Sandro Botticelli's The Birth of Venus
The Birth of Venus can be seen as a remarkable depiction of a brave man's search for his feminine equal in the form of an aspirational ideal.
Visual Analysis
Her chin and jaw are set to the left, and her head is tilted to the right. Her right eye is open wider, demonstrating right-brain dominance in her field of vision, and her lips is positioned to the left, as if preparing to give a kiss, indicating that she is considering enjoying herself. She can perceive the beauty in the guys she is dealing with as their equivalent in the arena of fantasizing about an ideal thanks to the right side of her brain dominating her.
What can be said is that her left hand has a clear indication of health, as it has no bent fingers. However, her right hand has evidence of ulnar nerve deviation in the third, fourth, and fifth fingers (Dequeker, J., 1984).
This meant that her nerves in her left hand were not sinister, as the term “sinister” comes from left-handedness (Barsley, M., 1966).
Interpretation
The man in the painting is blowing air at Venus, meaning that he is denying her his partner held in his left arm (sinister arm). This can be likened to a child blowing a raspberry at someone, which is showing that he is making fun of Venus for being an ideal, when he has an actual woman held in his arms.
Perhaps this reaction from a man is why the woman to Venus’s left is cloaking her body.
What can be said is that the man is pretending to be indifferent to Venus by blowing the air in his lungs at her, perhaps stating something along the lines of “You are ideal, but not for me”.
The fact that he is acknowledging her and attempting to make fun of her with defiant behavior is only making her aware that many men do hate her for existing as a goal when they already have girlfriends, wives, sweethearts, and spouses.
Not much can be said for how Venus is just existing as she is, a statue to them, with no psychological intimacy between the two (she and the men she experiences coming towards her). Venus simply stands there in an existential experience of being the myth of their dreaming, waking struggles, and conscious dilemmas.
Because she is the sole existence of the Hero’s journey in the flesh, she is dismayed, as seen in her body language and her facial expression, and subtle presence. Without her, heroes would probably hang it up and stop pretending to care about dreaming of her more realistically, as she is the ideal they fight and receive punishment for withholding from the conscious experience of everyone else (what if every hero admitted to working towards an Anima?).
Femininity and Existential Agony
The defiance of Venus as the end of the existence of man and the existential agony of Venus are the two main themes in the present work of art.
Note that Venus is basically a doll to the man, as he treats her punishingly, and without respite.
The man in the painting is only there to punish Venus for existing. If he were to ever touch her, it would probably be to rape her and defile her existence as an ideal.
What more can be said is that she is without clothing, most likely to be perceived as a notion that she is just a statue to be worshipped, a Goddess to men, an idol or an icon.
The fact that she is an icon means she is just an indication of being placed above the heads of men, to be looked up at. This makes her an idol which is worshipped.
To view this painting placed above one’s head, and to be male would be to experience her presence and existence as “over their head”. Thus, she is to be defied because she cannot be understood.
The Perception of Venus
What is less appealing to the viewer is that Venus has a deformed left hand, as noted by Dr. Dequeker in 1984, in his publication on the paintings of Sandro Botticelli. This may mean that she is not willing to be sinister to men (Barsley, 1966), when she could be.
In the hypothetical sense, men would like her to be at least temping them, making a game to play, as they are probably single and without a woman in their life if they worship Venus.
Because she is not willing to be sinister to the men, the men can see her as an exposed child. What is meant by “exposed child” is that she is not playing a game with other young adults.
Because she is not playing a game, and she will not grant any of them anything other than a simple goal, and after that, a simple view (simple in relation to the view of the man defying her in the painting), men view her as evil.
She is right-handed, which entails that she is not being sinister, but she is not willing to please the men who view her by revealing her reproductive organs to them.
It goes without saying that if she simply became completely naked, the men would at least try wolf-whistling at her, or something like that, if not just punishing her with shame.
Venus cannot withstand such a fate, as it would be fatal to her ego. Her pride comes from existing as she is, and doing nothing about it.
What can further be stated is that she enjoys being indifferent, which expresses her intention with her existence; if she is indifferent, she may cause the men to follow suit, and destroy her concept of an idol. If men would just become as indifferent as she is, they would make love with her.
Botticelli's Intention
Although The Birth of Venus is a narrow topic, one can understand a deeper meaning behind the work of Botticelli.
Botticelli must have understood the myth of Venus as a boy, or as a young man, or else the idea of her would not have been kept in his mind, become a painting, and make it on a canvas.
Botticelli must have enjoyed his ideal of Venus, or else he would not have made this painting the way it is. What is more is that he either consciously or subliminally understood the purpose of Venus, or else it would not have become such a beautiful painting.
With all of the research done on this painting by Sandro Botticelli, it can be shown that it is well-researched that he himself understood the Roman mythology of Venus. It is not a matter of opinion by this point in this paper, but a matter of fact that Venus was a subject of deep thought and careful analysis (most likely subliminal) of Sandro Botticelli.
With all considered, it is clear as day that Sandro Botticelli was intent on sharing his understanding and creating a subtle understanding the minds of everyone who viewed his painting The Birth of Venus of the nature of an ideal womanly existence in their life. With that said, it can be stated that Botticelli was clearly a man of intention.
The Poem
The imposition of the subtle understanding of Venus can be evident in this poem by Cid Norman.
It means that if you love her, you would have to see the world the way she does, and thus you would die, because she is as good as dead to everyone she is seen by, except the woman on her left, who is treating her like a doll who needs to be clothed instead of naked while the boys play with her.
Work Cited
Dequeker, J. (1984), Arthritis in the paintings of Sandro Botticelli. Arthritis & Rheumatism, 27: 1196–1197. doi:10.1002/art.1780271019
Barsley, M. (1966). The left-handed book: An investigation into the sinister history of left-handedness. Souvenir P..
