Zoe Dawson - Visual Art
A
comparison
of
Depictions
of
the
Birth
of
Venus
by
Sandro
Botticelli,
and
the
painting
of
the
same
name
by
Alexandre
Cabanel.
-‐To
what
extent
do
the
artists’
manipulation
of
the
formal
elements
of
painting
assist
them
in
achieving
their
aims.
Introduction
The
Birth
of
Venus
is
a
subject
that
has
been
revisited
multiple
times
over
the
centuries
of
art.
It’s
fascinating
how
a
difference
in
century
could
affect
two
paintings
that
are
the
same
in
subject
matter.
The
intentions
behind
the
paintings
are
what
differentiated
the
way
they
were
painted,
and
these
intentions,
and
how
they
were
accomplished,
is
what
I
want
to
discover.
Venus
has
been
a
popular
subject
in
art
for
as
long
as
40
thousand
years,
starting
with
the
German
‘Venus
of
Hohle
Fels’,
[Appendix
1]
[1]
Since
then,
thousands
of
pieces
of
art
have
been
made
of
the
Goddess.
Two
of
the
most
famous
of
these
paintings
are
depictions
of
her
‘birth’,
made
by
Sandro
Botticelli
in
1486,
and
then
by
Alexandre
Cabanel
in
1863.
Both
artists
will
have
had
aims
to
achieve
with
these
paintings.
For
Botticelli,
patronage
led
him
to
aspire
to
fairly
simple
aims.
In
his
time,
art
was
a
matter
of
completing
the
tasks
given
to
the
artists
by
their
patrons.
However
in
the
19 th
Century
Paris,
being
successful
came
through
the
Paris
Salon,
requiring
paintings
to
be
liked
by
the
public
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