+ Sandro Botticelli b.1445 Italy Jenny Saville b England Comparison : Botticelli and Jenny Saville

+ Terms: Figurative: representing objects in a way that they can be easily recognised Mythological: relating to myths, imaginary Cropping: to trim parts of an image to remove unwanted sections Foreshortening: shortening or distorting objects to create an illusion of depth and make them look like they are coming towards the viewer Monumental: resembling a monument, grand or imposing Linear: representing shapes and details by using clearly defined lines or edges Tempera: paint made by mixing powdered colour with a water- soluble binder such as egg Painterly: painting with visible brush strokes that create areas of colour and tone that merge rather than being contained within outlines Voyeur: French term to describe an obsessive, often secretive, watcher

+ Art-iculate Comparison The Birth of Venus by Botticelli (1445–1510) and Propped by Jenny Saville (born 1970) are both figurative paintings of female nudes. Botticelli’s painting of Venus was revolutionary for its time. Instead of being an image related to a religious theme as was usual, the subject matter was secular and mythological. Five hundred years later, Saville’s painting questions the appearance and the role of such traditional paintings of the nude.

+ Botticelli and Saville - Recap

+ Botticelli’s Birth of Venus owes its inspiration to the classical ideas and ideals of ancient Greece and Rome, which were becoming increasingly popular during the Early Renaissance in fifteenth-century Italy. The mythological figure of Venus was the symbol of female desirability and represented beauty and pleasure. Here she is shown being blown gently ashore by the winds soon after her ‘birth’ as a fully- grown woman. Her pose was inspired by the classical sculptures that Botticelli would have seen in the collection of his patrons, the Medici family. Painted at a time when naked women symbolised sinful lust, Botticelli’s Venus remained modest. He exaggerated the length of her neck and slope of her shoulders to enhance her natural elegance and grace, in accordance with contemporary taste.

+ Saville also exaggerates and distorts the female nude, but she does this by distorting the angle of view and by dramatically cropping and foreshortening the figure, which emphasises its physical bulk. She is fascinated with the body, particularly by female flesh, which she describes as ‘ugly, beautiful, repulsive, compelling, anxious, neurotic, dead, alive’. About the time she painted Propped, Saville was intrigued by plastic surgery and spent many hours watching surgeons manipulate flesh. In her work, she raises contemporary concerns about expectations of beauty and the female body.

+ Comparison

+ Both Birth of Venus and Propped are monumental in scale. Botticelli’s mythological story was painted to fit an architectural setting and was the first large-scale canvas painted in Renaissance Italy. Saville, on the other hand, uses scale to overwhelm the viewer. In Propped, the angle of view is low; as viewers, we are forced to look up as the figure looks down, sitting uncomfortably on a tall stool, which is almost hidden by her abundant flesh. Foreshortening causes her head to look disproportionately small although her gaze demands an embarrassing level of intimacy between the model and the viewer.

+ Both artists have used a restrained and somewhat muted palette. Botticelli’s painting style is linear, a necessary quality of the tempera technique he used. He applied clear, precise outlines to define his forms and details. In some places, these are reduced to decorative patterns, such as the waves and the leaves on the trees. In Saville’s painting, however, there is a sensuous quality to her expressive and painterly brushwork as it echoes the physical quality of the flesh. The depiction of space is unimportant in both artworks. In Birth of Venus, it is shallow and unconvincing and in Propped, depth is not suggested although the viewer feels a claustrophobic space surrounding the figure.

+ John Berger said in Ways of Seeing that in the European tradition of art, ‘Women watch themselves being looked at’. They are very aware of the spectator, who is usually male. This is certainly true of Botticelli’s Venus, who is aware of the voyeuristic male gaze. When observing the figure in Propped, however, there is a feeling that the intended observer is not necessarily male. Saville’s distorted figure dares the viewer to look at her and pass judgement on her size and shape. She’s not comfortable with the bulk of her flesh. In short, Botticelli contemplates beauty and pleasure in the Birth of Venus while Saville questions the definition of beauty in Propped.