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[[File:Venus and Mars.jpg|thumb|500px|''Venus and Mars'', c 1483. Tempera on panel, 69cm x 173 cm]] |
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{{Infobox Painting |
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| image_file = Venus and Mars.jpg |
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| image_size = 400px |
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| title = Venus and Mars |
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| artist = [[Sandro Botticelli]] |
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| year = c 1483 |
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| type = [[Tempera]] on panel |
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| height = 69 |
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| width = 173 |
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| city = [[London]] |
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| museum = [[National Gallery]] |
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}} |
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'''''Venus and Mars''''' is a painting by the Italian [[Renaissance]] master [[Sandro Botticelli]], dating from c. 1483. The work shows the Roman gods [[Venus (mythology)| Venus]] and [[Mars (mythology)|Mars]] in an allegory of Beauty and Valour. Mars sleeps, watched by Venus, while two infant [[satyrs]] play with his armour and another rests under his arm. A fourth blows a conch shell in his ear in an effort to wake him. |
'''''Venus and Mars''''' is a painting by the Italian [[Renaissance]] master [[Sandro Botticelli]], dating from c. 1483. The work shows the Roman gods [[Venus (mythology)| Venus]] and [[Mars (mythology)|Mars]] in an allegory of Beauty and Valour. Mars sleeps, watched by Venus, while two infant [[satyrs]] play with his armour and another rests under his arm. A fourth blows a conch shell in his ear in an effort to wake him. |
Revision as of 22:38, 22 May 2011
Venus and Mars is a painting by the Italian Renaissance master Sandro Botticelli, dating from c. 1483. The work shows the Roman gods Venus and Mars in an allegory of Beauty and Valour. Mars sleeps, watched by Venus, while two infant satyrs play with his armour and another rests under his arm. A fourth blows a conch shell in his ear in an effort to wake him.
The scene is set in a forest, the background distance shows the sea in which Venus was born. A swarm of wasps hover around Mars' head, possibly as a dark reminder that love will often be accompanied by pain.[1]
Source
One possible source for the image is the Stanze of Poliziano. Stanze 122 describes how the hero found Venus "seated on the edge of her couch, just then released from the embrace of Mars, who lay on his back in her lap, still feeding his eyes on her face". Poliziano was in one of the humanist scholars in the court of Lorenzo de' Medici, and his stanze are a famous poem alluding to the prowess of Lorenzo's younger brother Giuliano di Piero de' Medici in the jousting tournament Lorenzo had organized to celebrate a treatise with Venice.
Giuliano di Piero de' Medici is most likely the athletic model for the war god who slumbers next to the goddess in this work. However, the description, with Mars in Venus' lap, gazing up at her, is a poor fit to the painting. Venus is said to be Simonetta Vespucci, the most beautiful lady of that time, married to the cousin of Amerigo Vespucci. Botticelli, who portrayed her many times after her death, asked to be buried like her in Ognissanti Church, in Florence.
Provenance
Although today Botticelli is the most celebrated Florentine painter of second half of the 15th century, he was only rediscovered in the late 19th century when his emphasis on line and contour chimed with the contemporary sensibility. Between 1857 and 1878, the National Gallery, London, acquired five of his works, including Venus and Mars.[1]
Notes
References
- Fowler, H. W. and F. G. The Works of Lucian of Samosata, Oxford, 1905.
- Ficino, Marsilio, Commentary on the Symposium: De Amore, from Oration V, chapter 8
- Potterton, Homan. The National Gallery. London: Thames and Hudson, 1977
- Quint, David. (tr). (1993) The Stanze of Angelo Poliziano]. Pennsylvania: The Pennsylvania State University Press. ISBN 0-271-00937-3
- Mariella Righini, Florentine - Flamarion - Paris - 1999