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Birth of Venus is one of the most famous paintings in the world. It was painted by Alessandro di Mariano Filipepi, known as Sandro Botticelli, who was an Italian painter of the Florentine School that emerged in the early Renaissance period. In mythology, Venus wasconceived when the Titan Cronus castrated his father, thegod Uranus, whose severed genitals fertilized the sea.

Venus was conceived when the Titan Cronus castrated his father, the god Uranus, whose severed genitals fertilized the sea. Venus is an arrestingly beautiful figure with her delicate skin and soft-flowing curls fresh from the sea. Historically, this is the most important depicted nude since classical antiquity.

Apart from its artistic quality, Birth of Venus is noteworthy for having been the first known Tuscan work of art to be painted on canvas, which is now standard but was then revolutionary, with paintings customarily done on more expensive wood panels. It was restored in 1987 to heighten the bright vividness of the painting as it first appeared, an effect achieved by the use of lustrous alabaster powder and gold leaf.

(Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica — adaptation.)