Time Machine Task

Giorgione (Titan), The Sleeping Venus

The goddess Venus was a very popular painting choice as of 4 BC. Giorgione never got the chance to finish the painting, he died before, Titan finished it by painting the background. Giorgione also decided to step away from tradition with his painting of the goddess Venus, as he decided to paint her a a human women, not a deity as she is usually portrayed. In the painting she is relaxed, lying with ease on a make shift bed, barely concealing her nudity with what appears to be an almost lazy movement of the hand in a feeble attempt to hide her bareness, it is described as sensual. The painting itself is traditional in the aspect of its colours, a lot of yellow comes out, but it is broken by the red of her cushion.

Manet, Olympia

Like Giorgione, Manet depicted his Venus as human as well. This painting was considered to be vulgar, and disturbing for the high image of Venus, but Emile Zola said: "When other artists correct nature by paintingVenus they lie. Manet asked himself why he should lie. Why not tell the truth?". But that was only one of the reasons why the painting was criticised. It wasn't the maid's surprised look nor the colour of her skin, the other has to do with her body language and accessories. In Giorgione's painting Venus is subtly hiding her nakedness, in Mane's she is boldly doing so and staring straight at the person looking at the painting, with bold eyes, as if she is daring the audience to come in and join her. This makes her seem, with the help of the accessories, such as the flower in her hair or the necklace around her neck, like a courtesan




In both the paintings we see an unusual approach to how to represent Venus, who is normally represented as beautiful but serene and pure, whilst in these we see a more human Venus, one with prowess and sexual attention. Both their methods were unethical at the time, although Manet's was in a way the "worst" by far. They may both represent the same thing, but one is sensual, calm and almost sweet as the other is raw, sexual and provocative of it's time.