Currently in my studies....
La Nascita di Venere, or The Birth of Venus, by Sandro Botticelli
- Depicts the Roman goddess Venus emerging full-grown out of the sea, blown to shore on a shell by the gods of the winds. She is greeted by one of the Hours, or Horae (goddesses of the seasons), who hands her a flowered garment.
- Some suggest that Botticelli painted Venus with an elongated neck and sloped shoulder purposely, in order to enhance the aesthetic grace of the piece.
- I believe the wind gods depicted are Zephyrus, the god of the west wind, and his wife Chloris. According to the poet Ovid, when Chloris speaks, her "lips breathe spring roses."
- In some stories, Chloris is Zephyrus's sister whom he forces to marry him. In others, she is just an unrelated nymph that Zephyrus abducts and later marries.
- Venus is the Roman version of the Greek goddess Aphrodite. She is associated with love, beauty, and fertility.
- According to Greek poet Hesiod, Aphrodite was born when Cronus cut off Ouranos's genitals and threw them into the sea. The genitals "were carried over the sea a long time, and white foam arose from the immortal flesh; with it a girl grew."
I had to write a poem on a painting for my Creative Writing class, but I couldn't get out of my historian mindset (thanks, Wikipedia).