Bouguereau's rendition of a well-known Roman mythology tale portrays Venus, the goddess of love and beauty, emerging from the sea on a shell, surrounded by a group of nymphs, tritons, and putti who admire her. The goddess assumes the classic contrapposto stance of Venus Anadyomene, accentuating the curves of her body while adjusting her hair. The painting's cool pastel hues create an atmosphere that evokes the dewy world of the sea.
Bouguereau drew inspiration from Renaissance masterworks like Raphael's The Triumph of Galatea and Botticelli's Birth of Venus, which he studied during his Prix de Rome scholarship in Italy. Unlike Raphael and Botticelli's nudes, Bouguereau's Venus displays a refined naturalism that reflects the new artistic tastes of the 1870s while retaining a Neoclassical artifice. The painting satisfies the challenge set by T.J. Clark for late-19th-century Salon painters to depict the flesh of modern women in Naturalist style while adhering to the Academic ideal of "the body as a sign, formal and generalized, meant for a token of composure and fulfillment." Although Bouguereau's Venus is technically perfect and realistic, she lacks individual identity and remains confined to the role of an ideal.
Bouguereau's Venus received much acclaim and proved to be a commercial success. The painting's strong eroticism hints at Bouguereau's pragmatic methods of appealing to buyers. Unlike Botticelli's Venus, who hides her bosom seductively, Bouguereau's Venus invites the viewer to examine every part of her, unashamed of her nakedness and sensuality.
The Birth of Venus (French: La Naissance de Vénus) is one of the most famous paintings by 19th-century painter William-Adolphe Bouguereau. It depicts not the actual birth of Venus from the sea, but her transportation in a shell as a fully mature woman from the sea to Paphos in Cyprus. She is considered the epitome of the Classical Greek and Roman ideal of the female form and beauty, on par with Venus de Milo.
For Bouguereau, it is considered a tour de force. The canvas stands at just over 9 ft 10 in (3.00 m) high, and 7 ft 2 in (2.18 m) wide. The subject matter, as well as the composition, resembles a previous rendition of this subject, Sandro Botticelli's The Birth of Venus, as well as Raphael's The Triumph of Galatea.
The Birth of Venus was created for the Paris Salon of 1879. It was awarded the Grand Prix de Rome, and was purchased by the state for the Musée du Luxembourg. The painting is now in the permanent collection of the Musée d'Orsay in Paris.
At the center of the painting, Venus stands nude on a scallop shell being pulled by a dolphin, one of her symbols. Fifteen putti, including Cupid and Psyche, and several nymphs and centaurs have gathered to witness Venus' arrival. Most of the figures are gazing at her, and two of the centaurs are blowing into conch and Triton shells, signaling her arrival.
Venus is considered to be the embodiment of feminine beauty and form, and these traits are shown in the painting. Her head is tilted to one side, and her facial expression reflects that she is calm and comfortable with her nudity. She raises her arms, arranging her thigh-length, brown hair, swaying elegantly in an "S" curve contrapposto, emphasizing the curves of her body.
The model for Venus was Marie Georgine, princess of Ligne. In 1861, she was on a short holiday in Paris with her lover. Together, they modeled for Bouguereau's "Abduction of Psyche" and "Flora and Zephyr". He worked out Venus and other sketches and paintings later from photographs he took of the couple. Some of Bouguereau's other works, like La Nuit, are also based on her. Marie was also painted by Léon Bonnat and photographed by Antoine Samuel Adam-Salomon.
Venus' figure was enlarged from a nymph from Bouguereau's The Nymphaeum, completed in 1878, a year earlier. The nymph is slightly thinner, and her breasts are fuller and more rounded. Venus' contrapposto is more intense, and her hair is also longer and lighter than the nymph's, but she arranges it almost identically.
To the upper-left of the painting, there is a shadow in the clouds. It appears to be the silhouette of the artist, with a head, shoulder, arm, and a raised fist that would seem to hold a paintbrush.
Media related to The Birth of Venus at Wikimedia Commons
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