Venus Painting

According to Hesiod, Aphrodite is a daughter of Uranus. His son Kronos, on the advice of his mother Gaia, cut off his genitals with a sickle blow and "threw them behind him" into the sea. The blood and the seeds mixed with the sea, which foamed all around and gave birth to Aphrodite, who then led by Zephyros first to Kythera, then went ashore on the coast of Cyprus and hid her nakedness behind a myrtle bush. The depiction of Venus sliding on a shell is presumably taken from the “stanze per la giostra” by Poliziano. Venus (Greek Aphrodite, "the sea foam born") was born in Greek mythology from a shell, which in turn, according to ancient opinion, arose from the sea foam. The shell is shown here as a scallop shell. The best-known representation is by Sandro Botticelli, "La nascita di Venere" ("The Birth of Venus"). With the motif presented here, a contemporary interpretation of the classic motif was created, with a strong and self-confident Venus, who has both feet in life and leaves the shell behind.