K. Bender is the pen name of a retired academic who develops a database of the iconography of Aphrodite/Venus (excluding pre-historic and science-fiction-related iconography).
The database counts presently more than 16 000 records of artworks, including all types of art (visual arts, literature, theatre, dance, music, etc. ) as well as cartoons, posters, stamps, trivia, websites and all sorts of commercial stuff sold under the name Aphrodite or Venus.
The software used is "Artworks-The Art Organizer", a friendly, inexpensive and effective Australian programme with regular updates from www.ArtWorksPro.com.
Anyone interested in the subject of the iconography of Aphrodite/Venus is welcome to contact bender@telenet.be
http://sites.google.com/site/venusiconography/
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Download: FREE Two 'convenient' samples of 1775 Italian and 2842 French artworks by identified artists are the basis for:
1° tabular and graphical presentations of frequencies of the artworks using a nominal scale of 18 categories (topics) and an arbitrary time interval scale of 50 years;
2° the analysis of the topic mode and the popularity, introducing a popularity ratio of topics for the whole period and for separate periods,
yielding some striking results of popularity differences in separate periods of both samples;
3° the calculation of four nonparametric measures of diversity or dispersion: these measures confirm the visual understanding of the diagrams and
one can safely conclude that the diversity of topics is the same among the Italian and French artworks, in spite of the large time shift of frequencies.
See http://sites.google.com/site/venusiconography/  Download for Free |
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Download: FREE The iconography of Venus in Italian and French art from the Middle Ages to the present time is compared in a quantitative manner: time distributions of artworks and artists and the popularity of topics are presented. The empirical inverse power law of Lotka, well-known in bibliometrics, is applicable to the artists and artworks considered.
See http://sites.google.com/site/venusiconography/ Download for Free |
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Print: $25.00 Download: $5.00 The topical catalogue "Iconography of Venus by French artists from the Middle Ages to Modern Times" lists 2997 artworks (sculptures, reliefs, paintings, frescos, drawings, prints and illustrations) of 977 identified French artists. The date of creation, artist's name, title(s), type, medium/support and dimension of the artwork, the owner, inventory number and information sources are given. The catalogue is ordered chronologically under the 18 main topics and many more subtopics of the rich iconography of Venus. An index of artists, a directory of owners and an extensive bibliography are included. 196 p.
See http://sites.google.com/site/venusiconography/
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Print: $19.51 Download: $2.80 A comprehensive catalogue of the iconography of Venus by Italian artists from the Middle Ages to Modern Times. Sculptures, reliefs, paintings, frescoes, drawings, prints and illustrations are described by date of creation, artist's name, title(s), type, medium/support and dimension of the artwork, the owner, inventory number and information sources. 649 Italian artists are identified and the catalogue lists 1840 entries, ordered by 18 topics and many more subtopics. An index of artists, a directory of owners and an extensive bibliography are included. 155 pp. The catalogue is a unique support tool for museum curators, gallery owners, auctioneers and buyers, art historians, archaeologists, sociologists and all those interested in the perpetual iconography of Aphrodite/Venus in our society. READ THE PREVIEW OF 11 PAGES.
See http://sites.google.com/site/venusiconography/
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Hardcover Print: $48.67 The Iconography of Venus Vol.1.1 'The Italian Venus' is a comprehensive catalogue, which describes - from the Middle Ages to Modern Times - sculptures, reliefs, paintings, frescos, drawings, prints and illustrations by date of creation, artist's name, title(s), type, medium/support and dimension of the artwork, the owner, inventory number and information sources; 649 Italian artists are identified and the topical catalogue lists 1840 entries, ordered by 18 topics and many more subtopics. An index of artists, a directory of owners and an extensive bibliography are included. 156 pp.
The catalogue is a unique support tool for museum curators, gallery owners, auctioneers and buyers, art historians, archaeologists, sociologists and all those interested in the perpetual iconography of Aphrodite/Venus in our society.See http://sites.google.com/site/venusiconography/
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Download: FREE This paper expands the analysis of the iconography of Venus in Italian art from the Middle Ages to Modern Times (Bender 2007 and 2008). A strong level A and a weak level B of identification of the artists did not interfere with the previous distribution of artists and artworks (Table 1 and Fig.1). Also the ranking of the most productive artists does not change much, except for famous artists such as TIZIANO and RAFFAELLO (Table 2). Paintings and frescoes count for 47%, drawings, prints and illustrations for 43%, sculptures and reliefs for 10% of the total number of artworks, with some significant deviations in the different periods (Table 3 and Fig.2). The percentage of artists Y creating X number of Venus-artworks follows an inverse-power law, known as the production law of Lotka (Fig.3): 60% of all identified artists have created only one 'Venus'-artwork. As far as known this application is novel in the field of art history.
See http://sites.google.com/site/venusiconography/ Download for Free |
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Download: FREE The survey of the iconography of Venus in Italian art from the Middle Ages to Modern Times is based upon a compilation of 1840 artworks from 649 Italian artists. The topical catalogue, recently published (Bender 2007), is probably the largest available. The size of the sample allows for a quantitative analysis of topics and distribution of works and artists over the time considered. The methodology of the compilation and a tentative analysis with results are presented. You can download the full paper (8pp.) for free. See also http://sites.google.com/site/venusiconography/ Download for Free |
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More volumes are under way:
*Vol.3 The Venus of the Low Countries
*Vol.4 The Venus of the German Countries
*Vol.5 The Venus of other European Countries
CHRONOLOGY OF PUBLICATIONS
DECEMBER 2009
A fourth research paper introduces techniques of descriptive statistics applied to the data sets of the Italian and the French Venus. The understanding of the popularity of topics is made clear with some innovative diagrams and the 'icon', i.e. the most frequent topic, is determined and discussed for different periods.
JULY 2009
The comparison between the Italian and French artists and their 'Venus'-creations is revealing and is presented in detail with tables and charts in a third paper (14 pp.) entitled: "Comparison between the Italian and French iconography of Venus". Even more striking is the fact that the law of LOTKA can be applied equally successfully to both samples: 60% of all artists in the samples created only once a Venus-artwork.
MAY 2009
The Second Volume 2.1 The French Venus has been published: the same methodology of The Italian Venus has been applied, but the number of artworks compiled is considerably larger (2997 artworks). This is mainly due to the availability of many published sources, for instance the 'livrets' of the famous Salons des Artistes, organized in Paris since the second half of the 17th century.
SEPTEMBER 2008
The second paper "Identification of artists, types of artworks and Lotka's production law in the Iconography of the Italian Venus from the Middle Ages to Modern Times" expands the analysis by *introducing two levels of identification of artists; *presenting the distribution of types of artworks; *applying the production law of LOTKA, well known in the numerical analysis of authors and their scientific papers: the principle "success breeds success" applies seemingly also in the arts! It will be interesting to verify this result for other groups of artists and for other themes.
APRIL 2008
The first paper "A Quantitative Survey of the Iconography of Venus in Italian Art" is an attempt to analyse the results of the sample of artworks compiled in Vol.1.1 The Italian Venus. The sample of 1840 artworks is probably the largest available of the indefinite number of artworks with the subject 'Venus' created by an unknown number of Italian artists. The "Oxford Guide to Classical Mythology in the Arts "(Reid 1993) lists about 650 artworks of the kind compiled in this catalogue. This sample is certainly not a 'random sample': it is biased by the information sources available to the compiler, but its large size (1840 artworks) is considered fair for a quantitative analysis.
DECEMBER 2007
The first volume of a series of topical catalogues on The Iconography of Venus has been published and was entitled: Vol.1.1 The Italian Venus. The methodology applied is unique: the very rich iconography of Venus is classified under 18 main topics and all artworks are much more described than in the few existing topical catalogues.
A New Approach in Art History: Counting Artworks
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