Ten sublime moments of painting of all time

Beyond the Winter of culture, from the icon to ’collage’, the art of painting gives the eye further scope, in the imaginary museum that brings together conscience, sensuality and symbolic life. Ten pictures highlight the continuity of painting in a culmination of mystery, wisdom of colour and dialectic between classic and modern

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The birth of Venus

SANDRO BOTTICELLI: 1483

Uffizi Gallery, Florence

Venus appears, nude, as if she were the center of the universe, while the winds bathe her with roses. Botticelli, enthusiastic follower of the humanistic tenets, turns his Aphrodite –Venus– into Urania, emerging fully-grown from the sea, which has fertilized Uranus’ severed genitals: beauty arises from violence and prevails over violence. The Renaissance rediscovery of classical antiquity is embodied in a woman that Botticelli presents as the synthesis between sensuousness and wisdom.