Why it matters
Botticelli's goddess arrives at the shore on a giant shell, blown by the wind gods: one of the most famous paintings in the world. Mythological scenes on this scale, and a female nude this prominent, were virtually unprecedented in Western art since antiquity, and its appeal is so direct that it needs no complex decoding.
Did you know?
- It was probably painted in the mid-1480s.
- It is not a pair with Botticelli's Primavera, although the two are always discussed together.
- The oversized shell is imaginary, but also appears in classical depictions of Venus.
Based on the Wikipedia article The Birth of Venus (CC BY-SA 4.0).
