BIRTH OF VENUS

Birth of Venus discribes as:

Upper-Right: The Wooded Shore

The trees form part of a flowering orange 
grove--corresponding to the sacred garden 
of the Hesperides in Greek myth--and each 
small white blossom is tipped with gold.

Gold is used throughout the painting, 
accentuating its role as a precious 
object and echoing the divine status of 
Venus.

Each dark green leaf has a gold spine and 
outline, and the tree trunks are 
highlighted with short diagonal lines of 
gold.

Right: Nymph

The nymph may well be one of the three 
Horae,  (The Hours), Greek goddesses 
of the seasons, who were attendants to 
Venus.

Both her lavishly decorated dress and the 
gorgeous robe she holds out to Venus are 
embroidered with red and white daisies, 
yellow primroses, and blue 
cornflowers--flowers of spring 
appropriate to the theme of birth.

She wears a garland of myrtle--the tree 
of Venus--and a sash of pink roses, as 
worn by the goddess Flora in Botticelli's 
Primavera.

Center: The Shell

Botticelli portrays Venus in the very 
first suggestion of action, with a 
complex and beautiful series of twists 
and turns, as she is about to step off 
her giant gilded scallop shell onto the 
shore.

Venus was conceived when the Titan Cronus 
castrated his father, the god Uranus--the 
severed genitals falling into the sea and 
fertilizing it.

Here what we see is actually not Venus' 
birth out of the waves, but the moment 
when, having been conveyed by the shell, 
she lands at Paphos in Cyprus.

Venus and Adonis

Aphrodite AKA Anadyomene Venus	Anadyomene is a name of Aphrodite when she was represented as rising from the sea. Aphrodite was the Greek goddess of love. The Romans called her Venus. In Greek mythology, Aphrodite was the goddess of love (Like the Roman Venus, Phoenician Astarte and the Babylonian Ishtar). She is said to be either a daughter of Zeus or to have sprung from the foam of the sea. She was the unfaithful wife of Hephaestus (Vulcan), the god of fire, and the mother of Eros. Aphrodite surpassed all the other goddesses in beauty, and therefore received the prize of beauty from Paris (which started the Trojan Wars). She also had the power of granting beauty and invincible charm to others. In the plant kingdom the myrtle, rose, apple, and poppy, among others, were sacred to Aphrodite, and, in the animal kingdom there was the sparrow, dove, swan, and swallow. She is said to ride a chariot drawn by swans.
Aeneas	Aeneas was a Trojan hero. He was the son of Anchises and Aphrodite. He led the survivors of the Trojan war to Italy.
Priapus	Priapus was the Greek god of fertility. He was a son of Dionysus and Aphrodite. He was blighted in the womb by Hera, and was born impotent, ugly and so foul natured that the gods refused to have him in Olympus and threw him down to earth where he was brought up by shepherds.
Pitho	Pitho was the daughter of Aphrodite and was the goddess of persuasion.
Venus	Venus was the Roman name for the Greek goddess Aphrodite.
Harmonia	Harmonia was the daughter of Ares and Aphrodite. She married Cadmus. At the wedding she was given a necklace made by Hephaestus which confered irresistible beauty upon the wearer.

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