DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.31769#0092
upon his father, Uranus, who was in the act of love and
castrated him. When Saturn threw Uranus’s genitals
into the sea, a mighty foam billowed up all around them,
and it was out of this foam that Venus, the goddess of
love, was born. During this remarkable birth at sea, a
rose bush grew on land as a floral equivalent to the
goddess of love who had emerged from the sea at the
same moment, and who would henceforth always be
associated with rose plants. Apparently the rose bush,
marking The Birth of Venus, bloomed at the very moment
when the goddess of love reached the shore of the island
of Cyprus. 72
In the lower edge of the painting, Botticelli devised an
additional pictorial element in the form of a rather for-
lorn and isolated plant — significant to the theme of
arrival. Between the Hora’s feet there is an anemone,
Anemone near the Hora’s feet which since antiquity has been known as the wind
93
castrated him. When Saturn threw Uranus’s genitals
into the sea, a mighty foam billowed up all around them,
and it was out of this foam that Venus, the goddess of
love, was born. During this remarkable birth at sea, a
rose bush grew on land as a floral equivalent to the
goddess of love who had emerged from the sea at the
same moment, and who would henceforth always be
associated with rose plants. Apparently the rose bush,
marking The Birth of Venus, bloomed at the very moment
when the goddess of love reached the shore of the island
of Cyprus. 72
In the lower edge of the painting, Botticelli devised an
additional pictorial element in the form of a rather for-
lorn and isolated plant — significant to the theme of
arrival. Between the Hora’s feet there is an anemone,
Anemone near the Hora’s feet which since antiquity has been known as the wind
93