Sandro Botticelli
The Birth of Venus
c. 1484–1486
Sandro Botticelli's 'The Birth of Venus' (c. 1484–1486) depicts the goddess Aphrodite arriving at the shore of Cythera on a scallop shell, blown by the winds Zephyr and Aura and received by a nymph bearing a flowering cloak. Painted on canvas, an unusual support at the time, and using a cool pastel palette of rose, aquamarine, and mint, the picture is the first full-length female nude of the Renaissance and a landmark of Neoplatonist humanism under Medici patronage. Together with Botticelli's 'Primavera' it defines the lyrical climax of late 15th-century Florentine painting.
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