Aphrodite1.0380_Velazquez

qz Aphrodite1.0380_Velazquez ''

Aphrodite1.0380_Velazquez

British National Gallery
Hesiod Theogony 188-206
Sappho "Ode to Aphrodite", trns. A. Carson
Lucretius De rerum natura 1.1-30
Horace Odes 4.15
Ovid Met. 10.534

Diego Velázquez, "The Toilet of Venus ('The Rokeby Venus')," 1647-1651, oil on canvas,

Covering and revealing her body simultaneously, Velázquez depicts Venus gazing at herself in a mirror. Cupid positions the mirror so that its angle is just right. But, is Venus looking at herself or at you (looking at her?) The conceit of the painting’s voyeurism (scopophilia) plays famously in artworks from Titian to Hitchcock’s Psycho (the parlor of the Bates Motel), where the painting is mounted on the wall of Norman Bates’ multi-purpose parlor. This painting is influenced tremendously by important paintings by Titian and Rubens, Venus in Front of the Mirror.

Velázquez's Rokeby Venus, reclining nude seen from behind gazing into a mirror held by Cupid

This slide is informed by M.Neddo W19

OGCMA slides are designed by Roger T. Macfarlane for use in Classical Civilization 241 courses at Brigham Young University.
The present resource contains information assembled for The Oxford Guide to Classical Mythology in the Arts, 1300 - 1990's, edited by J. Davidson Reid (Oxford 1994), and it is used with express permission from Oxford University press.
Address concerns or inquiries to macfarlane@byu.edu.