The Birth of Venus
The goddess of love rises from the sea on a scallop shell and is blown ashore by the winds. One of the first large paintings since antiquity with a pagan rather than a Christian subject.
Venus stands in contrapposto, like an ancient statue – and with an implausibly long neck and sloping shoulders.
Botticelli painted the picture in Florence around 1484–1486. Who commissioned it is not known. It is often associated with the Medici family, since in the 16th century it was in the Medici villa at Castello outside the city. There it was described by the artist and writer Giorgio Vasari. A common but uncertain claim is that it was made for Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco de’ Medici. The picture is large, about 1.7 by 2.8 metres.
According to ancient myth Venus was born from the foam of the sea. Here she stands naked in a gigantic scallop shell being blown towards the shore. On the left flies the west wind Zephyr, holding a woman, probably Chloris or the breeze Aura. Roses fall through the air around them. On the right stands a woman, probably one of the Horae, the goddesses of the seasons, holding out a flower-strewn cloak to wrap around Venus.
Venus stands in a pose known as the Venus Pudica, the modest Venus. She covers herself with her hands and hair. The pose is taken from ancient statues that Botticelli may have seen. Her body is not anatomically correct: the neck is long, the shoulders slope, and her weight rests in a way that would make her fall. Yet she is perceived as harmonious. Botticelli chose beauty and rhythm over anatomical accuracy.
The picture is painted in tempera on canvas, which was unusual for such a large picture at the time. The colours are light and clear. Botticelli also used gold to highlight the hair and the trees. The outlines are crisp and give the figures an elegant, almost decorative rhythm. The space is shallow, and the sea is drawn with small stylised waves.
The painting has often been interpreted in the light of Neoplatonism, a philosophy popular among the learned in Florence. The celestial Venus would then stand for a spiritual love and beauty that lead the soul towards God. Others argue that the picture is above all a beautiful rendering of an ancient myth, inspired by the poems of Poliziano. The popular claim that the model was Simonetta Vespucci lacks firm evidence.
Botticelli fell into obscurity after his death. Only in the 19th century was he rediscovered by English artists and critics. The painting was moved to the Uffizi in Florence in the early 19th century and has since become the museum’s most famous work. It was restored in the 1980s.
Today The Birth of Venus is one of the best-known images of the Renaissance. It appears on the Italian 10-cent euro coin and has been quoted in everything from Andy Warhol’s art to advertising and film. The painting was rarely seen by a wide public until it came to the Uffizi, and today visitors crowd in front of it every day.