Venus Humanism

The Renaissance brought forth changes in the arts, philosophy, religion, and politics. From 1350 to 1550, people started exploring the question, “What is human nature?” Their intellectual curiosity was what led to the beginning of humanism and doubts of the Roman Catholic Church. Secular humanism was based around human excellence without the Church, while Christian humanism was created for reforming the beliefs, practices, and ways of educating within the Church. Two major elements of humanism are respect to antiquity and human consciousness. The painting “Birth of Venus” and the sculpture of David are both examples of those elements in secular humanism. The painting, “Birth of Venus” is thought to have been made in the late 1480s by Sandro Botticelli. Venus, was thought to have been a

In the painting, Venus is standing atop a seashell, sailing to land where a handmaid, Ora, is trying to cover Venus’ body with a cloak. On the left side of Venus, Zephyr and the nymph Chloris are blowing their wind on her, pushing her closer to land. Zephyr and his companion are also nude, showing the difference between the gods and humans. The gods were left nude, showcasing the greatness of the human body, but were immediately clothed once on land with humanity, indicating shame and indignity (Class Notes 2/01/17). Renaissance humanists encouraged the idea of imitating and improving ancient Greek and Roman models to create more advanced works of their own, otherwise known as antiquity. Botticelli turned to Roman mythology to portray their goddess of fertility, love, and beauty, Venus. By painting her in the nude form, he introduced human consciousness. Instead of being viewed as a sexual object, Venus is viewed as a symbol of human beauty, reason, and morality. Because Botticelli painted Venus with paler