Friday’s #CelestialChallenge about Love, Beauty, and Freedom! Botticelli's Birth of Venus (Aphrodite Goddess)
Happy Friday Everyone!
It is 11 am here in Washington State and I am feeling pretty, loved, and free! It is going to be a great day!
There is this new challenge called #CelestialChallange that is awesome and unique, created by @SirKnight
Check the post and participate with me! :)
I decided to start this challenge on Friday not by coincidence, but by choice because when I think about Love, Beauty, and Freedom I think about ART and I am a big art lover! This is just a great opportunity to write about one of my interests. ART is an interesting thing where you can express all of those three things (love, beauty, freedom) in one painting or sculpture.
Since, this Friday is about Venus, Aphrodite Goddess, I just have to write about Sandro Botticelli's Birth of Venus painting because I think this is the greatest art of all time that represents this goddess.
Birth of Venus was painted somewhere between 1482-1485 By Sandro Botticelli, Italian painter of early Renaissance. His paintings are one of the most famous ones in the world. Birth of Venus was the first non-religious full size painting since Classical Antiquity (period of Greco-Roman arts and antiquities 1000 BCE- 450 CE). Painting had a lot of criticism and different interpretations.
Botticelli's Venus is a very beautiful woman with delicate skin and golden curls. She is born to the world as the goddess of beauty, love and fertility. As she lifts a foot to step off her gilded shell, the winds shower her with pink roses - each with a golden heart (roses were born on the same day as Venus), while the orange blossom on the tree in the middle ground is also fringed with gold. This is the beginning of the goddesses.
Currently, the painting is at Uffizi Gallery in Florence, Italy.
There are two different stories that explain the birth of Aphrodite. The first, where she was the child of Zeus and Dione, and the second story, Aphrodite rose from the foam of the sea. According to classical myth, Venus was conceived when Chronus castrated his father Uranus, and tossed the old man’s organs into the sea. Organs fertilized the water and from that Venus was born. Venus is seen being blown ashore on a giant clamshell by the wind gods, Zephyrus and Aura (the personification of spring), meanwhile, waits with a cloak to throw over the naked body.
According to the ancient Greek philosopher Plato, Venus had two aspects: she was an earthly goddess who inspired humans to physical love, but on the other hand she was a celestial goddess who inspired humans to intellectual love. He argued that contemplation of physical beauty enabled the human mind to comprehend spiritual beauty. Neo-Platonic viewers looked at The Birth of Venus and they would feel inspired to contemplate spiritual love.
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What's the difference between Venus and Aphrodite? Is it the same character but it's name is different in Roman and Greek culture or are there differences?
yes, Venus is Roman, Aphrodite is Greek, but their stories are slightly different. I dont remember all of the details, but i know that Venus in Roman mythology was also a goddess of victory, while Aphrodite only love, beauty and fertility . Pretty much it is the same goddess but with different nationality and slightly different personality :) because of 2 different authors. Greek story was the first one.
Thanks for the refresher course! :) I remember this piece from school but I forgot a lot of the specifics
Your welcome :) it's a great painting.
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Wow this looked so familiar and I realized the Korean spa I went to in Texas last week had this painting on the ceiling! Thanks for sharing, I love synchronicity
at Korean spa? lol that's weird . this painting is about roman mythology by Italian painter. ... well, I guess it is related to water, but still unusual. I would expect something Korean or just any other asian art.
there is much truth in this art