Birth Of Venus

Sandro Botticelli: Birth of Venus

Birth of Venus, painting by Sandro Botticelli completed about 1485.

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Birth of Venus is one of the most famous paintings in the world. It was painted by Alessandro di Mariano Filipepi, known as Sandro Botticelli, who was an Italian painter of the Florentine School. He served an apprenticeship under Fra Filippo Lippi, the best Florentine painter of that time. Botticelli made his name with his painting Allegory of Fortitude (1470), and he was subsequently commissioned to paint Birth of Venus for Lorenzo the Magnificent of the Medici family. In mythology, Venus was conceived when the Titan Cronus castrated his father, the god Uranus, whose severed genitals fertilized the sea.

Birth of Venus depicts the moment when, having emerged from the sea in a shell, Venus lands at Paphos in Cyprus. She is attended by two winds who blow her toward the shore, while a nymph is poised to wrap a cloak, decorated with spring flowers, around Venus to cover her nudity. The stance of Venus is believed to be based on classical statuary, which was highly prized in Florence at that time. Despite the unusual proportions of her body—the elongated neck and her overlong left arm—Venus is an arrestingly beautiful figure with her delicate skin and soft-flowing curls fresh from the sea. She is born to the world as the goddess of beauty, and the viewer is witness to this act of creation. She steps off a gilded scallop shell, the winds shower her with roses—each with a golden heart—and the orange blossom on the tree behind her is also tipped with gold. Historically, this is the most important depicted nude since classical antiquity.