Huma Botticelli's Venus: Nude Women In Renaissance Art
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Venus, a subject often depicted in art through the ages is a goddess in roman mythology symbolizing love, beauty, sex, fertility, prosperity and desire. The Romans adapted the myths of her Grecian counterpart Aphrodite for roman art and literature. In both roman and Hellenistic art she is depicted in many variations and in classical art nude women are seen as a depiction of Venus. When the renaissance started they took inspiration from Roman and Grecian art, taking the images of gods and goddess alike. She was seen as a “classical” figure and that her nudity was seen as her natural state in the world. Nude women soon became known as Venus, so not every nude woman in post-classical art.
Renaissance art took its foundation in the art and literature of the Roman and Grecian cultures. It was a time where humanism and wealth were becoming more prevalent and art was changing from religious and directing towards the people in everyday life and literature. Humanism is an outlook of thought attaching prime importance to human rather than divine or supernatural matters. Humanist beliefs stress the potential value and goodness of human beings, emphasize common human needs, and seek solely rational ways of solving human problems. Artists in this time wanted to focus on the…show more content… In Botticelli’s Birth of Venus, it depicts a young woman standing in a large half shell that is arriving from the sea to the beach. She is surrounded by three figures, male and female on the left and one female figure on the right. The two figures on the left depict the god Zephyr holding Aura the gentle breeze and the figure on the right is the goddess Horae awaiting Venus who is placed on a seashell. Botticelli pictured her on a shell because in the myth it states she was born of foam on the sea. Venus is shown nude to show innocence and divinity unlike the depiction of Titian’s Venus of