Botticielli Paints "The Birth of Venus"

Around 1485 the Florentine painter Sandro Botticelli created The Birth of Venus, one of the most celebrated works of the Italian Renaissance. Painted in tempera on canvas, it was produced during the era of Medici patronage in Florence and reflects the humanist and Neoplatonic ideas circulating in that intellectual circle.

The painting depicts the goddess Venus emerging from the sea on a shell, blown ashore by the wind gods while a figure prepares to clothe her. Its graceful lines, idealized beauty, and revival of a classical, mythological subject on a large scale marked a striking departure from the predominantly religious art of the period.

Botticelli was among the leading painters of late fifteenth-century Florence. Beyond The Birth of Venus and its companion Primavera, he produced illustrations for Dante's Divine Comedy and contributed frescoes to the walls of the Sistine Chapel in Rome, securing his place among the foremost artists of the early Renaissance.