The Italian Renaissance!

Venus and Mars

This  painting, Venus and Mars, was created by Sandro Botticelli in 1483 A.D Florence, Italy during the era of humanism and the growth of Florence. Botticelli was a growing artist and had be sanctioned for many pieces of art by the Medici family; including Birth of Venus, a painting very similar to this one in both content and style.This painting depicts a story-telling scene of Venus, the goddess of love, interacting with Mars, the god of war, using very symbolic representation.

Humanist art strayed away the sacred, Christian imagery and began expanding into the realms of secular interpretations of the world.  The Greek and Roman philosophies were very important to re-enlightening people as they crawled out of the dark ages. In this particular painting, there are many signs of humanist ideas; for starters, the use of Venus and Mars, as well as the satyrs, as the main content is a sign of regressing back to the Greek and Roman beliefs. These figures were taken from Roman mythology and been given a second interpretation in a new era.

Another sign of the forward thinking in art, is the portrayal of the woman having  conquered man. Love has outlasted the personification of war and violence.   This viewpoint of humanity was considered when humanism was in strong influence and artists were looking more closely at humanity and how people interacted with the world, and with each other. The story turns the gods almost human, making them experience the same effects of the world as mortals, such as the exhaustion of Mars and the relaxed confidence of Venus.

Finally, the use of the near-nude, muscular male form is very significant of the era’s Greek and Roman art style. It follows the trend of many other Renaissance artists copying the ancient Italian style, such as: Pollaiuolo, Donatello, and Michelangelo. These artists went back to studying the human body, form, and elegance of the nude. Though this painting does have the woman fully clad and the man tastefully covered, the study of the human form and muscular tone is still present.

I personally like the piece because of its playful nature, it really captured action, emotion and skill of representing the human figure. Venus looks upon the sleeping Mars in a sort of satisfaction as she watches the satyrs play with the god’s armor and get ready to rudely awaken him. The exhausted pose of mars tells its own part of the story, his relaxed body laying partly on Venus and Mars himself completely oblivious to what is happening around him. This lets the viewer feel just how tired Mars and brings the emotion of the painting to a personal level of the viewer. the satyrs are fun in their devious trickery and add a nice element of humor to the painting. They also add to the story as you watch them start to sneak off with the war accessories and the viewer is tempted to sit and wait to see how Mars will react upon the horn being blown into his ear.

A good source of this information comes from “Gardner’s Art Through the Ages, Volume Two” as it covers an in-dept look at art through the Renaissance.