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by Guy Shaked
Keywords: Botticelli Sandro, La Primavera, Shaked, Spring, The Birth of Venus
Sandro Botticelli painted The Birth of Venus at 1485-6 for the villa of Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco de' Medici. Today the painting is at the Uffizi in Florence.
Vasari describes the painting: "For several houses in Florence Botticelli painted a number of round paintings, including many female nudes, of which there are still two at Castello, Duke Cosimo's villa, one showing the Birth of Venus, with her Cupids, being wafted to shore by the winds and zephyrs"[1].
In its center, Botticelli’s Birth of Venus depicts the nude Venus, standing on a seashell as she arrives to the beach of Paphos. She is propotioned like no human being, having an unusually long neck and strange position of shoulders and left arm which seems dislocated. Her posture is that of the Venus Pudica (modest Venus) a model existing from antiquity (like the Medici Venus statue after Cleomens of Athens) and repeated in the Renaissance (like in the Prudence statue by Pisano).
On the left of the painting, above the sea, there are Chloris [2] and Zephyr (the west wind) blowing air filled with roses towards Venus towards the shore. Chloris is dressed lightly and her breast shows. While, on the right of the painting, on shore, there is a dressed (with a garment of flowers) nymph about to cover Venus with a garment of flowers. Behind her there are trees of unspecified kind, their leaves are covered with gold.
However, the female figures at the painting can be seen as three manifestations of one Venus: The nude, half nude and clothed. This is because all the females in the painting are similar in their looks.
According to such an interpretation the three Venuses form a trinity of the mother - Nymph, daughter - Venus and holy spirit - Chloris and Zephyr . In that they are to be understood as a female allegory to the religious trinity of Father - God (Nymph) Son - Jesus (Venus) and holy spirit (Chloris). That Chloris and Zephyr are to be understood as an allegory to the holy spirit ("spirito santo" in Italian) is hinted from their visible breath ("spirito" in early Italian [3]) on Venus.
Two opposite approaches can be taken regarding Vasari's account of the painting of Venus:
1. Vasari's description could be accepted as a reliable first-hand account of the painting. In this case it should be concluded that the painting Vasari describes as Venus is not the painting nowadays called "The Birth of Venus". This is so because of obvious differences between the two, as can be seen in the following list:
| Vasari's description | The Birth of Venus |
| round paintings | rectangular painting |
| Venus, with her Cupids | no cupids accompany Venus |
| the winds and zephyrs | wind and zephyr (singular) |
2. Vasari's account can be seen as unreliable second-hand account of the painting. According to this approach Vasari was not admitted to the Medici's bedroom and only received account of it from a second person who may have heard it from a third, etc…
While this notion could easily explain the differences between Vasari's account an d the painting known nowadays as The Birth of Venus, it raises doubts as to the other identifications of the account. The most prominent one, being the identification of the central figure in the painting - as Venus. For, if Vasari's account is unreliable second-hand account, then the WHOLE account is second hand unreliable account.
Now, once the identification of Venus as the central figure of this painting is put under doubt, it remains to examine who that figure might be.
It seems unlikely to be the birth of Venus because the central figure of the painting is not an infant at all but a grown person.
Examining the painting in light of Botticelli's other pieces reveals the great similarity of the figure with those in "La Primavera" (The Spring).
Indeed, identifying the central figure of "The Birth of Venus" as Spring seems most fitting.
It is in accordance with the flowers in air and those on the garment about to cover the season, as well as the green background of the whole painting.
The weather also seems to fit as the season is characterized by gentle winds.
To conclude it could be said that the painting nowadays known as "The Birth of Venus" is actually another painting of Spring (La Primavera) that Botticelli made.
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[1] Vasari, G., Le Vite, p. 225
[2] While most scholars identify the female with Zephyr as his wife Chloris, Lightbown identifies her as Aura – Latin for breeze. Aura is said to have assisted Zephyr in Homer’s hymn to “push” Venus to shore.
[3] See: Dizionario Garzanti online. spirito : soffio, esalazione, respiro, fiato. In latin spiritus in Genesis 1:2 "et spiritus Dei ferebatur super aquas" translates the Hebrew "ruah" which means both spirit and wind
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Other articles by G. Shaked:
ART
BIBLICAL STUDIES
BIOLOGY
CINEMA
LITERATURE
MUSIC
PHILOSOPHY
PHYSICS
(ACOUSTICS)