Venus and Mars

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Venus and Mars: Sandro Botticelli

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Sandro Botticelli Various Paintings - Venus and Mars

Keywords: Venus, Mars

Work Overview: Venus and Mars
Botticelli
c 1485
Tempera and oil on poplar panel
69 cm x 173 cm
National Gallery, London

Venus and Mars (or Mars and Venus) is a panel painting of about 1485 by the Italian Renaissance painter Sandro Botticelli.[2] It shows the Roman gods Venus, goddess of love, and Mars, god of war, in an allegory of beauty and valour. The youthful and voluptuous couple recline in a forest setting, surrounded by playful baby satyrs.

The painting was probably intended to commemorate a wedding, set into panelling or a piece of furniture to adorn the bedroom of the bride and groom,[3] possibly as part of a set of works. This is suggested by the wide format and the close view of the figures. It is widely seen as representation of an ideal view of sensuous love. It seems likely that Botticelli worked out the concept for the painting, with its learned allusions, with an advisor such as Poliziano, the Medici house poet and Renaissance Humanist scholar.[4]

The National Gallery's dating in 2017 of "c. 1485" has been followed here.[5] Lightbown dates it to "probably around 1483", but the Ettlingers to "the latter half of the 1480s".[6] All dates depend on analysis of the style, as the painting has not been convincingly tied to a specific date, such as a wedding.[7] It therefore comes a few years after the Primavera and Pallas and the Centaur (both about 1482) and around the time of The Birth of Venus (c. 1486).[8] It is the only one of these paintings not in the Uffizi in Florence, and has been in the National Gallery in London since 1874.

Venus watches Mars sleep while two infant satyrs play,[9] carrying his helmet (a sallet) and lance as another rests inside his breastplate under his arm. A fourth blows a small conch shell in his ear in an effort, so far unsuccessful, to wake him. The clear implication is that the couple have been making love, and the male habit of falling asleep after sex was a regular subject for ribald jokes in the context of weddings in Renaissance Italy.[10] The lance and conch can be read as sexual symbols.[11]

The scene is set in a grove of myrtle, traditionally associated with Venus and marriage, or possibly laurel, associated with Lorenzo de' Medici (il Magnifico), or perhaps both plants.[12] There is a limited view of the meadow beyond, leading to a distant walled city.[3]

In the foreground, a swarm of wasps hovers around Mars' head, possibly as a symbol that love is often accompanied by pain.[13] Another explanation, first suggested by Ernst Gombrich,[14] is that the wasps represent the Vespucci family that may have commissioned the painting.[15] They had been neighbours of Botticelli since his childhood, and had commissioned his Saint Augustine in His Study for the Ognissanti church in 1480, probably in addition to other commissions. Their coat of arms included wasps, as their name means "little wasps" in Italian,[16] and the wasps' nest, in a hollow in the tree in the top left corner, is exactly in the place in the panel where the coat of arms of a patron was often painted.[17]

The painting is thought originally to have been set into panelling as a spalliera, or part of furniture such as a bed, the back of a lettuccio, a wooden sofa, or a similar piece.[18]

Ronald Lightbown describes Mars as "Botticelli's most perfect male nude", though there are not really a large number of these; he was less interested in perfecting the anatomy of his figures than many of his Florentine contemporaries, but seems to have paid special attention to it here.[19] The Venus here, unlike in the artist's Birth of Venus, is fully clothed, as she is in marital mode. This despite Venus being the wife of Vulcan, making the relationship adulterous by normal human standards.[20] In Greek Neoplatonism, Harmony was the daughter of their union.[21] Other late classical sources regarded Cupid as a child of the union.

The usual view of scholars is that the painting was commissioned to celebrate a marriage, and is a relatively uncomplicated representation of sensual pleasure, with an added meaning of love conquering or outlasting war.[22] This was a commonplace in Renaissance thinking, which might be elaborated in terms of Renaissance Neoplatonism.[23] As with the other mythologies, Ernst Gombrich and Edgar Wind were the first to analyse the painting in these terms. The couple's relationship could also be considered in terms of astrology, in which Mars is, according to Marsilio Ficino, "outstanding in strength among the planets, because he makes men stronger, but Venus masters him ...she seems to master Mars, but Mars never masters Venus".[24]

The Victorian critic John Addington Symonds, without disagreeing with that interpretation, thought the newly fashionable Botticelli overrated and "harboured an irrational dislike for the picture", writing that "The face and attitude of that unseductive Venus... opposite her snoring lover, seems to symbolize the indignities which women have to endure from insolent and sottish boys with only youth to recommend them."[25]

One dissenting interpretation is from Charles Dempsey, who finds a more sinister meaning in the picture, with the little satyrs as incubi who torment sleepers, provoking "sexual terrors in the dreams of those bound in a state of sensual error and confusion." He concludes that "The idea of love here invested in Venus seems to be revealed, not in a positive celebration of the spirit animating natural life shown in the Primavera and Birth of Venus but as an empty sensual fantasy that disarms and torments the slumbering spirit of a once virile martial valour.[26]

The work is agreed by all to draw on the description by Lucian, a poet in Greek of the 2nd-century AD, of a famous painting, now lost, by Echion of the wedding ceremony of Alexander the Great and Roxana. The ancient painting probably adapted iconography associated with Venus and Mars to the historical Alexander and his bride. Lucian's ekphrasis or description mentions amoretti or putti playing with Alexander's armour during the ceremony, two carrying his lance and one who has crawled inside his breastplate.[27]

This is taken both as evidence of Botticelli's collaboration with Humanist advisors with the full classical education that he lacked, and his keenness to recreate the lost wonders of ancient painting, a theme in the interpretation of several of his secular works, most clearly in the Calumny of Apelles, which also uses Lucian.[28] A Roman sarcophagus in the Vatican is carved with a similar Mars and Venus reclining, accompanied by putti.[29]

Detail from bottom right
In 2010, the plant held by the satyr in the bottom right corner of the painting was hypothetically identified as the fruit of Datura stramonium by the art historian David Bellingham. This plant, often referred to as "poor man's acid", has properties likened to a mixture of opium and alcohol, and may cause fainting or drowsiness as its effects wear off.[30] Others question how this plant, normally considered a native only of North America, might have reached Italy by the 1480s, and dismiss the idea.[31] However, in 2017 the National Gallery website endorsed the identification as a "thorn apple".[32]

Bellingham suggests that the growing plant in the bottom right corner is a species of aloe, credited by the Greeks with medicinal powers, as well as offering protection against evil spirits and enhancing sexual excitement.[33] Bellingham proposes several layers of identification for the figures, generating different meanings. These include the couple as Adam and Eve.

Though there are other paintings of Venus and Mars, Botticelli's work is often compared and contrasted with the Venus, Mars and Cupid by Piero di Cosimo (Gemäldegalerie, Berlin, c. 1505), a younger Florentine painter who had probably seen the Botticelli. The painting probably dates to around 1500-05, and later belonged to Giorgio Vasari. The similarities include the two figures reclining, with Mars asleep and Venus awake, and a group of infant attendants who play with Mars' armour, in a setting of bushes opening to a landscape. They contrast in atmosphere and most other aspects, and Piero has included an infant Cupid, a wide landscape and some of the animals that he loved to paint.[43] For Erwin Panofsky, the Piero is an "enchantingly primitivistic pastoral" where Botticelli's version is a "solemnly classicizing allegory".

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Mars, God of War, was one of the lovers of Venus, Goddess of Love. Here Mars is asleep and unarmed, while Venus is awake and alert. The meaning of the picture is that love conquers war, or love conquers all.

This work was probably a piece of bedroom furniture, perhaps a bedhead or piece of wainscoting, most probably the 'spalliera' or backboard from a chest or day bed. The wasps ('vespe' in Italian) at the top right suggest a link with the Vespucci family, though they may be no more than a symbol of the stings of love.

A lost Classical painting of the marriage of Alexander and Roxana was described by the 2nd-century Greek writer, Lucian. It showed cupids playing with Alexander's spear and armour. Botticelli's satyrs may refer to this. Mars is sleeping the 'little death' which comes after making love, and not even a trumpet in his ear will wake him. The little satyrs have stolen his lance - a joke to show that he is now disarmed.

The painting of Venus and Mars deals with an amorous victory. A grove of myrtle trees, the tree of Venus, forms the backdrop to the two gods who are lying opposite each other on a meadow. Venus is clothed and is attentively keeping watch over Mars as he sleeps. The god of war has taken off his armor and is lying naked on his red cloak; all he is wearing is a white loin cloth.

The goddess of love, who is clothed in a costly gown, is watching over the sleeping naked Mars, while little fauns are playing mischievously with the weapons and armor of the god of war. Botticelli's theme is that the power of love can defeat the warriors strength. The boisterous little fauns that form part of the retinue of Bacchus, the god of wine, are depicted by Botticelli, in accordance with ancient tradition, with little goats' legs, horns and tails. The Triton's shell with which one of the fauns is blowing into Mars' ear was used in classical times as a hunting horn.

Botticelli let himself be inspired by classical models. The mischievous little satyrs playing practical jokes nearby were probably suggested by a description of the famous classical painting Wedding of Alexander the Great to the Persian princess Roxane, written by the Greek poet Lucian. Botticelli replaced the amoretti which Lucian describes playing with Alexander's weapons with little satyrs. His painting is one of the earliest examples in Renaissance painting to depict these boisterous and lusty hybrids in this form. They are playing with the war god's helmet, lance and cuirass. One of them is cheekily blowing into his ear through a sea shell. But he has as little chance of disturbing the sleeping god as the wasps nest to the right of his head. The wasps may be a reference to the clients who commissioned the painting. They are part of the coat of arms of the Vespucci family, whose name derives from vespa, Italian for wasp. Given that its theme is love, this painting was possibly also commissioned on the occasion of a wedding.

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Sandro Botticelli painted his famous Venus and Mars in 1483. It is believed to have been originally installed on a piece of prized furniture for a noble family, and was painted with tempera and oil on a poplar wood panel.

Most scholars believe that Boticelli's painting represents an idyllic love, but there are many other allegories at work in the piece. Venus is the Goddess of love while Mars is the God of war. He appears to be pleasantly sleeping while Venus could not be more alert. Boticelli implies that love can conquer all in this portrayal.

The figures surrounding Venus and Mars are satyrs. The satyrs were legendary creatures that also originated in Greek mythology. They are associated with fertility and music. The satyrs pictured in Venus and Mars are juveniles who are up to mischief. Two satyrs play around the sleeping Mars and carry his lance and helmet while another blows a conch shell hoping to wake him. A fourth rests under his slack arm while Venus looks on.

The painting represents many ideals of the early Renaissance. The figures exude tremendous physical beauty and a great deal of importance is placed in symbolism from ancient and mythological texts. The subject matter is lighthearted, but the scene is set in what appears to be a haunted forest. In the upper foreground wasps hover near Mars. These are either a symbol that denotes the work belonged to the Vespucci family, or a comment on the pain of love.

Venus and Mars is housed at the National Gallery in London.

Botticelli painted this in 1483, and the picture depicts Venus and Mars, God of War, lying facing each other in the sacred garden of the Goddess of Love surrounded by myrtle trees. The theme is that the power of love can overcome the physical strength of the warrior.
Mars is in a deep sleep and not even the satyrs' mischievous play can awaken him. They are using his weapons and armour to amuse themselves and one even attempts to wake Mars by blowing in his ear through a seashell. Another is wearing Mars' helmet and, with his two companions, attempts to steal away with the warriors lance.
The Goddess of Love stares at the sleeping figure of Mars, safe in the knowledge that her own sexual prowess has overcome his taste for war.

The picture was painted for the Vespucci family and the name derives from Vespa (Italian for wasp) hence the wasps nest that Botticelli painted just above the head of Mars.
In this detail we can see a cheeky and mischievous satyr who has crawled into Mars' breast-plate, the God of War remains undisturbed by the commotion created by the playful satyrs.

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Sandro Botticelli

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