Sandro Bottecelli's

"THE BIRTH OF VENUS"

Sandro Botticelli
Italian
Renaisance
painter,who
painted "The
Birth of
Venus", in
c.1485.
Primavera (c.1478)
Birth of Venus (c.1483)
Classical Inspiration
Venus de'Medici,

Hellenistic marble

sculpture depicting the

Greek goddess of love

Aphrodite
A Pompeian mural of Venus
Anadyomene
 Poliziano

An Italian Rennaissance Classicl scholar.

His work "Giostra", adapted from one of the Homeric hymns,

describes the new born Aphrodite.
Petra tou Romiou ("The rock of the Greek"),
Aphrodite's legendary birthplace in Paphos, Cyprus.
STYLE: Botticelli's art was never fully
committed to naturalism.

•Venus' body is
anatomically
improbable, with
elongated neck and
torso.

•Figures cast no
shadows.

•It is clear that this is a

fantasy image.
 Symbolism
Many aspects of Botticelli’s Venus are in
motion:
• the leaves of the orange trees in the background,
• ringlets of hair being blown about by the Zephyrs,
• roses sprinkled throughout the atmosphere,
• the waves tossing gently,
• and the cloaks and drapery of the figures blown and
lifted by the breeze.
Motion symbolises energy.

Motion symbolises energy.

 Technique:Tempera on canvas

•First large-scale canvas created in

Renaissance Florence [68x110 in or 173x279
cm].
•Permanent fast drying painting medium
•Botticelli prepared his own tempera pigments
with very little fat and covered them with a layer
of pure egg white in a process unusual for his
time
Bottecelli's Venus down the Ages
•In 1497 monk Savonarola carried out his infamous
“bonfire of vanities” to destroy the trappings of luxury and
immoral excesses that he preached against, like makeup,
jewelry, hairpieces, and “lewd” paintings.
• The painting was spared the flames of Savonarola’s
bonfire. It remained safe in a Medici villa outside
Florence.
•About twenty years ago the painting was restored to its
original brilliant colors when a layer of varnish –added in
the 19th century – that had yellowed and become
infested with worms.
•Today it is at Uffizi Gallery, Florence, Italy.
Uffizi Gallery, Florence, Italy
 Julius Caesar
dedicated a
Temple of Venus
Genetrix in Rome
in 46 BC.
Venus de Milo at the
Louvre
Venus Anadyomene,
by Titian, ca. 1525 .

The Birth of Venus by

Alexandre Cabanel,
1863
The Birth of
Venus, by
William-
Adolphe
Bouguereau,
1879
 Russian
Venus by
Boris
Kustodiev
(1926)
'Still Life with Venus’ by
Peter Burgess