into a beautiful spiral. But that is not just any spiral. It is a perfect logarithmic spiral, discovered decades later as a naturally-occurring natural spiral also known as "the marvelous spiral." This also points to a broader characteristic of the period at the time, which is a new way of thinking and perceiving man within the world. With the progression of the Renaissance, the Humanist movement gradually emerged. This was based on philosophical thought rooted in the revival of ancient Classical texts from the Greek and Roman cultures. We see Botticelli’s Venus emulating the same features as those of the Aphrodite of Knidos (Cnidus) (c. 4 th century BC) by the Greek sculptor Praxiteles of Athens. He was one of the first sculptors to portray the female figure in the nude and was lauded as one of the most innovative sculptors of his time due to this. Praxiteles’s sculpture depicts Aphrodite holding a bath towel in her left hand covering her genitalia with her right hand, however, her breasts are still exposed.

Furthermore, her stance is unrealistic as she leans too far to her left side without anything supporting her. In a more realistic setting, she would fall over. This elongation and inaccurate portrayal of proportion and stance heighten Venus’ beauty and her as almost an otherworldly figure that has just been given life. Botticelli’s Birth of Venus painting runs as deep as the ocean’s waters where Venus was born. While it is regarded as visually simple to analyze and interpret, giving us all the facts through the placements of the figures and who they are, there is an undercurrent in this Early Renaissance painting that suggests so much more. aroused humans to physical love or she was a heavenly goddess who inspired intellectual love in them. Plato further argued that contemplation of physical beauty allowed the mind to better understand spiritual beauty. So, looking at Venus, the most beautiful of goddesses, might at first raise a physical response in viewers which then lifted their minds towards the godly. [29] A Neoplatonic reading of Botticelli's Birth of Venus suggests that 15th-century viewers would have looked at the painting and felt their minds lifted to the realm of divine love. canvas was a cheaper material, many contemporaries considered it inferior. Botticelli was the first artist in Tuscany to paint on canvas.

Right: Nymph

James Hankins, "The Myth of the Platonic Academy of Florence," Renaissance Quarterly, 44 (1991) 429–475. The painter and the humanist scholars who probably advised him would have recalled that Pliny the Elder had mentioned a lost masterpiece of the celebrated ancient Greek painter, Apelles, representing Venus Anadyomene ( Venus Rising from the Sea). According to Pliny, Alexander the Great offered his mistress, Campaspe, as the model for the nude Venus and later, realizing that Apelles had fallen in love with the girl, gave her to the artist in a gesture of extreme magnanimity. Pliny went on to note that Apelles' painting of Pankaspe as Venus was later "dedicated by Augustus in the shrine of his father Caesar." Pliny also stated that "the lower part of the painting was damaged, and it was impossible to find anyone who could restore it.... This picture decayed from age and rottenness, and Nero... substituted for it another painting by the hand of Dorotheus". [40] There is also speculation that she was the above-mentioned Medicis’ mistress, which also alluded to Alexander the Great’s mistress, Campaspe (or Pancaste) painted by the ancient Greek painter, Apelles of Kos. Botticelli could have been regarded as continuing the work done by Apelles. However, this is only another historical and political reference within The Birth of Venus painting.

One of the most beautiful women ever to grace the silver screen, Hedy Lamarr also designed a secret weapon against Nazi Germany. Unlike his contemporaries such as Leonardo da Vinci, Botticelli chose to delve further into the past for his subject matter in the "Birth of Venus." While da Vinci was sourcingurn:lcp:birthofvenusnove00duna:epub:1138c201-094d-4885-9b41-456c369a51b8 Extramarc Yale Library Foldoutcount 0 Identifier birthofvenusnove00duna Identifier-ark ark:/13960/t1bk20q06 Isbn 1400060737 I don’t know if I would call The Birth of Venus ending cheap. Quite. Without what happens in the end you don’t have the events that set the stage in the prologue, without which you wouldn’t have the same hook. Not the same story, really. Both the mother, with her own chequered past, and the slave maid Erila, are actually much more interesting than Alessandra herself, who always seems to be the victim of other people’s needs and manipulations. Her husband, too, is a fascinating character. All of these are people who, unlike Alessandra, made their own decisions, their own lives and remained true to themselves (yes, even the slave, who seems to hav The Birth of Venus painting by Alessandro Botticelli is one of the most famous mythological paintings from the Early Renaissance period. Although Sandro Botticelli was not as popular as other artists from the Renaissance, such as Leonardo da Vinci or Michelangelo, he still contributed one of the most beautiful and sensory-enriching paintings of the goddess Venus. The painting is large, but slightly smaller than the Primavera, and where that is a panel painting, this is on the cheaper support of canvas. Canvas was increasing in popularity, perhaps especially for secular paintings for country villas, which were decorated more simply, cheaply and cheerfully than those for city palazzi, being designed for pleasure more than ostentatious entertainment. [10]