The Birth of Venus (disambiguation)
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
"Then the son from his ambush stretched forth his left hand and in his right took the great long sickle with jagged teeth, and swiftly lopped off his own father's members and cast them away to fall behind him. And not vainly did they fall from his hand; for all the bloody drops that gushed forth Earth received, and as the seasons moved round she bare the strong Erinyes and the great Giants with gleaming armour, holding long spears in their hands and the Nymphs whom they call Meliae all over the boundless earth. And so soon as he had cut off the members with flint and cast them from the land into the surging sea, they were swept away over the main a long time: and a white foam spread around them from the immortal flesh, and in it there grew a maiden. First she drew near holy Cythera, and from there, afterwards, she came to sea-girt Cyprus, and came forth an awful and lovely goddess, and grass grew up about her beneath her shapely feet. Her gods and men call Aphrodite, and the foam-born goddess and rich-crowned Cytherea, because she grew amid the foam, and Cytherea because she reached Cythera, and Cyprogenes because she was born in billowy Cyprus, and Philommedes because she sprang from the members. And with her went Eros, and comely Desire followed her at her birth at the first and as she went into the assembly of the gods. This honour she has from the beginning, and this is the portion allotted to her amongst men and undying gods, -- the whisperings of maidens and smiles and deceits with sweet delight and love and graciousness."-- Theogony by Hesiod |
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The Birth of Venus is the myth of how Venus was born out of the waves of the sea, after Uranus was castrated by his son, Cronus. His severed genitals, falling into the sea, fertilized the water.
It has been portrayed and referenced by many artists, painters and writers, the former typically portraying not the actual birth, but the moment where, transported by a shell (a metaphor for the female vulva), Venus lands at Paphos in Cyprus.
In painting:
- The Birth of Venus, a 1486 painting by Sandro Botticelli
- The Birth of Venus, an 1879 painting by William-Adolphe Bouguereau
- The Birth of Venus, an 1863 painting by Alexandre Cabanel
- The Birth of Venus[1], an 1862 painting by Amaury Duval
- La Naissance de Vénus (1912) by Odilon Redon
The Birth of Venus may also be:
- the theme of Venus arising from the sea in art; see Venus Anadyomene
- the mythological event; see Aphrodite
See also
- Aphrodite#Birth
- Birth of Venus
- castration of Uranus
- French page on The Birth of Venus in painting
- Aphrodite#Birth