The World’s Oldest Studio and the Birth of Venus
Top: Botticelli, Birth of Venus
Bottom: Abalone shell containg ochre found in oldest studio ever discovered, 100,000 years old.
Just three weeks ago I argued that the shell in Botticelli's Birth of Venus referred to the shells artists used in their studios to store paint and that Venus was, so to speak, being born from an artist's palette. Now comes word that archeologists have discovered the oldest art studio ever. It's in a cave in South Africa, the Blombos cave. Two separate tool kits were found which could have been used for painting, body decoration and skin protection. And, among them were two abalone shells containing ochre, demonstrating that some of the tools Renaissance artists used in 1500 had been in use for a hundred thousand years.
Botticelli, of course, was not aware of this but a shell had meaning in 1500 that is lost today. For thousands of centuries the shell was the very icon of an artist's studio as this discovery emphasizes in a very dramatic way.
For the entry on Botticelli's Birth of Venus
For the full story of the cave
Posted 21 Oct 2011: Botticelli
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