Botticelli's Influence On The Birth Of Venus

Although the Italian painter Botticelli is best known for The Birth of Venus, he also painted common works such as Madonna and Child, Primavera, Holy Trinity and many more also including the contribution to the beautiful Sistine Chapel. Botticelli mainly used tempera grassa which was a new medium in Italy at the time, in which they would take the yolk from an egg and mix it with paint to make it more transparent. In addition to oil paint, he also used chalk, pen, bistre and tempera. I wanted to look deeper into The Birth of Venus because of how much I enjoyed just looking at this beautiful piece of art. I never had the chance to learn as much as I wanted to during the course that I took. Writings from the ancient poet Homer, was taken to create
the theme of The Birth of Venus. Looking at the painting, it can be described as such; After Venus was born, she rode on a seashell and sea foam to the island of Cythera. As we can see in the painting, Venus is evidently depicted in the center, born out of the foam as she rides to shore. On the left, you see the figure of Zephyrus who carries the nymph Chloris as he blows wind to guide Venus. Another figure, the goddess of the Spring, also identified as Pomona is to Venus’s right, whom waits for Venus with a mantle in hand, such mantle billows in the wind from Zephyrus’ mouth. More about the medium, Tempera also known as egg tempera was used to create this work, The Birth of Venus. It’s a permanent, fast-drying painting medium consisting of colored pigments mixed with a water-soluble binder medium usually a glutinous material such as the egg yolk. This method was used until oil painting soon replaced such medium. The name tempera stems from the Latin word temperare, “meaning to mix in proportion”.