Andy Warhol Details of Renaissance paintings (Sandro Botticelli, Birth of Venus, 1482) Portfolio (F & S II.316-319) For Sale

Warhol’s second work in the Details of Renaissance Paintings (1984) series  tackles the most mythological and best known of quattrocento paintings: Sandro Botticelli’s Birth of Venus. In this coveted series of four screenprints, Warhol has extracted the mythological icon from her Ancient landscape into a post-modern portrait, whilst magnificently preserving her most essential qualities of beauty, love and femininity.  

To deal with Sandro Botticelli’s Birth of Venus is to arguably compete with a Titanic art-historical lineage of mythological depictions with giants such as Titian, Velasquez and Cabanel who had also looked to the Roman Goddess for inspiration. Warhol, enthralled by imagery that was repeated in popular culture such as face of Marilyn Monroe, in this later stage in his career also drew from classical imagery that was just as widespread in the public imagination. Perhaps no Renaissance painting has such broad-ranging appeal as Botticelli’s Venus: the resplendent nude figure, triumphant atop a clam shell surrounded by water and mythological figures, is the epitome of sensuality. Though debated in the annals of art history, Birth of Venus is perhaps one of the few paintings that can be appreciated solely for its enduring aesthetic qualities without need for dissection. Venus' complexion, facial and bodily proportions, and cascading locks of hair of are formal features of the painting that are appreciated independently, and highlighted in the present Warhol portraits.  

In Botticelli’s version, the artist drew upon a scene from the Homeric Venus, who was born out of a shell and rode upon the waves of Cythera (Cyprus). In the Pop artist's re-imagining, Warhol has freed her, placing her against a solid background of colour. Venus’ cascading locks are enhanced with implied lines, articulated in flaming red, orange and pink hues. Her originally pearlescent skin has been transformed in a new palette with 318 (a dark  skin and red hair). The overall effect is one of empowerment: Venus is an undoubtedly modern beauty icon, as screenworthy as Marilyn Monroe or Elizabeth Taylor.  

Warhol’s master manipulation of images had been long-established at the time of this screenprint in 1984: with film stars such as Monroe, he had used publicity stills and re-coloured them to the point of unrecognisability. In this instance cropping, retouching and magnifying Venus’ image with the silkscreening process, the viewer can simultaneously contemplate Botticelli’s fine attention to detail and Warhol’s exhilarating colours. As Bernstein puts it, "Warhol’s Details of Renaissance Paintings ‘shows his willingness to raid the bastions of art history for images which suggest a gesture of homage to the past, and at the same time, through their pop colour and poster-like style, promote a position of iconoclastic irreverence.’ (Warhol as Printmaker)