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Lot Essay
Born on the Italian Riviera, the son of a Russian general, Kalmakoff's oeuvre reveals the heady influence of his childhood governess who, enthralled by fairytales and legends, would recount the tales of the Brothers Grimm and E. T. A. Hoffmann to her young charge. Kalmakoff, alongside artists such as Vrubel, Anisfeld, Feofilakov and Bakst, is sometimes branded a 'Decadent' artist, the implications here being themes of decline, hysteria, frenzy and the employment of necrological and erotic motifs.
In this luscious depiction of Aphrodite flanked by her sons Eros and Anteros, Kalmakoff represents the Aphrodite Ouranos, born from the sea foam after Cronus castrated Ouranos, as opposed to Aphrodite Pandemos, the child of Zeus and Dione: the Greek sculptor Phidias represented Aphrodite Ouranos with her foot resting on a tortoise. Plato's Pausanias defines Aphrodite in his Symposium as two goddesses of whom Aphrodite Ouranos, the elder of the two, is described as the inspirer of love towards men. Fittingly, Anteros, who appears here on his mother's left, was born so that he might provide his brother Eros with a companion to play with and to love.
Aphrodite's serene stylized face is reminiscent of the limpid gazes affected by Alphonse Mucha's subjects. The eerily coiling tentacles however, perhaps alluding to the Goddess's rather unnerving origins, render the work a superlative example of Kalmakoff's characteristically dark interpretation of the Greek myth.
In this luscious depiction of Aphrodite flanked by her sons Eros and Anteros, Kalmakoff represents the Aphrodite Ouranos, born from the sea foam after Cronus castrated Ouranos, as opposed to Aphrodite Pandemos, the child of Zeus and Dione: the Greek sculptor Phidias represented Aphrodite Ouranos with her foot resting on a tortoise. Plato's Pausanias defines Aphrodite in his Symposium as two goddesses of whom Aphrodite Ouranos, the elder of the two, is described as the inspirer of love towards men. Fittingly, Anteros, who appears here on his mother's left, was born so that he might provide his brother Eros with a companion to play with and to love.
Aphrodite's serene stylized face is reminiscent of the limpid gazes affected by Alphonse Mucha's subjects. The eerily coiling tentacles however, perhaps alluding to the Goddess's rather unnerving origins, render the work a superlative example of Kalmakoff's characteristically dark interpretation of the Greek myth.