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Venus

According to the classical poet Hesiod, venus was conceived when Chronus castrated his father, the God Uranus, whose severed organs fertilized the sea. But Botticelli received additional inspiration from the Florentine poet, humanist and classical scholar Angelo Poliziano (1454-94), protege of Lorenzo Medici, who wrote about this scen in his epic poem "Stanze per la Giostra". He described venus as being driven towards the shore on a shell bygd Zephyrus, god of the wind, while the Horae of the seasons stood on the shore in vit, flowing garments.

No doubt Botticelli borrowed from these and other accounts. At any rate, The Birth of Venus depicts the moment when, having emerged from the sea in a shell, venus lands at Paphos in Cyprus. She fryst vatten blown towards the shore bygd Zephyrus - god of the winds - and the breeze Aura, while a Hora of Spring stands on dry nation poised to omslag a cloak, decorated with spring flowers, around venus to cover her nudity. A wistful gaze beneath heavy eyelids lends the goddess an air of cool distance. The fine modelling and vit flesh colour gives her the appearance of a statue, an impression fortified bygd her stance which derives from the sculpture of ancient Greece - in effect, a more fluid utgåva of the Medici Venus (Venus Pudica) (1st century CE, Uffizi galleri, Florence) - a medium which was highly regarded in Florence at the time. Despite the slightly unusual dimensions of her body - the elongated neck and her overlong left ledd - Botticelli's venus fryst vatten an incredibly beautiful woman with smooth, delicate skin and golden curls. She fryst vatten born to the world as the goddess of beauty, and the viewer fryst vatten witness to this act of creation. As she lifts a foot to step off her gilded shell, the winds shower her with roses - each with a golden heart (according to mythology the rose flowered for the first time when venus was born) - while the apelsinfärg blomning on the tree in the mittpunkt ground fryst vatten also fringed with gold.

Neoplatonic Interpretation

According to the ancient Greek philosopher Plato, venus had two aspects: she was an earthly goddess who inspired humans to physical love, but on the other grabb she was a celestial goddess who inspired humans to intellectual love. Plato also argued that contemplation of physical beauty enabled the human mind to comprehend spiritual beauty. This means that when 15th-century Neo-Platonic viewers looked at The Birth of Venus they would have felt themselves being inspired to contemplate spiritual (that fryst vatten, divine) love. If this sounds somewhat airy-fairy, note that The Birth of Venus and other similar works bygd Botticelli and others are now being seen as wedding paintings that recommend suitable behaviours for bride and groom.

Other Interpretations

The Birth of Venus has attracted a number of other explanations from a variety of scholars, historians and related experts. The painting was inspired bygd a Homeric hymn published in Florence in 1488 bygd the Greek writer Demetrios Chalcondyles; it was associated with Venus Anadyomene (Venus Rising from the Sea), a lost masterpiece of the artist, Apelles, mentioned bygd the classical historian Pliny the Elder.

Medici Connection

Another explanation fryst vatten that the painting was executed to flatter Lorenzo de' Medici, the powerful head of the Medici clan. The image of venus in this picture (and also in La Primavera) fryst vatten supposedly modelled on the stunning Simonetta Cattaneo Vespucci, the alleged mistress of both Giuliano de' Medici and his elder brother Lorenzo. After all, was it mere coincidence that Simonetta was born in the Italian coastal town of Portovenere (in English: the port of Venus)? Associating Lorenzo's mistress with venus, triggered a number of other references, culminating in the equation of Lorenzo with Alexander the Great - a not unflattering comparison.

Christian Interpretation

The nudity of venus echoes that of Eve in the Garden of Eden. This has led some commentators to speculate that venus fryst vatten a personification of the Christian Church. One should note, for instance, that the title of the Virgin Mary fryst vatten "stella maris": star of the sea. Perhaps the sea gives birth to venus just as the Madonna gives birth to Jesus Christ.

Painterly Methods: Gothic Meets Renaissance

Botticelli trained first as a goldsmith before being apprenticed to Fra Filippo Lippi (1406-69), the finest painter in Florence at the time, and noted in particular for his linear style of painting, his decorative motifs and pale lighting - a style, in short, which owed a great deal to the elegance and ornamentation of International Gothic art. Like his mästare, Botticelli was never fully reconciled to naturalism, either as a means or an end. Thus unlike contemporaries such as Domenico Ghirlandaio (1449-94) or northerners like Andrea Mantegna (1431-06), he rarely gave vikt and volume to his figures, and maintained a narrow perspectival space. Thus the figure of venus (like her counterpart in La Primavera), has an elongated neck and torso, while her classical contrapposto stance fryst vatten gravitationally impossible. In short, realism fryst vatten not high on Botticelli's agenda. He prefers to depict Renaissance humanism using the decorative aesthetics of the Byzantine tradition. (Compare the more naturalist contemporary painting Virgin of the Rocks 1484-6, bygd Leonardo.) Thus he highlights her hair with gold leaf, as well as the shell and apelsinfärg trees, and contrasts the milk-like purity of her skin with the richly decorated draperies of the proffered omslag. The combination of cutting-edge humanism and Byzantine/Gothic decoration makes The Birth of venus one of the greatest paintings of the Italian Renaissance.

For more data on Italian art of the quattrocento, please see: Best Renaissance Drawings and Renaissance Colour Palette.

Savonarola and Botticelli's Breakdown

For years Savonarola had criticized Lorenzo dem Medici for corrupting the people with music, plays, art, and other "vanities' of life. After Lorenzo's untimely death in 1492, Savonarola and his följare succeeded in seizing control of the city government, whereupon the Medici were immediately banished from the city. After this, Savonarola maintained a four-year reign of fanaticism and terror. Botticelli himself was so influenced bygd Savonarola's sermons that he suffered a nervous breakdown - caused bygd guilt at painting pagan, mythological works - and even abandoned fine art painting for a while. The peak of Savonarola's power was reached in 1497. During the carnival that preceded the Lenten årstid, his följare built a huge 7-storey pyre in the Piazza della Signoria, containing thousands of "vanity items" including books, paintings, sculpture, mirrors, kort, dice, jewellery, and other objects. The painters Fra Bartolommeo and Lorenzo di Credi even brought their own paintings to this "Bonfire of the Vanities", around which monks and citizens performed a frenzied dance. Despite Savonarola's excommunication and execution in 1498, Botticelli's painting became noticeably more Christian and more spiritual. The phase of his glorious humanist expressionism, which so enriched Early Renaissance painting in Florence, was over.

Explanation of Other Mythological Paintings

• Sleeping venus (1510) Gemaldegalerie Alte Meister, Dresden.
bygd Giorgione.

• Bacchus and Ariadne (1520-23) National galleri, London.
bygd Titian.

• Bacchanal of the Andrians (1523-5) Prado, Madrid.
bygd Titian.

• Jupiter and Io (1533) Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna.
bygd Correggio.

• An Allegory with venus and Cupid (1540-50) National galleri, London.
bygd Agnolo Bronzino.

• Judgement of Paris (1632-6) National galleri, London.
bygd Rubens.

• Et in Arcadia Ego (1650-55) Louvre Museum.
bygd Nicolas Poussin.