September | 2012 | Paris' Art Blog 101

Birth of Venus by Sandro Botticelli was created in Florence, Italy, 1486.

What is so appealing to me about this particular work of art is how tastefully it was done. I really like how Venus is covering most of herself because to me that shows how vulnerable she is, which depicts the mind of a new born even though she has a body of an adult. I also like how the other gods are around her but aren’t the center of the piece, and how their “powers” are illustrated. You can see the wind coming out of Zephyr’s mouth and how their are flowers surrounding him and his wife Chloris. Hora, on the left, is the goddess of summer and I think she is illustrated just as well with the way she is dressed and the colors.

This particular piece of art work really embraces the philosophy of Humanism, because it rejects the idea of there being a singular God like the church. This shows 4 gods all with a different power, unlike believing in one almighty God. Humanism is also represented in this painting because of the classical scholarship that the gods represent. Classical scholarship was what humanists developed by trying to understand the works of the Greeks and Romans. This is where the 4 gods in this piece came from, from Greek and Roman stories about the different gods. Instead of worshiping the gods, they used them to tell stories of how things came to be, which is what Botticelli is doing by illustrated the birth of Venus. There are 3 other gods around her blessing her with their powers and presence because she is the goddess of love. The seashell that Venus is standing on represents the fact that Venus was created by the sea, which again represents humanism because a being didn’t create her, and element did.