Italian Renaissance

 Italian Renaissance


  

Sandro Botticelli, The Birth of Venus, 1483-85, tempera on panel, 68 x 109 5/8″ (172.5 x 278.5 cm) (Galeria degli Uffizi, Florence; photo: Steven Zucker, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

              

            In Botticelli’s beautiful piece named The Birth of Venus, the goddess Venus is being born from the sea. On the left side she is being blown by the west wind Zephyr, intertwined is Chloris. On the right is an attendant who is prepared to wrap the newborn goddess.  This painting provides great representations of patterns and tone to make the piece have depth but appear flat. A great use of patterns is seen with the flowers. There are flowers being blown over the waves on the left side, this pattern of flowers continues to them being on the attendants’ dress and appearing on the drape she is holding. These patterns bring a great sense of depth to the painting. The use of tones for a contrast of lights and darks within the seashell Venus is on enables the back of the painting to be brought forward.  

  There is great attention drawn toward the humanism movement and embracing the human body. During this period of humanism within the Italian renaissance, humanists praised the human body and embraced these human qualities, instead of these attributes being correlated with shame and sin. Botticelli does an excellent job depicting this quality as Venus is seen nude but having a look of modesty instead of a look of shame. 

    I admire the beauty and artistic capability of the intertwined Zephyr and Chloris, it is flawlessly painted and exhibits emotion through physical touch. The sway of Venus’ figure and the way her hair follows the blowing wind and partially wraps her body shows such great knowledge that Botticelli possessed in the understanding of the human body. This painting is visually beautiful to rest my eyes upon as it portrays such elegance. The softer colors and rounded shapes all contribute to a sense of peace that arises when I admire this painting. Botticelli did an amazing job depicting the essence of humanism by embracing the beauty of the human body with a sense of modesty rather than shame.

References

Dr. John M. Hunt, "Humanism in renaissance Italy," in Smarthistory, August 1, 2021, accessed October     3, 2022, https://smarthistory.org/humanism-renaissance-italy/.

Dr. Beth Harris and Dr. Steven Zucker, "Sandro Botticelli, The Birth of Venus," in Smarthistory,                 December 5, 2015, accessed October 3, 2022, https://smarthistory.org/sandro-botticelli-the-birth-     of-venus/.

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