9

V e n u s a n

d C u p

i d s

1

1

8

1 3

3 7

1 0

1 5

3

8 8

2 , 9 4

1 0 V e n u s a n

d J u d g e m e n

t o f P a r

i s / V e n u s w

i t h H e l e n

3

6

1 8

1 2

1 4

3 6

2 8

2 0

3 7

6

1 8 3

6 , 1 1

1 1

V e n u s a n d

M a r s

2

3

9

8

2 3

2 5

3 4

3 1

2

3

1 3 8

4 , 6 0

1 2

V e n u s a n

d o t

h e r G o d s , e t c

1

5

1 3

1 9

5 4

8 1

3 9

1 5

8

2

2 3 7

7 , 9 1

1 3

V e n u s a n

d P s y c h e

8

4

2 6

1 3

1 2

7

6

7 6

2 , 5 4

1 4

V e n u s a n

d S a t y r s

6

4

8

6

4

2

2

3 2

1 , 0 7

1 5

V e n u s a n

d V u l c a n

6

1 2

4 3

3 3

8

2

2

1

1 0 7

3 , 5 7

1 6 V e n u s a s

l e e p

/ U r b

i n o /

V e n u s w

i t h t h e

M u s

i c i a n

2

5

5

1 3

3 4

1 4

7

8

2

9 0

3 , 0 0

1 7

V e n u s s t a

t u e s

0

1

4

1 7

2 2

1 7

2 3

3 1

2 5

6 6

2 0 6

6 , 8 7

1 8

V e n u s u n a c c o m p a n i e d

1

6

4

5

1 5

3 6

3 3

2 5

6 2

1 6 4

3 5 1

1 1 , 7

T O T A L

S

2

1

9

6 0

1 3 7

2 1 0

4 8 3

7 8 5

3 8 3

3 2 7

2 8 6

3 1 4

2 9 9 7

1 0 0

%

0 , 0 7

0 , 0 3

0 , 3 0

2 , 0 0

4 , 5 7

7 , 0 1

1 6 , 1

2 6 , 2

1 2 , 8

1 0 , 9

9 , 5 4

1 0 , 5

1 0 0

N u m

b e r o

f a r

t i s

t s w

i t h m a

i n a c

t i v i t y i n t h e p e r i o

d

1

1

9

2 1

4 3

6 6

1 0 8

1 9 8

1 5 0

1 5 6

9 2

1 3 2

9 7 7

%

0 , 1

0 , 1 0

0 , 9 3

2 , 1 5

4 , 4 0

6 , 7 5

1 1 , 0

2 0 , 3

1 5 , 3

1 5 , 9

9 , 4 2

1 3 , 5

1 0 0


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3. Distribution of topics

The popularity of the 18 main topics is revealed in Figs. 6 & 7, in Italian and Frenchartworks respectively. Topic 8. Venus and Cupid is in both samples the most popularone, but the second most popular topic 6. Venus and Adonis in Italian artworks is only7th in the ranking of the French artworks. Topic 18. Venus unaccompanied isrespectively 3 rd and 2 nd in this ranking. Topic 12. Venus and other gods is in bothsamples the 4 th in the ranking. The topic distribution in percentage of the total number ofartworks is not significantly different in both samples if the whole period is considered(Fig. 8) 2 However, a more detailed examination of each separate topic shows largedifferences in different periods as demonstrated for 4 major topics in Fig. 9. The relativenumbers of the total for these 4 topics reveal for instance: high contributions of topic 4. Birth of Venus in the second half of the 15 th and in

the 16 th century in Italy but higher in the first half of the 20 th century in France; great popularity of topic 6. Venus and Adonis till the end of the 17 th century in Italy

where it extinguishes totally in the 19 th century; in France, however, the popularity isalways less but contributions continue till mid 20 th century;

an overwhelming popularity of topic 8. Venus and Cupid in both Italy and France,which extinguishes in Italy but is still very important in France during the 19 th century;

persistent contributions of topic 18. Venus unaccompanied in both Italy and France,with peak contributions in the earlier periods in Italy but in the later periods inFrance.

More similar graphs, extracted from Tables 1 & 2, would shed light on the popularity ofother topics in both samples at different periods.

2 A non-parametric statistical test applied to the pairs of topic percentages of both samples confirms that thenull-hypothesis (no difference between samples) is accepted at a very high level of significance.


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4. Number of artists and the production law of Lotka

The estimated numbers of artists who created Venus artworks, as given in Tables 1 & 2,can be compared for the same periods with the total numbers of artists extracted fromThieme, Becker &Vollmer (2008). Given the large uncertainty about the main activity

period of the artists, the data 3 shown in Table 3 are approximate but offer nevertheless anindication about the relative importance of the Venus creators: about 4 % on average inItaly with more than 6 % in the 16 th century and as low as 2 % in the 19 th century; about 5% on average in France, but with a peak of 11 % in the 18 th century (Fig. 10). This resultis reasonable when compared to the data shown in Figs. 3 and 4, but could possibly beimproved by extracting more detailed information about the types of artists.

The bibliometric research of Lotka in 1926, describing the frequency of publication byauthors in a given field, has revealed that an empirical law exists which has been sinceconfirmed (De Solla Price 1963) and is now known as Lotkas production law ininformetrics (Egghe 2005). The law is an inverse power law and states that the number ofauthors making N contributions is about 1/(N**a) of those making one contribution,where the exponent a nearly always equals two.The general formula is:

Y = C / (X**a)

where X is the number of contributions, Y the relative frequency of authors with X contributions and a and C are constants depending on the specific field. For a = 2 , thetheoretical value of C = 0,6079. In other words: 60 % of all authors in a given field will

publish only ONE article in that field. Egghe (op.cit., p.16) explains that Lotkas law isscale-free and can be applied to any item or product of human creativity, regardlessits evolution in time. Hence the possibility of applying this law to artworks and artists,

provided that a field can be defined. The first application ever in art history, as far asknown, was done for the data of the iconography of the Italian Venus, a well-definedfield (Bender 2008b). The result, obtained with a computer-programme using themaximum-likelihood fitting method (Rousseau & Rousseau, 2003), was a surprisinglyclose fit to the theoretical law:

Y = 0,6095 / (X**2,0047)

which is practically equivalent to Lotka's law for a=2.The data of the iconography of Venus by French artists offers the opportunity to check

once more the validity of Lotkas law in art history. The (partial) data for both samplesare summarized in Table 4. The result for the French Venus is again striking

Y = 0,6224 / (X**2,0427)

and once more very close to the theoretical law as shown in Fig. 11.

3 The data from Tables 1 & 2 include painters, drawers, printers and sculptors, since in many cases thecatalogues show several types of artworks by the same artist; the data from the Thieme-Becker-VollmerLexicon, on the other hand, comprise only painters as extracted by Taylor (2009).


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Table 3. Approximate data on number of artistsRow 1 or 4 = estimated number of Italian or French artists who created Venus artworks -

Row 2 or 5: number of Italian or French painters extracted from the Thieme-Becker-Vollmer Lexicon -Row 3 or 6: percentages = 100 * (row 1 or 4 divided by row 2 or 5)

Periods

-139

91400

-491450

-991500

-491550

-991600

-491650

-991700

-491750

-991800

-491850

-99Totals

Row 1 5 8 35 95 91 82 62 54 61 41 23 557Row 2

473 679 1530 1434 1481 1400 1363 1146 1172 1630 11481345

6

Row 3 1,06 1,18 2,29 6,62 6,14 5,86 4,55 4,71 5,20 2,52 2,00 4,14Row 4 1 1 9 21 43 66 108 198 150 156 753Row 5

152 192 347 556 465 894 1003 859 2106 4010 46151519

9

Row 6 0,66 0 0,29 1,62 4,52 4,81 6,58 12,6 9,40 3,74 3,38 4,95

Table 4. Number X of artworks versus percentage Y of artists

Italian French Italian French Italian FrenchX Y Y X Y Y X Y Y

157,165

59,97911 0,616

0,71621 0

0,1022 17,256 16,172 12 0,462 0,307 22 0,154 0,1023 8,166 7,676 13 0,308 0,409 23 0,154 0,1024 3,544 3,173 14 0,154 0,307 24 0 0,1025 3,082 2,866 15 0,616 0,205 25 0,308 0,1026 2,157 1,945 16 0,308 0,205 26 0 0,2057 1,387 1,126 17 0 0,614 27 0,308 0,1028 0,924 0,819 18 0,154 0,716 28 0,154 0,1029 0,770 0,921 19 0,308 0,307 29 0 0,102


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10 0,770 0,921 20 0,154 0,409 30 0,154 0,102

The explanation for these results could be the success-breeds-success -principle in thehuman creativity process (Egghe, op.cit. p.45): if an artist creates a first Venus-artworkand has success, the greater probability will be that this artist will produce anotherVenus-work, and so forth; however, if this first work did not have success, the artist most

probably will not create a second one.

5. Conclusions

Two comprehensive topical catalogues of sculptures, reliefs, paintings, frescoes,

drawings, prints and illustrations, respectively in Italian and in French art within a seriesof the iconography of Venus from the Middle Ages to Modern Times (Bender 2007 and2009), allow for a quantitative comparison. The time distributions of artworks and artists(Tables 1 & 2, Figs. 1, 2, 3, 4 & 5) show a clear shift of two centuries for the peak periodof production: 16 th century for the Italian Venus and 18 th century for the French Venus;the production in the 19 th century is minimal in Italy while remaining high in France.The popularity of the 18 main topics considered is presented in Figs. 6 & 7. It is notsignificantly different in both samples when calculated over the whole period from the15 th to the 20 th century (Fig. 8). However, the time distribution of the topics reveals largedifferences, as exemplified in Fig. 9 for 4 major topics.An attempt has been made to approximate the percentage of artists who created Venus-artworks with respect to the total number of painters extracted from the Thieme-Becker-Vollmer Lexicon (Table 3): the overall averages are about 4 % among Italian artists and 5% among French artists, but with ranges between 6 % (16 th century) and 2 % (19 th century) in Italy and between 11 % (18 th century) and 3 % (19 th and 20 th century) inFrance (Fig. 10).The empirical inverse power law of Lotka, known in bibliometrics and informetrics, has

been applied successfully for the given data and reveals for both samples a striking result:60 % of all artists who created Venus-artworks, created only once a Venus artwork, only16 % created two Venus-artworks, and so forth (Table 4 and Fig. 11).


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The author is extending the survey towards other groups of artists (artists of the LowCountries, of Germany, of other European countries, etc.) for the same general theme of

Venus. This will offer opportunities for further quantitative analysis and hopefully willsupport specialized studies by art historians or other scientists. The author welcomes anycriticism, corrections, additions or any other form of comments on this survey andquantitative analysis.

6. References

Bender, K. (2007) The Iconography of Venus from the Middle Ages to Modern Times.Vol. 1.1 The Italian Venus: a topical catalogue of sculptures, reliefs, paintings, frescoes,drawings, prints and illustrations of identified Italian artists. 156 pp. Published as a hardcopy book and a pdf-document by www.lulu.com under the Creative Commons LicenseDeed.

Bender, K. (2008a) A Quantitative Survey of Iconography of Venus in Italian Art from the Middle Ages to Modern Times. Paper presented at the Interdisciplinary Conference'Aphrodite revealed' 8-10 May 2008, Department of Classics, University of Reading.Paper (8 pp.) free for downloading at http://www.lulu.com/content/1916009 or http://stores.lulu.com/benderk

Bender, K. (2008b) Identification of artists, types of artworks and Lotkas production lawin the Iconography of the Italian Venus from the Middle Ages to Modern Times. Paper(11 pp.) free for downloading at http://www.lulu.com/content/3696437 or http://stores.lulu.com/benderk

Bender, K. (2009) The Iconography of Venus from the Middle Ages to Modern Times.Vol. 2.1 The French Venus: a topical catalogue of sculptures, reliefs, paintings, frescoes,drawings, prints and illustrations of identified French artists. 196 pp. Published as a hardcopy book and a pdf-document by www.lulu.com under the Creative Commons LicenseDeed.

Egghe, L. (2005) Power laws in the information production process: Lotkaianinformetrics. Elsevier, Oxford. 427 pp.

De Solla Price, Derek J. (1963) Little Science, Big Science. Columbia University Press, New York. 119 pp.

Rousseau, B. & Rousseau, R. (2000) LOTKA: A program to fit a power law distributionto observed frequency data. Cybermetrics, Vol.4: 1-4.http://www.cindoc.csic.es/cybermetrics/articles/v4i1p4.html See also the Open Forumfollowing this paper.

Taylor, P. (2009) Personal communication. The Photografic Collection, The WarburgInstitute, University of London.

Thieme, U., Becker, F. & Vollmer, H. (2008) Allgemeines Lexikon der Bildenden Kunstler von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart. Leipzig.

Acknowledgement

The author is greatly indebted to Paul Taylor, deputy-curator of the Photographic Collection ofThe Warburg Institute, London, who suggested the application of Lotka's law and kindly madeavailable the data extracted from the Thieme-Becker-Vollmer Lexicon. The author wishes toacknowledge the support of Batrice Joyeux-Prunel, Dpartement dHistoire et Thorie de lArt,Ecole Normale Suprieure, Paris.


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