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Venus (called Aphrodite by the Greeks) was in the old days far more than a goddess of love and sexuality, though those she was certainly. A look at her ephithets and descriptions reveal a powerful deity indeed. At her birth from the ocean (Aphrodite anadyomene, emerging from the sea) as depicted by Botticelli in about 1486 in the painting Birth of Venus, she came ashore on the islands of Cypress and Paphos, Spring rushed to meet her and flowers sprung up everywhere she walked. In the Primavera (or Spring) painting by the same artist (originally displayed as a companion to Birth of Venus), she is depicted as the dignified and powerful Aphrodite pandemos (queen of all), and is shown presiding over the seasonal round of fertility and growth.
In ancient Greek writings she was also refered to as Aphrodite melaina (the Black One) and Aphrodite epitymbidia (She Who Waits Upon the Graves). These names point to her dark side: we prefer her as a goddess of love, passion and growth, but, as in many other older mythologies, these positive things point to their flip side of loss, decay and death, all part of her connection to the seasonal round.
23 cm high
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