Stay safe

Another photograph of timely messages, from near the start of my daily exercise.

For me, the crisis has become somewhat more real today.  Mrs ER and I have supposedly been on holiday for the last week and should have been touring central Spain by rail.  Of course, that was cancelled. However, today she has returned to work (she is an intensive care consultant) for the first of who knows how many shifts caring for local victims of Covid-19.  Let's hope the safety equipment and procedures can cope.

My first-time-listened album for today was John Mayer's "Continuum" (2006) my favourite song from which was Gravity.

I spent some time looking at Sandro Botticelli's "The Birth of Venus" (1486) - the most famous painting so far of my current, self-administered course on art history. It is a remarkable picture, being the first female nude figure in almost 1000 years, due to the grip on art by the Christian church.  The first male nude of the Renaissance, a bronze sculpture of David by Donatello, was completed in 1430.

The figure of Venus is strikingly beautiful despite two obvious flaws - both her neck and her left arm are far too long. However, her stance, with weight on her left leg, gives the figure a graceful S shape. I also think her face is one of the earliest depictions of an obviously real-life woman, rather than the idealised and plain images in earlier works. 

It is thought that Botticelli's Venus was modelled on Simonetta Vespucci, wife of a Florentine merchant.  She had been the "Queen of Beauty" at a tournament organised by Guiliano Medici in 1475 and may have been amorously involved with him.  Both died shortly after the tournament - Guiliano was stabbed by his political enemies whilst Simonetta contracted consumption.