These two statues, which have been eroded and damaged over the long years, are missing their heads and arms, but why are they full of mysterious beauty? The goddess of victory was blown to pieces by the strong winds of the Samothrace island. She doesn’t look like a woman. Looking at her closely, I seemed to feel the sound of the waves and the sea breeze blowing from the sky. If one day their missing parts were discovered and the statues were restored to perfection after careful and ingenious restoration, we lose the mystical aesthetic carefully sculpted by nature's hand from the islands she hails from. What great disillusionment would it cause us? Compared with “perfect statues”, these statues that have been damaged by time are able to resonate more with us, as they leave us with room for imagination. It brings us to the world that the sculpture saw, holding every experience and story the sculpture went through within its patterns of erosion. 

Everyone admires the Winged Victory of Samothrace and Venus de Milo. However, this was not always the case.

During the Renaissance, people did not like the notion of being incomplete. They believed that as long as something depicts a human body, it should be complete, prioritizing the values of ideal beauty. Therefore, the incomplete parts of the restored statues were taken for granted at that time and recycled to be reconstructed into newer ideal forms of art. It was not until the 18th century that people discovered the beauty of ruins and regarded them as a source of inspiration for literature and painting.

To understand the transition from the aesthetics of being perfect to the aesthetic of being broken an important artist to look at is Giovanni Piranesi. It was the Age of Enlightenment and new ideas were entering Europe at a rapid pace affecting all aspects of life including art. Rome became a center of intellectualism drawing in many pioneers of the art world including Piranesi. It was in this city where Piranesi was able to connect with wealthy buyers of his artwork and where Piranesi found his passion in drawing the remains of ancient Rome. His works record sculptures with broken limbs and heads, broken stone tablets, and scattered pillars in their unrepaired ancient states. He leaves behind visible flaws in the architecture to highlight the process of decay. 

These works had a profound impact on Neoclassicism as they inspired artists to question the authority ancient civilizations had on the ancient world and highlighted the destiny of nations and the limitations of human society. The broken aesthetic was starting to take shape in the Western World, no longer was architecture strictly to be depicted in its perfect forms, as people were finally appreciating what they saw in ancient remains, the wear and tear brought along by the hand of nature.

Piranesi’s achievements go beyond his life as an artist as he also made significant contributions to the archeological world. During his time, most of the structures that lined the roads of Ancient Rome were buried under fields and gardens. These monuments of the past would have been completely forgotten if not for Piranesi, who strived to preserve as much as he could of the ruins he saw by drawing them as realistically as possible and often coupled them with explanatory notes. Unfortunately, over time due to vandalism, theft, and renovation projects, it is estimated that a third of the structures depicted in Piranesi’s engravings have been lost to history. Thanks to him we have a more accurate and complete knowledge of the past that we would not be able to obtain in the present day. 

To understand a change in people's perception of the aesthetic of being broken, one must look at the Foro Romano. Though not a single art piece but rather the cumulation of centuries of work, progress, and life when in the 19th century, the ancient Roman Forum buried in the rubble of Campo Vaccino was excavated, and its majestic appearance was seen again, which shocked the world. People's nostalgia for the ancient times that have become a thing of the past has become an artistic trend and is popular in the world. Through this, people’s nostalgia for ancient times became an artistic trend, popular around the world. People became fascinated by the art of time, and the natural wear and tear seen on what were once elaborately decorated roads, temples, and markets. 

The Foro Romano perfectly illustrates nature’s eternal fate of destruction. What was once the greatest metropolis in the human world, the epicenter of the greatest empire that existed, and the glory of Rome could not outmatch the powers of nature, highlighting that we humans are indeed mortals and no matter how powerful and almighty we think we are amongst ourselves, our world will one day be wiped away in an instant by the eternal destruction of nature.

However, it was once again a change in human perspective that caused the greatest harm to the deterioration of the Foro Romano. When Rome fell in the 5th century, humans never abandoned the city, tens of thousands of people continuously lived in Rome and served as the Christian Church's religious capital from the Middle Ages to today. One would think that the same people would think that the society that followed the Romans, who tried to restore Rome through a “Holy Roman Empire” and who would use the Roman language to communicate within the church would attempt to protect the very buildings and walls that once governed the great Empire. In fact, throughout the Middle Ages and especially during the Renaissance, structures within the Forum were dismantled to build what was more important for the people at the time: churches, towers, and castles. 

Interestingly, during the Italian Renaissance, Pope Paul III heavily exploited the remaining materials within the Foro Romano to build St. Peter’s Basilica, the holiest building within the Catholic church. Through this, one can say that the glory of the Foro Romano never went away, but was simply transferred between two societal perspectives. The bricks of the Foro Romano, once at the center of Rome, the greatest empire of its time and the ancient center of Western society used to build the new center of Western society which revolved around the Catholic Church.

As centuries went on, what was once meant to be the city that would last for eternity into nothing more than a mound of dirt and silt outside the center of Rome. Today, we may see the Foro Romano stands at the center of Rome, accompanying the Colosseum in being one of the most visited places in the world. People remark on its glory and are reminded of the wonderful history as they walk through the seven hills. But we forget about the thousands of years in between, the years of neglect where what we see today was all forgotten. We are told today not to touch, step on, or damage these ruins when a few hundred years ago the very same ruins were disassembled and demolished. These are all illusions stemming from our perception of what was to be recognized in society.