What Is The Female Nude In The Birth Of Venus

I picked the Birth of Venus because I saw this painting in my Western Civilizations course here at Maryville College and it was the one that stuck out the most to me. It is a unique, mythological painting from the Renaissance Period painted in Florence, Italy. The Birth of Venus belongs to the group of mythological pictures painted by Sandro Botticelli (1445-1510) in the 1480s, following his return from Rome after completing three fresco paintings in the Sistine Chapel for Pope Sixtus IV. The Birth of Venus remains one of the profound treasures of the Florentine Renaissance. The work, painted with tempera on canvas, depicts the female nude figure of the goddess Venus standing on dry land having emerged from the sea. It was commissioned by Lorenzo the Magnificent of the Medici Family, whose quattrocento humanist circle was particularly interested in classical mythology, and marks the culmination of the …show more content…
This, despite its obviously pagan narrative and the fact it contained one of the first full length female nudes since the classical era. This good fortune enables us to enjoy one of the greatest Renaissance paintings by one of the most stylish of early Renaissance artists. The Birth of Venus depicts the moment when, having emerged from the sea in a shell, Venus lands at Paphos in Cyprus. She is blown towards the shore by Zephyrus - god of the winds - and the breeze Aura, while a Hora of Spring stands on dry land poised to wrap a cloak, decorated with spring flowers, around Venus to cover her nudity. A wistful gaze under heavy eyelids lends the goddess an air of cool distance. The fine modelling and white flesh color gives her the appearance of a statue, an impression fortified by her stance which derives from the sculpture of ancient