Attn: jpeg image of Venus de Barbie available from [email protected]
There are prizes and there are PRIZES. Perhaps none such fun as the newest - The Dr. Norman Hugo '55 Prize for Reconstructing an Ancient Sculpture.
Named after a graduate of Williams College, the award, according to the student newspaper, traces its origin to Istanbul, where, "against the backdrop of a modern civilization built upon an ancient one, well-known art historian Eugene J. Johnson was wandering through a museum with Hugo, a reconstructive surgeon.
"Hugo was explaining how, despite what many students are led to think, the Greeks were wrong in many respects when it came to human anatomy," the Record newspaper reported. "It was there and then that the germ of an idea was implanted in Johnson's head. He jokingly proposed a prize in Hugo's honor for the Williams student who could best reconstruct an ancient Greek statue. Hugo was enthusiastic and agreed to fund the prize."
In designing the contest, Johnson focused on a question that has mystified scholars for centuries, "What would the famous Greek statues have looked like intact?"
King Louis XVIII asked the same question in 1820 when the marble statue of Venus de Milo was presented to him. The King sought the assistance of French sculptors in supplying the missing arms, but to no avail.
Prof. Johnson was not to be dissuaded. He asked Williams students to come up with an intact representation of The Venus de Milo or of two other partially destroyed Greek statues - Iris and Hermes, figures from the Parthenon.
Sophomore Hao Chang submitted the winning entry and will receive the $100 award.
The idea for merging the popular Barbie doll, who tops over a billion dollars in sales every year, with the statue considered to be the most beautiful woman in the world came to Hao Chang while taking a moment out of studying for her economics exam. The moment of playful inspiration merges the two disciplines Hao Chang says she will major in, art and economics.
When pressed, Johnson refused to say whether he and judge Elizabeth McGowan, associate professor of art who specializes in Greek art, had given the prize to the most artistically beautiful piece or to a more imaginative and witty piece. Hugo was not involved in deciding the winner.
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