Venus Anadyomene is one of the iconic representations of the goddess Venus, made famous in a much-admired painting by Apelles, now lost, but described in Pliny's Natural History, with the anecdote that the great Apelles employed Campaspe, a mistress of Alexander the Great, for his model. According to Athenaeus, the idea of Aphrodite rising from the sea was inspired by the courtesan Phryne, who, during the time of the festivals of the Eleusinia and Poseidonia, often swam nude in the sea. A scallop shell, often found in Venus Anadyomenes, is a symbol of the female vulva. The subject never entirely disappeared in Western art, and revived greatly in the Italian Renaissance, with further boosts in the Baroque and Rococo, and in late 19th-century Academic painting. At least, one central female nude is practically required in the subject, which has contributed to its popularity.
Antiquity
According to Greek mythology, Aphrodite was born as an adult woman from the sea, which also perpetually renewed her virginity. A motif of the goddess wringing out her hair is often repeated. The subject was often repeated in Antiquity, a fourth-century sculptural representation from a Gallo-Roman villa in Aquitania testifying to the motif's continued viability in Late Antiquity. Apelles' painting was executed for the temple of Asclepius at Kos, from which it was taken to Rome by Augustus in part payment of tribute, and set up in the Temple of Caesar. In the time of Nero, owing to its dilapidated condition, it was replaced by a copy made by the painter Dorotheus. Pliny, listing Apelles' best paintings, noted " Venus emerging from the sea, dedicated by the late Augustus of blessed memory in the shrine of Caesar his father, which is called "The Anadyomene", praised in Greek verses like other works, conquered by time but undimmed in fame." The image of Venus Anadyomene is one of the very few images that survived in Western Europe essentially unchanged from its classical appearance, from Antiquity into the High Middle Ages. Jean Seznec instances two images of Venus among constellations illustrating 14th-century Provençal manuscripts of Matfre Ermengau of Béziers' Breviari d'amor, in which Venus is represented nude in the sea: "This extraordinary conservatism may perhaps be explained by the fact that the culture of the last pagan centuries remained alive longer in Provence than elsewhere."
Through the desire of Renaissance artists reading Pliny to emulate Apelles, and if possible, to outdo him, Venus Anadyomene was taken up again in the 15th century: besides Botticelli's famous The Birth of Venus, another early Venus Anadyomene is the bas-relief by Antonio Lombardo from Wilton House. Titian's Venus Anadyomene,, formerly a long-term loan by the Duke of Sutherland, was bought by the National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh in 2003. It depicts Venus standing in the sea, wringing out her hair. The scallop shell is merely symbolic, as it does not interact with Venus. Giambologna's sculpture is also a single figure wringing out her hair. , Prado, before 1651 The subject was popular with Baroque and Rococo painters, who made up large groups with attending cherubs, sea-nymphs, sea-horses, and tritons around the goddess; these might also be called a Triumph of Venus, and can be traced back to Raphael's Galatea. This, rather than the Botticelli, was the dominant influence on paintings of the subject until the late 19th century. Paintings in this vein include those by Nicolas Poussin, Sebastiano Ricci, Pierre-Jacques Cazes, François Boucher. A Cornelis de Vos in the Prado has an original and less formal composition. Rococo sculptures of the subject were modestly draped across the hips, but bolder nudes appealed to male nineteenth-century patrons. Théodore Chasseriau executed the subject in 1835; he repeated the hair-wringing gesture in his most famous work The Toilette of Esther. Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres' Venus Anadyomene, completed after many years in 1848, is one of the painter's most celebrated works. Alexandre Cabanel's Birth of Venus reworking the then recently discovered Pompeii fresco, was shown at the Paris Salon in 1863, and bought by Napoleon III for his own personal collection. Venus lies naked on the waves ambiguously, with putti flying above her. Robert Rosenblum's comment on Cabanel's painting is that "This Venus hovers somewhere between an ancient deity and a modern dream... and the ambiguity of her eyes, that seem to be closed but that a close look reveals that she is awake... A nude who could be asleep or awake is specially formidable for a male viewer". Such a highly conventionalized theme, with undertones of eroticism justified by its mythological context, was ripe for modernistdeconstruction; in 1870 Arthur Rimbaud evoked the image of a portly Clara Venus with all-too-human blemishes in a sardonic poem that introduced cellulite to high literature: La graisse sous la peau paraît en feuilles plates. The Birth of Venus, by William-Adolphe Bouguereau, reimagines the composition of the Raphael and Poussin tradition, reflecting the subject's continuing popularity among the academic painters of the late 19th century. It was shown at the Paris Salon of 1879, and was bought for the Musée du Luxembourg. Venus' nude figure takes up the center of the composition, with many admirers gathered around her. Pablo Picasso recast the image of Venus Anadyomene in the central figure of his seminal painting Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, a modernist deconstruction of the icon, and one of the foundational artworks of Cubism. Venus Anadyomene offered a natural subject for a fountain: the National Gallery of Art, Washington DC has a lifesize bronze plumbed so that water drips from Venus' hair, modelled by a close follower of Giambologna, late sixteenth century. Rococo sculptures of the subject were modestly draped across the hips, but bolder nudes appealed to male nineteenth-century patrons: Théodore Chassériau executed the subject in 1835 and Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres' Venus Anadyomene, completed after many years in 1848, is one of the painter's most celebrated works.
''The voyage of the sable Venus from Angola to the West Indies''
In 1793 Thomas Stothard created an etching for the third edition of Bryan Edwards' "The History, civil and Commercial of the British colonies in the West Indies" inspired by Raphael, or the Baroque compositions. "The voyage of the Sable Venus, from Angola to the West Indies" depicts an African woman in the role of Venus. Attended by eight cherubs fanning her with either ostrich or peacock feathers, she holds the reins of a pair of dolphins who draw the half-shell she stands on to the Americas. Cupid is displayed in the scene taking aim at a depiction of Neptune on the left waving a British flag. To the right is shown Triton looking back to the Sable Venus and embracing one of the dolphins. The figure is one of feminine strength: muscular, lean and adorned by a jewel necklace.
Wave theory
In 1913 the British archaeologist John Myres was on the coast near Paphos in winter. Watching the sea, he saw the wind blow two breakers together
