Art Botticelli/ Fragonard

Sandro Botticelli painted “The birth of Venus” in 1485 and Jean-Honore Fragonard painted” Happy accidents of the swing” in 1767. Botticellis painting is tempera on canvas, while Fragonard painting is oil on canvas. Botticellis’ piece shows a scene of Venus rising from the sea, balanced on a sea shell. To the right of Venus right is Zephyrus, God of Winds, he carries with him the gentle breeze Aura and together they blow the Goddess of Love ashore. The Horae, Goddess of the Seasons, waits to receive Venus and spreads out a flower covered robe in readiness for the Love Goddess' arrival. In Fragonard piece a well dressed young woman, attended by a dimly visible bishop, swings in the garden. At the lower left of the painting ides a young man in the bushes and admires the women swinging. In the “The birth of Venus” and “Happy accidents of the swing I will identify the visual elements and principles of design present in each piece providing a compare and contrast analysis of the two artworks. Both painting are representational pieces of art due to the fact they both have recognizable subjects. In Botticellis’ composition the scene and characters are more fictional, despite the fact that Fragonards’ composition is more realistic in its scene and character depiction. There is iconography present in both compositions. Botticells’ composition is a pertinent description for the era identified as the Renaissance, which revived interest in the art of classical Greece and Rome. The Renaissance was a period of new and altered understanding in which transformed the European world and laid a founding foundation for modern society. “The birth of Venus” composition combined what the Greeks idealized as human figures with a Renaissance concern for thought and sentiment. Botticellis’ uses flexible means of classical Greek mythology to portray Venus nude at the center of a painting, which was a position reserved only for the Virgin Mary. Fragonards’ 18th century painting gave way