Venus and Mars (Botticelli) an "enchantingly primitivistic pastoral" where Botticelli's version is a "solemnly classicizing allegory". Literary sources Venus and Mars (Botticelli) Venus and Mars (or Mars and Venus) is a panel painting of about 1485 by the Italian Renaissance painter Sandro Botticelli. It shows the Roman gods Venus, goddess of love, and Mars, god of war, in an allegory of beauty and valour. The youthful and voluptuous couple recline in a forest setting, surrounded by playful baby satyrs. The painting was probably intended to commemorate a wedding, set into panelling or a piece of furniture to adorn the bedroom of the bride and
Sandro Botticelli Especially in smaller works such as Madonnas, all the leading painters were copied or imitated by their own workshops and a host of unidentified lesser artists. Influenced also by the monumentality of Masaccio's painting, it was from Lippi that Botticelli learned a more intimate and detailed manner. Even at this early date, his work was characterized by a conception of the figure as if seen in low relief, drawn with clear contours, and minimizing strong contrasts of light and shadow which would indicate fully modelled forms. Lippi's synthesis of the new control of three-dimensional forms, tender expressiveness in face and