“Venus and Mars” by Sandro Botticelli

Venus

Venus was a Roman goddess, whose functions encompassed love, beauty, desire, and victory. Venus was central to many religious festivals and was revered in Roman religion under numerous cult titles.

The Romans adapted the myths and iconography of her Greek counterpart Aphrodite for Roman art and Latin literature.

In the later classical tradition of the West, Venus became one of the most widely referenced deities of Greco-Roman mythology as the embodiment of love and sexuality.

• Mythical:               Venus
• Domain:                Love, beauty, desire, fertility, and prosperity
• Consorts:               Mars and Vulcan
• Children:               Cupid, Aeneas
• Parents:                 Born of sea foam
• Greek:                    Aphrodite

Mars

In ancient Roman religion and myth, Mars was the god of war and also an agricultural guardian. He was second in importance only to Jupiter, and he was the most prominent of the military gods in the religion of the Roman army.

Under the influence of Greek culture, Mars was identified with the Greek god Ares, whose myths were reinterpreted in Roman literature and art under the name of Mars.

But the character and dignity of Mars differed in fundamental ways from that of his Greek counterpart, which is often treated with contempt and disgust in Greek literature.

Although Ares was viewed as a destructive and destabilizing force, Mars represented military power as a way to secure peace and was a father of the Roman people. In the founding myths of Rome, Mars was the father of Romulus and Remus.

His love affair with Venus symbolically reconciled the two different traditions of Rome’s founding. Venus was the divine mother of the hero Aeneas, celebrated as the Trojan refugee who “founded” Rome several generations before Romulus laid out the city walls.

• Mythical:                Mars
• Domain:                 Guardian of soldiers and farmers, God of War,
• Consorts:                Nerio, Rhea Silvia, Venus, Bellona
• Children:                Romulus and Remus
• Parents:                  Jupiter and Juno
• Greek:                    Ares

Sandro Botticelli

Sandro Botticelli (1445 – 1510) was an Italian painter of the Early Renaissance who belonged to the Florentine School under the patronage of Lorenzo de’ Medici.

His mythological masterpieces are his best-known works today. However, he painted a range of religious subjects and portraits. He and his workshop were primarily known for their many beautiful Madonna and Child paintings.

Botticelli lived all his life in the same neighborhood of Florence, and his only significant time elsewhere was the few months he spent painting in Pisa in 1474 and his work at the Sistine Chapel in Rome in 1481–82.

Venus and Mars

• Title:                 Venus and Mars
• Deutsch:           Allegorie der Venus-Humanitas
• Artist:               Sandro Botticelli
• Year:                 1483
• Medium:          Tempera on panel
• Dimensions:     69 × 173.5 cm (27.2 × 68.3 in)
• Museum:          The National Gallery, London

Sandro Botticelli

• Name:              Sandro Botticelli
• Birth Name:     Alessandro di Mariano di Vanni Filipepi
• Born:                c. 1445 – Florence, Republic of Florence, (now Italy)
• Died:                May 17, 1510 (aged c. 64) – Florence, Republic of Florence
• Nationality:      Italian
• Movement:      Italian Renaissance
• Notable works:
  • Primavera
  • The Birth of Venus
  • Venus and Mars
  • Adoration of the Magi
  • The Virgin and the Child in a Niche
  • The Story of Lucretia
  • Mystic Nativity
  • The Trials of Moses
  • Pallas and the Centaur

Explore The National Gallery

13th Century Paintings

• “The Virgin and Child Enthroned, with Narrative Scenes” by Margarito d’Arezzo – 1264
• “The Virgin and Child” by Master of the Clarisse – 1268
• “Crucifix” by Master of Saint Francis – 1270

14th Century Paintings

• Wilton Diptych – 1395
• “The Annunciation” by Duccio – 1311
• “The Healing of the Man Born Blind” by Duccio – 1311

15th Century Paintings

• “Arnolfini Portrait” by Jan van Eyck –  1434
• “The Battle of San Romano” by Paolo Uccello– 1440
• “Venus and Mars” by Sandro Botticelli – 1483
• “Portrait of Doge Leonardo Loredan” by Giovanni Bellini– 1501

16th Century Paintings

• “Mystic Nativity” by Sandro Botticelli – 1550
• “Virgin of the Rocks” by Leonardo da Vinci – 1506
• “The Madonna of the Pinks” by Raphael – 1507
• “The Raising of Lazarus” by Sebastiano del Piombo– 1519
• “Salvator Mundi” by Andrea Previtali – 1519
• “Bacchus and Ariadne” by Titian – 1523
• “The Ambassadors” by Hans Holbein the Younger – 1533
• “Mary Magdalene” by Girolamo Savoldo – 1540
• “Saint George and the Dragon” by Tintoretto – 1558
• “The Family of Darius before Alexander” by Paolo Veronese – 1567
• “Diana and Actaeon” by Titian – 1569
• “The Rape of Europa” by Paolo Veronese – 1570
• “The Death of Actaeon” by Titian – 1575
• “The Origin of the Milky Way” by Tintoretto – 1575

17th Century Paintings

• “Supper at Emmaus” by Caravaggio – 1601
• “Samson and Delilah” by Peter Paul Rubens – 1610
• “The Judgement of Paris” by Peter Paul Rubens – 1635
• “Aurora abducting Cephalus” by Peter Paul Rubens – 1637
• “Equestrian Portrait of Charles I” by Anthony van Dyck – 1638
• “Venus at her Mirror” by Diego Velázquez – 1651
• “Self Portrait at the Age of 63” by Rembrandt – 1669
• “A Young Woman standing at a Virginal” by Johannes Vermeer – 1670

18th Century Paintings

• “Bacchus and Ariadne” by Sebastiano Ricci – 1713
• “A Regatta on the Grand Canal” by Canaletto – 1740
• “Mr. and Mrs. Andrews” by Thomas Gainsborough – 1749
• “Eton College” by Canaletto – 1754
• “An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump” by Joseph Wright of Derby – 1768
• “Self-portrait in a Straw Hat” by Louise Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun – 1782

19th Century Paintings

• “Portrait of Doña Isabel de Porcel” by Francisco Goya – 1805
• “The Emperor Napoleon I” by Horace Vernet – 1815
• “Dido Building Carthage” by J. M. W. Turner – 1815
• “Salisbury Cathedral from the Meadows” by John Constable – 1831
• “The Execution of Lady Jane Grey” by Paul Delaroche – 1833
• “The Fighting Temeraire” by Joseph Mallord William Turner – 1839
• “Rain, Steam, and Speed – The Great Western Railway” by J. M. W. Turner – 1844
• “Cimabue’s Celebrated Madonna is carried in Procession through the Streets of Florence” by Frederic Leighton – 1855
• “Madame Moitessier” by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres– 1856
• “The Gare St-Lazare” by Claude Monet – 1877
• “Bathers at Asnières” by Georges Seurat – 1884
• “Sunflowers” by Vincent van Gogh – 1888
• “After the Bath, Woman Drying Herself” by Edgar Degas – 1895
• “Boulevard Montmartre at Night” by Camille Pissarro – 1898

20th Century Paintings

• “Misia Sert” by Pierre-Auguste Renoir –  1904
• “Portrait of Hermine Gallia” by Gustav Klimt – 1904
• Bathers (Les Grandes Baigneuses) by  Paul Cézanne – 1905
• “Men of the Docks” by George Bellows –  1912
• “Water-Lilies” by Claude Monet (National Gallery, London) – 1916

Botticelli Biography

Ares and Aphrodite (Venus and Mars) The Net of Hephestus – Greek Mythology

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“There are three classes of people:
Those who see.
Those who see when they are shown.
Those who do not see.” 
– Leonardo da Vinci

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Photo Credit: Sandro Botticelli [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

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