Talk:The Birth of Venus

Old

the link to venus should go to the goddess but instead it goes to the planet.

Attack?

When I saw this painting in Florence, it was behind a 2" plate of glass. The bluish tint kind of ruined the experience for me. Supposedly this was done because someone had attacked the painting with a knife. I don't see mention of it here. Does anyone know if this is true? And do they still have it behind that glass? I saw it in 1992, so they may have changed it. 75.65.21.44 (talk) 06:55, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

Copy?

At least a significant part of the text on this page is identical to the text on this page:

http://www.topofart.com/artists/Alessandro_Filippepi_Botticelli/art_reproduction/158/The_Birth_of_Venus.php

should this be fixed on one or the other? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.29.153.44 (talk) 07:48, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

Correct Word?

Is the correct word "anadyome" or "anadyomene" to describe "rising from the sea"? I think it's the latter, and so have corrected the article accordingly.--Chuckhoffmann 02:47, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

i don't know but I guess also the latter.213.119.207.54 12:49, 2 December 2006 (UTC)stefaan

It is the latter. "Anadyome" is the first person, as in "I am rising". "Anadyomene" is "in the act of rising". Stassa (talk) 14:08, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

Anadyomene is the correct word, but it should not be applied to this painting,as the painting does not represent Venus rising from the sea, but the goddess being blown to shore (Cyprus) by the winds. The classical tradition for representing the Anadyomene is to show the goddess waist deep in water, often wringing water from her hair (as in the Ludovisi throne). —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jclong09 (talk • contribs) 01:50, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

I think that this last comment is interpretating "Venus anadyomene" in much too narrow a fashion. If we are to go with this, then we must stop calling the painting "The Birth of Venus", because it doesn't show the precise moment of birth, but very shortly after, in the same way as a painting entitled "The Birth of the Virgin Mary" might show the baby about to be given her first bath.

The term "Venus anadyomene" pertains to this sort of scene, as against "Venus and Mars" or "Venus blindfolding Cupid" or "The Judgement of Paris", all popular Venus motifs. Amandajm (talk) 04:08, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

You're absolutely right; I was not advocating changing the name of the painting. There is, however, a visual tradition for the representation of the Anadyomene, which this painting does not fit. See, for example, Titian's Venus Anadyomene in Edinburgh.--Jclong09 (talk) 18:22, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

Italian Name?

Should the original Italian name (La nascita di Venere) be added as a subtitle to the English one (The Birth of Venus)? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 66.25.142.66 (talk) 17:21, 11 April 2007 (UTC).

Monty Python info

I added the line about the movie sketch; it seemed silly to mention the movie info when it was the same as the TV info.

Or should it have been in the movie section?

CaliforniaDave 02:05, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

Simonetta's place of residence

The article claims that "she lived in Portovenere". Is that so? If I remember correctly, she was anecdotally linked to the place. She might have been born there - but she lived in and around Florence.

Everything about Simonetta Vespucci in this article is so tenuous that it amounts to no more than fantasy. Nothing is sourced. Vespucci lived in the Santa Maria Novella district of Florence; her family (and some poor relations) originated in Portovenere, but to say she lived there would be wrong. Given that there's no source for this statement, that's not surprising. I added some sources for the weak claim that she was the model, and also added a citation to noted historian Felipe Fernandez-Armesto making the opposite case. Nandesuka (talk) 00:17, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

File:La nascita di Venere (Botticelli).jpg to appear as POTD soon

Hello! This is a note to let the editors of this article know that File:La nascita di Venere (Botticelli).jpg will be appearing as picture of the day on June 29, 2010. You can view and edit the POTD blurb at Template:POTD/2010-06-29. If this article needs any attention or maintenance, it would be preferable if that could be done before its appearance on the Main Page so Wikipedia doesn't look bad. :) Thanks! howcheng {chat} 04:49, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

Picture of the day

One of Sandro Botticelli's masterworks The Birth of Venus (ca. 1485), which depicts the goddess Venus, having emerged from the sea as a full grown woman. Venus in the painting is very similar to Praxiteles' sculpture of Aphrodite, and the pose resembles the Venus de' Medici, a marble sculpture from classical antiquity in the Medici collection which Botticelli had opportunity to study.

Google Arts Project image

Hello, I have swapped the old image for a much higher resolution copy made by the Google Art Project, which also includes the full image (including the missing foot which led to the old image's demotion from FP). However, the colours on this reproduction are noticably less vibrant. Having never seen the original, which is the most accurate colour reproduction? I would invite discussion on the matter. Bob talk 14:28, 5 November 2011 (UTC)

Demoted Featured Picture copy

Google Art Project copy

The brighter picture is much more like I remember from seeing it in person, in the summer of 2010.174.21.177.240 (talk) 04:18, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

IMO the Google Art Project version is more colour accurate but underexposed. I've created a brighter version based on adjusting levels of the Google Art Project image which I believe is superiour to both (below) so I will now place that in the article. I've also increased the resolution to 30,000 pixels wide, and will upload full gigapixel tiles for it. Dcoetzee 23:54, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

Google Art Project copy - edited

Nickname

A fairly widely used nickname for the painting is "Venus on the half shell" (which has been used as a book title)... AnonMoos (talk) 18:18, 12 October 2013 (UTC)

New edits

Something is fairly wrong with the tone and presentation of the "interpretation." Far too conversational, not enough citation or academia. Also, very hard to actually comprehend without further inspection. This is wikipedia, not a blog. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.41.116.21 (talk) 00:49, 22 May 2017 (UTC)

Those are the old edits, I think you'll find. I'm trying to clear this up. Johnbod (talk) 16:28, 23 May 2017 (UTC)

Mack

Mack edits. Memo, appears to be high-class COI, but rather appropriates things that all historians had noted for decades. I've been spreading these around. Johnbod (talk) 16:48, 23 May 2017 (UTC)

Agreed. That whole section is very problematic: particularly that it is self-referencing and written by the author (COI), but it's also written very informally and doesn't seem to posit much info that merits its own section. But it's written by someone who does have a published book (not that that's necessarily a proving ground) and has been standing for 7 years, so I don't want to immediately jump straight to deleting it. Is there much substance here that can be reworked elsewhere? --Bossi (talk • gallery • contrib) 03:14, 31 May 2018 (UTC)

If you compare to the original, after writing the above, I have spread around what many other art historians say, leaving only the more personal views. It seems ok to me as it now is - Mack is a fairly distinguished scholar of the period. I'm not seeing the informality in the text now in the article - rather different from that in the diff above. Johnbod (talk) 03:42, 31 May 2018 (UTC)

No influence in modern culture whatsoever?

Currently, there is no mention in the text about all the reinterpretations, homages, etc to the painting in modern culture, so one might as well believe the painting has been forgotten by everyone except art historian. I'd say it is actually of encyclopedic interest, if an article on a historical piece of art also covers, at least in the end and shortly, the noteworthy cases where it has been referred to nowadays - in this case, from Monty Python to Lady Gaga. An encyclopedic writer on renaissance art still doesn't have to be so snobbish as to dismiss the world they dwell in entirely. Let Uma Thurman return to us! --62.65.236.45 (talk) 10:25, 4 April 2018 (UTC)

I don't object to a section being added, and the catalogue for the recent V&A exhibition would be an excellent source (presumably - not seen it). But really most modern references seem to be just picking up on its iconic status as an image rather than showing "influence" as such. The current article certainly makes clear it has not "been forgotten by everyone except art historians". Johnbod (talk) 11:21, 4 April 2018 (UTC)

Citation help needed please?

At Aesthetic canon#Proportions in art, this uncited statement is made:

For his painting The Birth of Venus, the artist Sandro Botticelli stated that the distance between the nipple and navel, between the two legs and between the navel and the groin must all be equal for a figure to (in his opinion) be ideally proportioned.

I am revising Body proportions and would like to use this statement (if true) but not without a citation. Can anyone supply? --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 19:53, 16 September 2020 (UTC)

Infobox and example images

@Johnbod: Hello. I see you added the note against infoboxes with this edit last year with the edit summary "no thanks". This summary and the note "NO infobox please", unfortunately, don't help me understand why you're actually against its inclusion. Infoboxes are immensely useful for readers who don't want to read through the whole article to learn key facts about the painting.

About the restoring of 3 example pictures and the video in article body (moved by John Maynard Friedman), why do we need 6 large image examples of depictions of Venus in other paintings? It clutters the article and looks horribly bad. — Golden ^{call me maybe?} 07:26, 30 April 2022 (UTC)

I moved the video down to the External links because for the life of me, I can't see what justifies it being given a featured position in the body. Indeed, per WP:ELNO, it struggle to justify even a presence there but on balance I would support its retention because the audio description is another way to access the material. As for the other images, I strongly support retention of those where the lineage of influence is evident, or where it shows the sudden transition from religious to secular figure painting. Images in articles are "to illustrate not to decorate" and in an article such as this the balance must be in favour of inclusion over exclusion. But the images also have to earn their place, otherwise there is a tendency for all comers to add their favourite nude venusian image. The Venus of Willendorf, for example? --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 17:54, 30 April 2022 (UTC)

Re the infobox, I suggest you read MOS:INFOBOXUSE, and the arbcom decision that ended the "infobox wars" of some years ago. In visual articles, boxes take up a lot of space, have varying unhelpful effects, usually reducing the main image (depending on hardware & settings). Your infobox only added a single piece of information to the existing caption, an unhelpful link to the over-general Renaissance. The Khan videos are very good, and given a place in the body of the article in many highly-viewed articles. The Roman images illustrate the section they follow, which I hope you have both read! They are pretty specific to the content. Johnbod (talk) 01:36, 1 May 2022 (UTC)

I've added a link to this discussion in the note, so that future editors aren't as confused as I was. I also moved down Capitoline Venus and Venus de' Medici to a gallery for better design. Cheers — Golden ^{call me maybe?} 07:38, 1 May 2022 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: English 1101 053

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 8 November 2022 and 16 December 2022. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Manganr (article contribs).

— Assignment last updated by Manganr (talk) 17:31, 22 November 2022 (UTC)