DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.31769#0097
the implied sexual union between Leda and Zeus/Jupi-
ter in the guise of a swan. Therefore, the presence of
bulrushes m this drawmg may well have been for erotic
purposes; they are just as much an allusion to the erect
male member as the encounter between Leda and the
Swan is an allusion to the sexual act itself. In view of
Leonardo’s confirmation of the meaning of this pictorial
tradition, we may presume a similar intention in Botti-
celli’s painting of the arrival of Venus, with bulrushes
again appearing as erotic symbols.
On the basis of the scarcely concealed nudity of
Venus, plus the various interpretations that may be de-
rived from the bulrushes and the shell, the so-called
Birth of Venus may more readily be regarded as an erotic
painting than La Primavera. Vt ultimately, without pre-
cise knowledge of the circumstances of its genesis, any
mterpretation must remain incomplete — the indi-
vidual pictorial elements are too ambiguous. The one
thing we can be certain of is that Botticelli’s painting
does not portray the birth of Venus, but her arrival; this
is particularly evident from the winds driving her to-
wards land, along with the anemone and the roses
carried through the turbulent air. In an equally unam-
biguous manner, the painter includes the Hora, thus
underscoring the notion of Venus being greeted upon
her arrival, for the former’s expansive gesture of wel-
come dominates the whole right side of the picture and
at the same time restrains the left-to-right movement of
the composition. Botticelli, his advisor and his patron
clearly set considerable store by the precise depiction of
the moment of arrival: the moment immediately before
the goddess stepped ashore.
Most mythological panel paintings and works on
canvas in fifteenth-century Florence owe their existence
ter in the guise of a swan. Therefore, the presence of
bulrushes m this drawmg may well have been for erotic
purposes; they are just as much an allusion to the erect
male member as the encounter between Leda and the
Swan is an allusion to the sexual act itself. In view of
Leonardo’s confirmation of the meaning of this pictorial
tradition, we may presume a similar intention in Botti-
celli’s painting of the arrival of Venus, with bulrushes
again appearing as erotic symbols.
On the basis of the scarcely concealed nudity of
Venus, plus the various interpretations that may be de-
rived from the bulrushes and the shell, the so-called
Birth of Venus may more readily be regarded as an erotic
painting than La Primavera. Vt ultimately, without pre-
cise knowledge of the circumstances of its genesis, any
mterpretation must remain incomplete — the indi-
vidual pictorial elements are too ambiguous. The one
thing we can be certain of is that Botticelli’s painting
does not portray the birth of Venus, but her arrival; this
is particularly evident from the winds driving her to-
wards land, along with the anemone and the roses
carried through the turbulent air. In an equally unam-
biguous manner, the painter includes the Hora, thus
underscoring the notion of Venus being greeted upon
her arrival, for the former’s expansive gesture of wel-
come dominates the whole right side of the picture and
at the same time restrains the left-to-right movement of
the composition. Botticelli, his advisor and his patron
clearly set considerable store by the precise depiction of
the moment of arrival: the moment immediately before
the goddess stepped ashore.
Most mythological panel paintings and works on
canvas in fifteenth-century Florence owe their existence