Time and place holds extreme influence over artist’s practice. When referring to how time, place and context affects the practice of an artist, we must look upon different artists and art movements to acknowledge progression throughout time. The idea of the “ideal female body” and certain individuals portrayals of the idea are represented through highly traditional and strongly represented artworks such as Giorgione’s “Sleeping Venus” and Titian’s “Venus of Urbino, along with more post-modern conceptual artworks such as Manet’s “Olympia” and Morimura’s “Portrait (Fatugo)”.
Giorgione’s “Sleeping Venus” is claimed to be the embodiment of love. She is displayed to the viewer as Venus, the goddess of love and was a well-known image reflected throughout the 1500’s Renaissance. This allegory of love was unfinished by it’s creator at the time of his death but was later completed by Titian, artist of “Venus of Urbino”. The dream like scene of “Sleeping Venus” is unrealistic due to the nude female lying upon a pile of perfectly wrinkled sheets. Her softly drawn profile almost blends into the calming background. In his monograph of Renaissance art, Sydney Freedberg writes: “The shape of being is the visual demonstration of a state of being in which idealized existence is suspended in immutable slow-breathing harmony. The sensuality has been distilled off from this sensuous presence, and all incitement; Venus denotes not the act of love but the recollection of it. The perfect embodiment of Giorgione’s dream, she dreams his dreams herself.” Saying farewell to the middle ages, the Renaissance marked the beginning of the modern age which brought along with it new artists and painting styles. Giorgione’s painting style was influenced by the realistic artworks of his time. Although his artwork seems to be an attempt at an erotic image, to feature mythological and religious subjects was common during the Renaissance