Escaping Venus
, 2003

Chris Leib [Biography]
Botticelli's Venus expressed Renaissance ideals of divine beauty that encompassed truth, perfection of form, rationality. His Venus emerges from the sea, the embodiment of that divine beauty.

Leib's own contemporary "Venus," on the other hand, is entirely indifferent to the viewer, standing with no modesty, as she gazes back to a past from which she came. Unlike Botticelli's celestial Venus, she is modernized, bikini waxed, earthly. Her stance is devoid of a sense of classical ideals. Her beauty is of flesh, not of mind.  Rather than rising from the sea on a shell, she stands thigh deep in a stagnant pool. The sky is gray, no rebirth promised by spring. She has escaped from purity or, perhaps, it escapes from her.

This fine classically painted work is mounted in a frame handcrafted by the artist. Escaping Venus
features prominently in the film, Limbo Lounge.

You can click "Show to Scale" below to view this painting in an environment.

60 x 48 inches
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