Venus effect Venus effect The Venus effect is a phenomenon in the psychology of perception, named after various paintings of Venus gazing into a mirror, such as Diego Velázquez's "Rokeby Venus", Titian's "Venus with a Mirror", and Veronese's "Venus with a Mirror". Viewers of such paintings assume that Venus is admiring her own reflection in the mirror; however, since the viewer sees her eyes in the mirror, Venus is actually looking at the reflection of the painter. This psychological effect is often used in the cinema, where an actor will be shown apparently looking at himself or herself in the mirror. What
Rokeby Venus for the National Gallery, London. Although it was attacked and badly damaged in 1914 by the suffragette Mary Richardson, it soon was fully restored and returned to display. The "Rokeby Venus" depicts the Roman goddess of love, beauty and fertility reclining languidly on her bed, her back to the viewer—in Antiquity, portrayal of Venus from a back view was a common visual and literary erotic motif—and her knees tucked. She is shown without the mythological paraphernalia normally included in depictions of the scene; jewellery, roses, and myrtle are all absent. Unlike most earlier portrayals of the goddess, which show her