"... the only Spanish seventeenth-century mythological work that depicts a naked woman. Other European painters who painted female nudes seldom used a back view. Unlike those of Rubens, Annibale Carraci, and Simon Vouet, Velázquez's goddes was based on life study, in part because he had no classical statues and few painted models from which to derive his knowledge of the female body at second hand. The modest back view was chosen yet what could be more provocative than her soft right buttock settled against the gray-blue silk cover of her day bed? As Allan Brahan proved by posing a woman in this position with a child playing Cupid with the mirror, Venus could not have seen her own reflection with the mirror at that angle, and we would have seen her crict, unless it was concealed by drapery." (emphasis mine)
Source: "Seventeenth-century art & Architecture" by Ann Sutherland Harris
Sunday, September 27
Velázquez - Venus at the Mirror
"... the only Spanish seventeenth-century mythological work that depicts a naked woman. Other European painters who painted female nudes seldom used a back view. Unlike those of Rubens, Annibale Carraci, and Simon Vouet, Velázquez's goddes was based on life study, in part because he had no classical statues and few painted models from which to derive his knowledge of the female body at second hand. The modest back view was chosen yet what could be more provocative than her soft right buttock settled against the gray-blue silk cover of her day bed? As Allan Brahan proved by posing a woman in this position with a child playing Cupid with the mirror, Venus could not have seen her own reflection with the mirror at that angle, and we would have seen her crict, unless it was concealed by drapery." (emphasis mine)
Source: "Seventeenth-century art & Architecture" by Ann Sutherland Harris
