Botticelli, beautiful women with ugly feet
Sandro Botticelli was a renaissance painter, well known currently for his two more outstanding pieces the birth of Venus and Primavera. His real name was Alessandro di Mariano di Vanni Filipepi, no wonder he changed it.
We all know and admire ¨the Birth of a Venus¨ . We can see the beautiful face of a young women carrying renaissance´s ideal features, we focus on the face, clothes and background. But if we look down as I looked and there,it was, a revelation, big toes; In three words extremely unattractive feet.
Perhaps It sound picky but watching all the details can make you appreciate more a piece of art or make it, plain ugly. It´s strange that Botticelli generally made feet proportional and elegant as in The calumny of Apelles of Judith returning to Bethulia. I wonder if he just had some model with nasty feet when he painted The birth of Venus and Primavera.
There is a persistent legend that Botticelli suffered from unrequited love for Simonetta Vespucci, a rich noblewoman and he painted the birth of a Venus and Primavera carrying her features. History leaves me thinking, had Simonetta Vespucci ugly feet? or Botticelli just forgot to photo-shop that ugly pair.
