A Goddess Blown Ashore: How to Read Botticelli's Birth of Venus

The Birth of Venus represents the goddess of love arriving on land after she was born, already fully grown, from the sea. Sandro Botticelli painted her standing on a giant scallop shell while the winds blow her towards the shore and a young goddess of the seasons hurries to wrap her in a cloak. On one level it is simply a joyful scene from Greek mythology, and most art historians agree that it does not need complicated decoding. On another level, scholars have read it as a picture about divine love and beauty, about weddings, and even about the glory of Florence and the Medici family. This guide walks through what you see, who made it, and why it became one of the most famous paintings in the world.

What is happening in the picture

Venus stands naked in the centre, balanced on a shell whose huge size is purely imaginary; ancient artists had already shown her this way. On the left, the wind god Zephyrus flies through the air with his cheeks full, and the breeze is drawn as fine lines streaming from his mouth. He holds a young woman who is also blowing, though more gently. The writer Giorgio Vasari called her "Aura", the personification of a lighter breeze, and he was probably right. Together the two winds push Venus towards the land and make the hair and clothes of the other figures flutter.

On the right, a woman in a dress covered with flowers seems to float just above the ground as she holds out a rich cloak. She is one of the Horae, the minor Greek goddesses of the seasons, and the flowers suggest she is the Hora of Spring. Some scholars prefer other names for the two women, such as the flower nymph Chloris for the figure in the air and Flora for the one on land, and the roses tumbling through the air would suit Chloris.

There is a small surprise in the title. Strictly speaking the painting does not show the birth itself but the next moment, when Venus lands. The name "Birth of Venus" was only attached to it in the nineteenth century. The shore she is approaching is probably Cythera or Cyprus, islands the Greeks considered her territory.

Who was Botticelli?

Sandro Botticelli, born Alessandro di Mariano di Vanni Filipepi around 1445, was a painter of the Early Renaissance who died in Florence in 1510. His nickname means "little barrel". It actually came from his brother Giovanni, who was apparently called Botticello because he was round, and Sandro later adopted it as his own name. He trained with Fra Filippo Lippi, a leading Florentine painter favoured by the Medici, and learned from him to draw graceful, slightly melancholy figures with clear outlines.

Botticelli spent almost his whole life in the same Florentine neighbourhood. His biggest trip away was to Rome in 1481–82, where he helped paint the walls of the Sistine Chapel. The 1480s were his most successful decade, and that is when his large mythological pictures were completed.

When and for whom was it painted?

Most scholars now date the Birth of Venus to around 1484–86, judging by how Botticelli's style developed. For a long time people believed it was made for Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco de' Medici, a young cousin of Lorenzo "the Magnificent", to decorate his country villa at Castello. That idea goes back to a 1908 book by Herbert Horne. However, an inventory of that branch of the family's art from 1499, published only in 1975, does not list the painting, so the original patron is now uncertain. The first person known to describe it was Vasari, who saw it at Castello next to the Primavera some time before 1550.

The painting is large, and it is on canvas rather than wooden panel. Canvas was cheaper and was becoming popular for cheerful secular pictures meant for country houses. Modern scientific tests found that Botticelli changed his mind as he worked: the Hora first wore low classical sandals, the collar of the cloak was added later, and the hair of Venus and the flying pair was altered. He also used real gold for highlights on hair, wings, the shell and the landscape.

How to look at it: details worth noticing

Start with Venus herself. Her pose copies the ancient "Venus Pudica", or modest Venus, with one hand covering her breasts and the other her body, yet her neck is long and her weight is shifted so far onto one leg that no real person could stand like that. The art historian Kenneth Clark said she seems to be floating rather than standing, her whole body following the curve of a Gothic ivory carving.

Next, look at the shadows: there are none. The waves are neat repeating patterns, the trees have golden highlights, and the landscape seems out of scale with the figures. Even the bulrushes in the bottom left are a freshwater plant that does not belong by the sea. This is not carelessness. Botticelli was painting an imagined, poetic world, not trying to copy reality.

Finally, notice the colours. The green of the winds' wings and the orange-tree leaves has darkened over the centuries, and the blues of sea and sky have faded, so the picture originally looked brighter and more balanced than it does now.

What does it mean? Four readings

The closest written source is one of the ancient Homeric Hymns, which describes Aphrodite carried over the waves to Cyprus by the breath of Zephyr and welcomed and clothed by the Horae. A similar scene appears in a poem by Angelo Poliziano, the court poet of Lorenzo de' Medici.

The most influential interpretation is Neoplatonic. For thinkers of the Florentine Platonic Academy, Venus had two sides, earthly and heavenly, and looking at physical beauty could lift the mind towards spiritual beauty. In this reading, viewers of the painting would feel their thoughts raised to divine love. More recently, scholars have also seen the painting as a wedding picture suggesting proper behaviour for a bride and groom.

There are political hints too. The laurel trees and the Hora's laurel wreath pun on the name "Lorenzo", and the flowers may evoke Florence itself. Renaissance viewers might also have recognised the layout of a Baptism of Christ, with a central figure, an attendant raising an arm above, and winged beings nearby; here it marks the beginning of Venus's work of love.

The Simonetta legend

You will often read that Venus has the face of Simonetta Vespucci, a celebrated beauty of Florence who died young in 1476. This is tradition and popular legend rather than proven fact. What is recorded is that Botticelli asked to be buried at the foot of her tomb in the church of Ognissanti, which was also his own parish church, and his wish was carried out when he died in 1510. Whether he loved her or simply belonged to that parish, nobody can say for certain.

Where is the Birth of Venus now?

The painting hangs in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence. It and the Primavera stayed at the villa of Castello until 1815, when they moved to the Uffizi, and apart from a period in the Galleria dell'Accademia until 1919 they have remained together ever since. Seeing the two side by side is one of the great experiences of any visit to Florence.

Forgotten, then everywhere

After his death Botticelli's reputation faded for centuries. In the late nineteenth century the Pre-Raphaelites rediscovered him and sparked a new appreciation of his work. Today his Venus is everywhere. A detail of her face has appeared on the Italian ten-cent euro coin since 2002, a stylised version greeted users of Adobe Illustrator from 1986 to 2003, and Lady Gaga borrowed the image for her 2013 album Artpop. A large, nearly life-size female nude from classical myth had been almost unheard of in Western painting since antiquity, and that boldness is part of why this gentle, floating goddess still feels fresh.

Learn with The Birth of Venus: English phrases for describing art

Phrase	Meaning	Example
to emerge from	to come out of something	Venus emerged from the sea fully grown.
to be blown ashore	to be pushed onto land by the wind	The goddess is blown ashore on a shell.
in the foreground	in the front part of a picture	There are bulrushes in the foreground.
to be open to interpretation	to have more than one possible meaning	The painting is open to interpretation.
to fall out of fashion	to stop being popular	Botticelli fell out of fashion for centuries.

Try this: Write three English sentences about a picture you like, using "in the foreground" and "to be open to interpretation".