[ 01.2014 | Mannheim ]

the ‘Birth of Venus’ is a myth­o­logical painting by Renais­sance artist Sandro Botti­celli, presum­ably paint­ed in the mid 1480s. the theme of the ‘Nascita di Venere’ is inspired by Latin liter­ature: based on Ovid’s Meta­morphoses the Italian painting shows the goddess naked on a shell on the sea­shore. on the left the wind softly blows her hair, whilst her maid is wait­ing on her other side to dress her. the paint­ing – exhibited at the Uffizi Gallery in Florence – can be inter­preted as the birth of love and spirit­ual beauty being a driv­ing force of life.

as a driving force of life the ele­ment water has always been seen. the picture was taken at the Rhine in Mann­heim. Mann­heim is the third-largest city in Baden-Württem­berg, a south­western state of Germany. it is at the centre of the densely popu­lated Rhine-Neckar Metro­politan Region which is the eighth-largest in the federal repub­lic. Mann­heim is located at the conflu­ence of the rivers Rhine and Neckar. no wonder the ‘city of the squares’ has the second largest inland port in Germany. there is lot of water run­ning down the river. and floating on it like a nut­shell: the little blue boat.

sources: uffizi.org | mannheim.de