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BIRTH OF VENUS (detail) (c. 1485)
Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence, Italy.
By Sandro Botticelli (1445 – 1510). 

The Birth of Venus (c. 1485).
Botticelli painted the Birth of Venus for the Villa Castello of Lorenzo de’Medici, also known as “Lorenzo the Magnificent”. The face of Venus is reputed to be a portrait of a perfect Renaissance beauty, Simonetta Vespucci, related by marriage to Amerigo Vespucci (who gave the new world its name).

In the painting, Venus, the beautiful Goddess of Love, has just risen from the sea and now beholds the world with dreamy eyes. The winds push her gently toward the shore, while an attending maiden stands ready with a resplendent cloak for her landing.

In humanist Florence, the story of Venus’ birth was a symbol of the mystery through which the divine message of beauty came into the world. In Botticelli’s hand, the Venus story was given a spiritual element, without which, he felt, no beauty can truly exist.

Sandro Botticelli (1445 – 1510). Sandro Botticelli was born during Florence’s golden age. During the early 1400’s, with wealth-producing guilds creating much prosperity and with the sudden appearance of new civil liberties, Florence became a center for humanist learning. The result was an artistic and scientific well-spring, known later as the Italian Renaissance.

Florentine art flourished under the patronage of the Medici, a family of mighty financiers and sometime dictators. The artistic production of the city was dominated by several large workshops, which combined many skills. Botticelli was one of several famous artists trained in these workshops, along with Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo.

Botticelli’s reputation is largely as a painter of women. His subjects included several Madonnas (Mary), a Judith, the goddess Athena, the three Graces and, of course, Venus. Botticelli’s women are usually rendered with elongated bodies, delicate hands, and soft, unblemished faces wearing wistful, otherworldly expressions.

Botticelli was deeply interested in synthesizing classical Greek and Roman thought with Christianity. As a member of the Platonic Academy, he admired the vigor and strength of the lyrical pagan mythologies. Yet as a Christian he also held to a concept of an individual becoming enlightened through spirituality. Botticelli’s synthesis of the two traditions is evident in his paintings Primavera and the Birth of Venus, in which his subjects exhibit great gentleness as well as beauty and strength.

THE KISS (1907-08) (detail) and BEETHOVEN FRIEZE (1902) (detail)
Both part of the Österreichische Galerie Belvedere, Vienna, Austria
By Gustav Klimt (Austrian, 1862-1918).

The Kiss (1907-08)
The most famous of Gustav Klimt’s paintings, this image actually captures the moment before a passionate kiss. In the 95 years since it was painted, The Kiss has come to represent the loving unity possible between and man and a woman. A gold ground surrounds the figures, similar to the gold backgrounds of Byzantine art. It serves to negate time and space, thereby creating an image of eternity. The kiss itself could well represent a form of redemption, signifying the goal and fulfillment of all human striving.

Beethoven Frieze (1902)
In honor of Ludwig von Beethoven, Klimt painted a frieze onto wet plaster covering more than 100 feet of wall space. On successive panels, Klimt illustrated the various themes of humanity’s search for happiness. In the last panel, a man and a woman embrace, echoing the words of the Ode to Joy in Beethoven's Ninth Symphony: "Joy, fair spark of the gods... Be embraced, Millions!..Take this kiss for all the world!”

Gustav Klimt (Austrian, 1862-1918). The second of seven children in a middle class family, Gustav Klimt embarked on a career in art upon joining Vienna’s School of Applied Art at age 14. There he was trained in both historical portraiture and modernist craftsmanship. After graduation, he and two partners received numerous commissions to decorate the monumental architecture of the Hapsburg Empire.

At the turn of the 20th century, Vienna was in a state of political and social upheaval. In 1897, Klimt joined with a younger generation of artists in creating the Vienna Secession, a group whose artistic mission was to renew society. Among other things, the efforts of the Vienna Secession led to the development of a Viennese version of Art Nouveau.

Around 1900, with his ornamented portraits of women, Klimt moved beyond his earlier work and created a completely new type of picture. Klimt’s paintings of women combined allegory, symbolism, and an element of eroticism. At first considered decadent, Klimt’s beautiful, seductive images are now seen as socially progressive, a factor that contributes to his growing worldwide popularity.

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