The Planet Venus is an oil painting by the 19th-century Spanish painter Luis Ricardo Falero.
The painting is a depiction of the Roman Goddess of Love Venus, shown floating in the heavens in front of a waxing crescent moon and accompanied by four putti.
The Planet Venus provides examples of:
- Hot Goddess: Being the goddess of beauty and sexuality, Venus is completely nude without an ounce of physical modesty and the viewer can see everything. In fact, she points right at one of her breasts, a gesture drawing attention to her feminine form and implying her sexual fertility.
- Love Goddess: It depicts Venus, the Roman Goddess of Love. This portrayal, in particular, highlights the sexuality aspect of her domain by focusing on Venus' Angelic Beauty.
- Power Floats: The Goddess and putti are all balanced precariously on nothing but a sheet flapping in the air. The implication being that Venus' divine nature has transformed clouds into draperies for them to stand on.
- Protagonist Title: The painting is named after the goddess Venus who, in turn, is named after a planet.
- Putto: There are four wingless putti hovering around Venus, two of them floating by her legs to her left, two of them climbing along the top of the moon.
- Rule of Symbolism:
- Love Goddess Venus is named after a planet, one that happens to shine the brightest on Earth's night skies. It's only second to the moon in that regard, so that's why the goddess is being accompanied by the moon.
- The design of the drapery billowing in the wind is designed to look similar to clouds.
- Standardized Space Views: In what has to be the Ur-Example, this painting has a half-crescent moon framing the figure of the Greco-Roman goddess Venus. It counts because the moon is shown as a sphere, its waxing appearance being accomplished with the lighting. As if it was painted mid-rotation. It's also a case of Unbuilt Trope, to boot, because it's meant to highlight the connection between mythology and astronomy, not show the state of humanity's cosmological exploration.
- Weird Moon: The moon is about the size of a Fiat and two of the putti are seen climbing the upper side of it.
