Bouguereau. The Birth of Venus (1879)

The Birth of Venus

Stories behind the Works of Art

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The Birth of Venus (1879). Bouguereau

The birth of Aphrodite (Greek mythology), like all mythological stories, has different versions.

And of these versions, the one we know best is the one that has become more attractive and inspiring to the artists who would represent it in their works.

That is why the version of Aphrodite’s birth that we know best shows the goddess as an adult emerging from the foam of the sea.

There is a version by the poet Homer, in his Iliad, that says that the goddess is the daughter of Zeus and Dione. However, the version popularized by great painters of all times (the one we see in the painting we have chosen) tells us that Aphrodite is the daughter of Uranus, God of Heaven, conceived in an unconventional way: Cronus (a titan son of Uranus) castrates her father with a sickle and throws his genitals into the sea. From the foam of the sea, emerges Aphrodite, a goddess of such beauty and sensuality that she is desired by both gods and mortals.

The word “Aphrodite” has its origin in the Greek word “aphros,” which means “foam.”

For all painters, the birth of the goddess is the perfect excuse to represent the ideal of beauty.

For some, like Botticelli, creator of the most famous of the Aphrodites, it is an excuse to represent “pure” and spiritual beauty. He painted his lifelong, impossible love, Simonetta Vespucci, as a goddess.

For others, like Bouguereau, it is the opportunity to represent a more erotic, more provocative, and more earthly beauty.

Aphrodite is the goddess of love, beauty, lust, reproduction, and sexuality. In other words, she is not only the goddess of love. It is not only the conquest of the soul but also the conquest of the senses. And so it is natural that she has become one of the most venerated deities of all time.

Recommended links:

The Birth of Venus (ca. 1484) by Botticelli.

Les Oréades (1902) by William-Adolphe Bouguereau.

Academic painting.

Salon des Refusés of 1863.

Jean-Léon Gérôme and Diogenes.

Art in Classical Antiquity.

When does Modern Art Start?

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