I feel great that art history comes so easily to me – I have lots of fun and I enjoy reading about it and researching about it. I think the independent research is one of my favourite parts of the course plus I love making sketches and drawings of things. I like getting different books from the library and read in them, look at the images of paintings they show and how I understand things better sometimes when I have two different sources.
So today I am going to research stories behind mythological themed paintings and I am excited to see how the same story was expressed in a different way by various artists.
“Mars and Venus United by Love” (1570s) by Paolo Veronese
It shows cupid tying something around Venus and Mars leg, uniting her and Mars in love. It might represent and show “Chastity transformed by Love into Charity” (http://www.wga.hu/frames-.html?/html/v/veronese/10/index.html)
The image shows that Mars is wearing a cloak as men did in the Roman Empire. The story behind the painting originates from Homer’s Odyssey (266-369) where Mars gave many presents to Venus (see pearl necklaces, jewellery), but Venus was married to Vulcan and Vulcan got angry and made Mars and Venus a trap so if they were going to see each other again they were going to get caught in a net and then he could catch them united by love. After the gods came together to talk about what to do about it they let Mars and Venus free and they both went separate ways to different areas.
“The Birth of Venus” (1485) by Sandro Botticelli
The mythological story behind this painting stems from Greek mythology where Venus (Aphrodite) emerged from the sea as a full grown woman.
Thinking about how these 2 mythological stories might have been of use to promote Christian values:
- Venus stands for fertility, chastity before marriage, love, sensuality
à promoting the Christian value of chastity before marriage, fertility
_-_The_Birth_of_Venus_(1879).jpg/300px-William-Adolphe_Bouguereau_(1825-1905)_-_The_Birth_of_Venus_(1879).jpg)
Image from http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/bb/William-Adolphe_Bouguereau_%281825-1905%29_-_The_Birth_of_Venus_%281879%29.jpg/300px-William-Adolphe_Bouguereau_%281825-1905%29_-_The_Birth_of_Venus_%281879%29.jpg (Accessed 20 Dec 2011)
“The Birth of Venus” (1863) by Alexandre Cabanel
Image from http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/f6/1863_Alexandre_Cabanel_-_The_Birth_of_Venus.jpg/300px-1863_Alexandre_Cabanel_-_The_Birth_of_Venus.jpg (Accessed 20 Dec 2011)
Both paintings show a portrait of a nude woman with long hair with an idealised body (proportion etc.) emerging from the sea and surrounded by angels. One of the biggest differences is the pose of Venus as in Bouguereau’s painting Venus is standing in a sea shell (symbolising a woman’s vulva) and in its design it very similar to Sandro Botticelli’s Venus 400 years earlier. Cabanel’s Venus is laying in a sea shell and she looks like she is in a state of dreaming and being awake maybe listening to the angels singing. What is also important to notice is that Bouguereau’s Venus is surrounded by more figures than Cabanel’s. Cabanel might have wanted to copy parts of the original, traditional, typical birth of Venus from Botticelli and revive the traditional way of portaying Venus, Bouguereau thought about giving Venus another look/pose/gesture to make another aspect of her being obvious.
References:
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