Focus on this artwork and explain the Critical reception.
According to Sydney Freedberg, underlying erotic implications are made by Venus's raised arm and the placement of her left hand on her groin. The sheets are painted in silver, being a cold colour rather than the more commonly used warm tones for linens, and they are rigid looking in comparison to those depicted in similar paintings by Titian or Velázquez. The landscape mimics the curves of the woman's body and this, in turn, relates the human body back to being a natural, organic object. Freedberg writes:The shape of being is the visual demonstration of a state of being in which idealized existence is suspended in immutable slow-breathing harmony. All the sensuality has been distilled off from this sensuous presence, and all incitement; Venus denotes not the act of love but the recollection of it. The perfect embodiment of Giorgione's dream, she dreams his dream herself.
The art historian Michael Paraskos has suggested that the painting may be an allegory of the island of Cyprus, which was ceded to Venice by Queen Caterina Cornaro in 1489. Paraskos suggests that the painting was created under influence of the exiled court of the Kingdom of Cyprus, which the Venetian Senate permitted to be established-in-exile at Asolo in the Veneto, and that it evokes a sense of loss and longing to return. As well as suggesting the body of Venus is posed to resemble the shape of the island, Paraskos claims that the geographical features surrounding her resemble those that could be seen by travelling from the Lusignan summer palace at Potamia in the south east of Cyprus, towards the Troodhos mountains in the west.
Michael Paraskos Asolo Titian Caterina Cornaro Kingdom of Cyprus Sydney Freedberg Cyprus Velázquez Giorgione