Cabanel’s, The Birth of Venus, Industrial Revolution

     

         The Birth of Venus (French: Naissance de Venus) is a painting by the French artist Alexandre Cabanel (1823–1889). It was painted in 1863, and is now in the Musée d'Orsay in Paris. A second and smaller version (85 x 135.9 cm) from ca. 1864 is in Dahesh Museum of Art. A third (106 x 182.6 cm)version dates from 1875; it is in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. 

           The picture is not only of a grace of composition, but in its soft, delicate color and tender. The figure has been painted in emphasizing her beauty and idealizing her form through the light blending and shading of the sfumato technique that the artist used and painted pale, placid skin tone, and darkly outlined the figure of  Venus. The lightest of color used meaning of relaxation, amplifying the reclining nude’s placid demeanor and virginity.

            Venus’ supine pose expresses passivity and sexual submission. Her breasts are fully exposed and her arms are away from the body as not to block its view but pulled back too obscuring her face, her pelvis is tilted toward the viewer as to display herself for viewing, her knees are slightly instead of using her hand to cover. These examples have been used to enhance the experience of the piece for the male viewer. 

Venus et l'Amour Voleur de Miel, Modern

         

 

             Venus and Cupid emerge from a fantastical wilderness into the frontal plane of the lithograph. Cubist in nature, Venus suffers from complex and unnatural proportions that include voluptuous hips and breasts, dangerously thin limbs, a shrunken head, and an unscrupulous pregnant belly. She modestly covers herself with a diaphanous scarf, as she wears only a large and fashionable sun hat. Her small companion, Cupid, is shown crying, as he looks to Venus guiltily with the stolen fruit in hand. The large scale of the piece allows us to examine the finer details, analyze the style, and truly appreciate the genius of the artist. The work is playful and complex, as Picasso interprets mythology, sexuality, and reality

             This work is look strange shape, painted of people and things as abstract. The artist use less in color and it contrast in light and dark color.  Size of this work about 50*64 cm. That's smaller from renaissance and baroque but scale of this work allows us as the viewer to examine the finer details and analyze the style. 

              The work is playful and complex. Venus is shown in unnatural proportions with voluptuous hips and breasts, thin limbs, a shrunken head, and an unscrupulous pregnant belly. Modestly covering herself with a diaphanous scarf, she consoles her son, Cupid. Cupid is shown in anguish, as he looks to Venus guiltily with the stolen hive in hand, suffering for his offense.

The Rokeby Venus, Baroque

The Rokeby Venus, also known as The Toilet of Venus, Venus at her Mirror or Venus and Cupid. This is an oil on canvas work, created between 1647 and 1651 by Diego Velazquez (1599-1660). It is the painter’s only surviving female nude. The work depicts the goddess Venus in a sensual pose, lying on a bed with her back to the viewer while she looks into a mirror held by the Roman god of physical love, her son Cupid. The painting is in the National Gallery, London.

On the left side is the presence of Cupid, who is also without his bow and arrows, that identifies her as Venus. I think this painting focus on the mirror that Venus looks outward at the viewer of the painting through her reflected image in the mirror. It not quite center of the painting but element around it make me look at it and make it outstanding. But her face is not clear, it dark and blur. I think this nude Venus at the back representation of the beauty that comes with attraction.

This painting, the artist used simple color in the work, which are red, white and grey. Venus has bright color that contrast with dark color of towel. But some say that was initially mauve and it has became fading.

Birth of Venus, Renaissance

                The Birth of Venus is a 1486 painting by Sandro Botticelli. Botticelli was commissioned to paint the work by the Medici family of Florence, specifically Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco de' Medici under the influence of his cousin Lorenzo de' Medici, close friend to Botticelli . It depicts the goddess Venus, having emerged from the sea as a fully grown woman, arriving at the sea-shore (which is related to the Venus Anadyomene motif).The painting is on display at the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, Italy.

                For the composition we can see from this Venus. Although she is not exactly larger than the other figures we but due to her placement in the center of the work. Two other additional focal areas , they draws our attention to Venus. She is nude and has bright white color and place her right arm over her breast, and the left over her sexual.

                The foreground is brighten and clear then it bringing all of the attention to the foreground. The artist creating perspective by use illusion of depth on a flat surface, reduce the size of objects, blurred detail, color begins to fade giving off the effect that it is far.

Venus de Capoue, Roman

              

             This cast is of a copy of a bronze Greek original, made in Roman to decorate the amphitheatre in Capua north of Naples, where it was found. This sculpture is 2.04 meters high. Her arms raised to hold a polished shield in which to gaze at her reflection was missing. The arms, part of the drapery and the nose are early nineteenth century restorations.

The Venus of Capua is a marble statue, represents her powerful  and the focal point that not interchangeable are still highlighting her femininity and sexuality. She is semi-nude, as Aphrodite and Venus usually are. This statue combines Venus’ sexuality and military power.             Aphrodite, standing with her weight on her right leg, has the draped covering the lower part of her body. Both her head and the upper part of her body face to the left. They used contrast between the smoothness of the naked parts and the wrinkle of the drapery. 

Virgin and Child, Medieval

     

          Ivory figurine of the Virgin and Child, carved during the tenth century. The style, however is quite typical with the elongated figure and stiff drapery. The proportions are clearly unrealistic, but then, realism wasn't important to the Byzantines, spirituality and the super-natural was. At this point, description of this sort of strange, elongated proportioning is the "hieratic" style, meaning "sacred" or "holy" was a church sanctioned set of standards that dictated the proportions of human figures in mosaics and relief sculptures. The hieratic style was not meant to be realistic, it was meant to inspire a sense of awe and contemplation. For example, the hieratic style dictated that figures should be no less than nine head-lengths tall (most people are 6.5 to 7), and noses had to be no less than one third the length of the head (in most people, the nose is one quarter the length of a head, or less) The result was indeed an elongated figure with a very vertical appearance. 

          This sculpture representations in relief, she is Christ's mother, standing and holding her son. It were invariably in relief, either on a large scale in marble or in smaller versions in ivory, metalwork or semi-precious stones.

          This sculpture is made of ivory because this substance is smooth, tactile quality and creamy color made it ideal for the creation of luxury goods. Furthermore, although ivory is easily carved, it does not warp, and its density makes it less prone to breakage than many types of wood.

The Burney Relief, Mesopotamia

     The Burney Relief or also known as the Queen of the Night relief is a Mesopotamian terracotta plaque in high relief of the Old-Babylonian period. It represents Lilitu, Inanna/Ishtar, or Ereshkigal, is under debate. Size of this are 49.5 cm high, 37 cm wide. 

    

      This nude female figure is realistically sculpted. She has a wings and bird's feet like large owls that flanked her and standing on the back of lions. Her wings used simple pattern and similar but not entirely symmetrical. Her wings hang downwards maybe it means that she is a goddess of the Underworld. The two lions patterned with dense, short lines. Owls was not sculpted naturalistically, because of the shape of beak and length of legs. Her eyes are deep, her breast are high. All of it look symmetry. 

       There are traces of red pigment remain on the figure's body that was originally painted red overall. The Owls have the same color like the Goddess has. There are red, white and black it's look unique. The background they used was black, it make Goddess and owls look clearly and mean she relate with night.