The Figure of Venus

(painting of Venus from an image depicting Mars and Venus by Lew Ayres)

My father had a complex relation to feminine being.  This image of Venus seemed to be reconciled to him: the straight lines behind Venus were bars of iron, to the lower right we see a stock of corn.  Another line, not depicted here shows tractors moving off to the horizon.  The image was his vision, perhaps inspired by Gustav Holst's Planets (orchestral suite) which he adored: Venus, the Bringer of Peace.  Like the Planets suite, there was a terrible dichotomy between Mars on the left hand side of the painting, and Venus on the right, around her the image of growth and trust, and even further behind her, the sun, symbol of attention and caring insight.

I have begun to note the young child's face implicated here.  The child appears almost Asian to me, barely suggested in the painting.

Concerning this relation to the feminine: idealized: divine, but almost trans-parent (as opposed to a regular "apparent parent"): fading away into spiritual subtlety.  There is a strong relation between this figure and a casting of a statue that my father brought into the home: I seem to remember the statue being brought in a laborers truck: it had been set in a bunch of cut tree branches.  That is what I remember of the statue.  The statue was missing her left forearm.  The right held a water pitcher hanging at her side.  This stiffness of the feminine does speak to my father's perspective and position as he moved through his 6th and 7th decades.

The stillness of this "Venus" figure seems to be quite dissimilar to how I remember my mother; who was always very active: tennis and bridge and social engagements.  Perhaps it was the intense Artemesian component of this particular "Venus" that makes her so peaceful. 

Both Venus and Artemis have war-like capabilities.  It is the gift of Aphrodite that sparks the Trojan War.  Artemis carries a bow and delights in her deadly distant accuracy.  Perhaps this is part of my father's "soul" (anima) and her spirit (animus) that he was unable to reconcile in the circle of her ongoing existence.  He did manage to capture a sense of feminine peacefulness that he longed for and seemed to strive for his entire life in this image, at least a moment thereof.