Titian's 'Venus Anadyomene' and the close-up female nude: Its sources and context

This essay explores the sources and context of Titian's Venus Anadyomene (c. 1520). As a three-quarter-length, close-up view of a solitary female nude, this painting is unique as a type in the Renaissance. What sources might have inspired such a rendering of a female nude? How might the work have spoken to the tastes and expectations of its artist, patron, and society? I propose that, in rendering the Venus, Titian drew on his knowledge of a number of contemporary sources including works by Giovanni Bellini, Giorgione, Antonio Lombardo, Marcantonio Raimondi, Michelangelo, his knowledge of antiquities, and also on other Renaissance genres of painting that depict women. These images of women all reflect a preoccupation with issues of beauty--an emphasis which relates to social and cultural attitudes predominating in sixteenth-century Venice. Finally I suggest that Alfonso d'Este commissioned Titian's Venus Anadyomene.