The Real Venus

Botticelli's ‘Birth of Venus’ is a true masterpiece that resonates throughout history. Many artists have drawn inspiration from his groundbreaking use of color and detail. There is one artist, in particular, that visualized the beauty of Venus in his own way, creating a unique portrait.

Joel Peter Witkin uses mythological imagery in conjunction with deformation and death to conjure a disturbing photographic statement. In his take of the ‘Birth of Venus,’ a nude transvestite poses atop a scallop shell, accentuating her masculinity as well as her femininity. On the left, a decapitated head introduces Venus to the viewer, just as Botticelli uses the personification of wind to present his Venus model. By drawing from Botticelli's reference, Witkin is able to make an antithetical analogy about the definetion of beauty.

In Witkin’s photo, the devotee is not celebrating her awakening. This implies that she is not an object of idyllic beauty, as the original master intended. She is surrounded by death, against a nearly black background, deliberately contrasting Botticelli’s extensive use of color and flowering life.

This photo is one of many in which Joel Witkin drapes classical works of art in a veil of darkness. Through the use of high contrast, black and white starkness, he creates pieces that are both jarring and deeply disturbing. The photographer carefully prepares his stage to resemble master works of art, then fills them with disfigured, or dead subjects. In this case, creating the opposite of beauty born to us, a cruel twist of nature that is only beautiful in this macabre underworld.