Milos, Greece: Secret Greek Island Of The Summer

Among the islands of the Cyclades, even of the world, Milos stands luminously in the history of art. Not because a great artist came from here, or was inspired by it, but rather because of a chance discovery in its soil.

On 8 April 1820 an ensign in the French navy and amateur archaeologist named Olivier Voutier went ashore to dig in the vicinity of the island’s ancient theatre. He noticed a farmer a few paces away pause in his labours, peer through a gap in an old wall, register an expression of surprise, and then turn away. Voutier was curious. He went to the wall to have a look. In the recess within he saw a shape, the naked torso of a woman, carved in marble, lying on her side. He paid the farmer to help him dig it out. Torso was followed by draped legs, a wedge from the hip, plinth, foot and other fragments. Wedge and torso were stacked on the legs and in the afternoon light what would become known as the Venus de Milo stood before Ensign Voutier.

How the gouged, dusty, battered figure, arm-, foot- and noseless, became the entrancing star of the Louvre is a tale of disputatious and counterfeit scholarship, lies, cover-ups, vanity and restorations both inept and artful. Above all it is a tale of one-upmanship among imperial nations, for not long before the Venus arrived in Paris, the British government acquired sculptures taken from the Parthenon by Lord Elgin, who had refused a higher bid from Napoleon, and installed them in the British Museum, making it the pre-eminent institution of its kind in the world. The directors of the Louvre were piqued. The Venus would be an eloquent riposte, but there was a problem. It would only be important enough if she was from the Classical Age and evidence suggested that she dated from the later, more prosaic Hellenistic period. Patriotic scholars were deployed. It was as if the empire depended upon it. The scholars delivered the verdict expected of them, the Germans were suspicious, war was waged in academic journals, evidence was destroyed, veils drawn and ambiguity allowed to prevail.

I went out to look at Milos again, starting with a motorbike and upgrading vehicles throughout my stay according to the remoteness of the destination. If the great bay were a mouth, the cape containing Skinopi would be its upper jaw. Here the island is at its most dense, with the harbour town of Adamas down around the molars and, going northwards, Tripiti, Plaka, the syrmata villages, the catacombs, amphitheatre and site of the Venus discovery. East along the north coast is one of the most startling natural events you might encounter: the narrow blue bay at Sarakiniko, its arms bone-white rock, a kind of petrified foam with undulations like bed sheets in the wind, and occasional eruptions of Dalí-style swirls. Near the water level, pirates’ chambers have been cut out of the stone. Further along, at the north-eastern tip, is serene Pollonia, which has Milos’ best hotels, some excellent harbour-side restaurants and the island’s only commercial winery, Kostantakis.