Birth of Venus

I remember being in my English class when I was in 9^th grade. My teacher was Mr. Gam and he was teaching us about Greek Mythology. My teacher was very passionate about the Gods and Goddess that that was mostly what we learned in the class. I remember that he showed us a picture about the Goddess of Beauty, Venus also known as Aphrodite, and of how she was born. This painting is one of the most treasured masterpieces of the Renaissance. For those who do not know the Renaissance is the era of the revival of the Classical nude. According to the sixth edition of my humanities book, The Humanistic Tradition, renaissance is accompanied by a quest to understand the mechanics of the human body.

Since I liked this painting I decided to analyses it to discover and comprehend what the painter, Alessandro Botticelli wanted to get across. In the painting you have Venus in the middle of the painting nude but covering her parts. According to suite 101 the pose that Venus has is traditionally the pose held by Virgin Mary. Also if you look at her face you could see someone shy and vulnerable because she is not looking directly in front but she is looking to the side which gives it a sense of vulnerability. Another thing is that her head is tilted which makes me feel that she is innocent.  Since this painting is the Birth of Venus it makes me think that the painter wanted to give Venus a sense that she was innocent because people believe that babies are innocent when they are born because they do not know anything, making Venus innocent. The setting is on the ocean and she is standing on top of a shell that is being float to shore. It is set to believe that that is how Venus was born. She was floated on the shore of the island of Cythera by that shell.

In the painting you could also see three people set to be gods. On her right there is a man and a woman holding together in a sexual way. These two Gods are flying aside her which gives an illusion of power. You could see wind coming out of the Gods mouth. The wind is being blown towards Venus and it is making her long blonde hair move in the air which makes it sensual.  There are also flowers surrounding them while the wind is being blown. The flowers are pink which to me it means love and beauty. On her left we see another god set to be Pomona. It seems like Pomona is trying to cover her with an orange blanket. This action is considered to be a gesture of welcoming. The color of the blanket is orange which is an element of nature and earthly. Since Pomona is the Goddess of fruit trees and fecundity it makes sense that she gives it to Venus.

The colors of the painting are soft and earthly which gives it an element of warm and love. I think the artist did that to emphasize that Venus is the goddess of love. The sense of the art all together gives it an element of lust because all the objects there are seductive and beautiful. The Birth of Venus truly emphasize that she was born to be the goddess of love.