The Birth of Venus she stands with her hands on her hair, wringing the water from it, with or without a shell. The two-dimensionality of this painting may be a deliberate attempt to evoke the style of ancient Greek vase painting or frescos on the walls of Etruscan tombs, the only types of ancient painting known to Botticelli. Another interpretation of the "Birth of Venus" is provided here by its author, Charles R. Mack. This interpretation takes much that is generally agreed, but Mack goes on to explain the painting as an allegory extolling the virtues of Lorenzo de' Medici. This has not been
Lamentation over the Dead Christ (Botticelli, Munich) he started in fact to abandon the allegoric inspiration that had made him a favourite of the Medici court in favour of more intimate and painstaking religious reflection. Lamentation over the Dead Christ (Botticelli, Munich) The Lamentation over the Dead Christ, is a painting of the common subject of the Lamentation of Christ by the Italian Renaissance master Sandro Botticelli, finished around 1490-1492. It is now in the Alte Pinakothek, in Munich. The portrait shows the inert body of Christ surrounded by the Virgin, St. Peter, and Mary Magdalene, St. John the Evangelist, St. Jerome and St. Paul. The pathetic