Love, Sex and Marital Expectations in a Provocative Painting
An allegory of love overcoming war
What does this painting show? A woman and a man lying in a grassy glade, surrounded by trees and myrtle bushes.
Tellingly, the fingers of her left hand toy with her gown along her left thigh, which folds in translucent layers and is edged by an elaborate golden hem.
His hands, meanwhile, are limp — or you might say decidedly flaccid.
The painting offers a representation of sensual pleasure — or rather the moment afterwards, when we find her looking at him quizzically whilst he sleeps in a state of post-coital exhaustion.
It also makes intimations about the power and expectations of marriage.
What I like about this painting is how tangible and corporeal it is. The Italian artist, Sandro Botticelli (1445–1510), has laid out everything so intensely before us that it’s as if we could touch it. There is barely any distance between the viewer and the figures in the painting, whose limbs almost press up against the outer edges of the picture space.
