Week 3, Post #3

Early Italian Renaissance Art

Formal Analysis

The Birth Of Venus

by Sandro Botticelli

For my formal analysis I decided to choose "The Birth Of Venus" as my painting of choice from the Early Renaissance period. this painting is a great example of how artists would create art in this generation because it has many of the techniques we see compiled into one image. In my formal analysis I will be discussing these techniques and really going over what we see in this painting.

            One of the first things I noticed when looking at this painting, (as i'm sure is the same thing countless others first notice) Is the naked Venus standing almost perfectly in the center, in a contraposto pose in a shell. At this point, most of these features of the Venus woman and the shell are decently realistic for the time, and appear to be very naturalistic in my opinion. Both are fine examples of techniques and subject matter that are popular during this era. another thing to be noted, is the horizon line. Its location in the image is slightly high, but it creates what appears to be atmospheric perspective because of how the land closest to the viewer is almost black with how dark it is, but in the farthest area closest to the horizon line it is the lightest. This can also be seen with how the water was painted as well as the sky.

            Another example of popular things from this period we can see in this work, is the many use of triangles in this painting's composition. the first one we see is created with the figure of Venus, and the woman's arms throwing clothing over her. her arms create the tip of the triangle while the figure of Venus is the base. another triangle I found in this image is from Venus's eyes, lowest hand, and the eyes of the two figures on the left. These two triangles alone create enough movement throughout the entire piece that The artist could have left it at two, but after looking at this work for awhile longer, found another triangle formed by Venus again, her head is the tip of the triangle, while the shell forms the base for what makes a third triangle. Those were just the triangles created out of figures of things supposedly there. On top of those, there are at least 3 other triangles formed from the negative space around the figures, and even more created from the land jutting out into the sea and back to land.

            There is also a mix of naturalism and illusionism in this painting and even some stylization is mixed in. The artist used naturalism when creating the people (with what they had ability wise for the era) and the clothing. Every fold and crease is easily seen and thus can be identifiable with as natural and real. all these elements mixed together create a very naturalistic feel; they even tried to get foreshortening with an illusionism feel from the shell that Venus stands on. it almost seems to be coming towards us with the way it is painted on its back. However on top of all these elements is the very stylized water that seems slightly out of place when looking at the overall amount of detail, naturalism and illusionism in this painting. So why would the artist throw it into the painting instead of just painting the water like what we would see in the natural world? maybe because it was a popular style back then to have stylization in opposition to naturalism in the early Renaissance era.

            Overall I believe this work of art to be a very influential and beautiful piece of Early renaissance art, and it very easily shows examples of most all the techniques found to be popular in this era; as well as seemingly opening doors to more realistic and influential paintings in its era and ours. paintings like this one stay with us for a long time. we remember them because they touch a spark in us that we don't feel through most modern means anymore. Even though this painting was painted with tempera and gold on canvas instead of as a fresco painting, we still hold it in a high regard for its importance in its generation.