Eros Or Cupid: Aphrodite By Sandro Botticelli

Aphrodite in Greek mythology was a goddess known for captivating beauty, love, marriage and her captivating beauty and sexual nature. Due to her irresistible beauty Zeus, Aphrodite’s father married her off to the particularly ugly god of fire and metalworking, Hephaestus. This arraigned marriage was performed in order to prevent a war amongst the gods fighting over the goddess’s hand in marriage. Despite Aphrodite’s marriage to Hephaestus she was known to have had many affairs with various gods and mortal men. One of Aphrodite’s most well known lovers was Ares, the god of war, who was the father of her son Eros or Cupid. As myth has it Helios one day discovered the affair between Ares and Aphrodite, and the sun god chose to inform her husband
Botticelli early on developed a distinctive artistic style that incorporated Neo-Platonism, which was the period of Platonic philosophy that was mystical and religious in nature. This distinct style appealed to the Papacy who asked him to travel to Rome, Italy to work on the Sistine Chapel with other great Renaissance artists like Michelangelo. The Venus and Mars was painted for the Vespucci
This painting depicts the two lovers Venus and Mars lying in a field accompanied by four satyrs playing amongst them with Ares armor. Venus lays fully clothed and fully alert across from Mars who is covered only by a loin clothe in a deep sleep. These satyrs that are deities of the woods and mountains represent the illicit love affair between the two gods. One of the Satyrs is seen blowing into a conch shell attached to the warriors lance, but Mars does not wake. Two of the satyrs are wearing the god’s armor one wearing his breastplate and the other wearing his helmet, both of which were crafted by his lovers husband Vulcan. This painting contrasts the typical image of Mars as a warrior whereas in the painting he is in a position of relaxation rather than one of strength and defense. Typically warriors are constantly on guard and would flinch at even the slightest sound, but not Mars in this painting. One interpretation could be that Venus’s love for Mars, and the love these two share is so strong that he feels safe in her company, and she in a way softens his warrior nature. A second interpretation could be that the god has somehow been poisoned or drugged. Below Mars left elbow is a satyr with some sort of fruit in his hand, which could have potentially left the god of war unconscious.

The painting Aphrodite and Ares at Pompeii was fresco painting discovered on a wall in the buried city of Pompeii.