#yes I got naked on a giant clam shell

[nary-a-care]

SO WHEN APHRODITE LIES NAKED ON A GIANT CLAM SHELL SHE'S A "GODDESS" BUT WHEN I DO IT I'M "DRUNK", "CAUSING A PUBLIC DISTURBANCE" AND "NO LONGER WELCOME IN THE AQUARIUM"

[voreconnoisseur]

Pilot Fic 2 - Water, Water Everywhere

--Same prey, different scenario and pred, still willing and safe. --

When an old buddy of mine from school mentioned that he’d been going through some tough times, and that he’d had to sell his plane and was missing flying anything that wasn’t a company jet, I offered to let him pilot mine for a flight with me over the Atlantic for some sightseeing. I’d just got my hands on a new plane, and I was looking forward to give it another test spin. This outing, unlike a certain previous one, went mostly according to plan. No crash landings or bad weather.

That is, until I found myself looking down the barrel of my “friend’s” Smith & Wesson.

He forced me to land on some uninhabited island we’d flown over a few minutes ago, forced me to get out, hopped in the cockpit, and flew off, gun still in hand.

Honestly, I was impressed he was able to get back in the air with the terrain as it was. It was just a short stretch of rough sand.

I was really starting to hate sand at this point.

I figured he’d taken my plane to sell like he had his own. What sort of “tough times” might warrant marooning someone on an island, I didn’t want to know. What concerned me now was finding some way to get rescued. And then I could let the authorities know what the bastard had done, assuming air traffic control didn’t figure it out on their own first. The good news was that meant someone would probably start looking for me soon. Just needed to survive until then.

The most important thing in a (hopefully) short term situation like this is to make yourself visible for rescue teams. I spent about a half hour setting up an S.O.S. sign made of rocks in the sand, and another hour trying to light a fire out of driftwood.

My efforts in that regard were wasted, however, as some heavy showers rolled in and put it out before I could do anything. Damned island weather.

Now I’d need some shelter. Not that I wouldn’t have needed it in the sun, but now it be miserable to work on. The dilemma of staying visible was heavy on my mind, too. Moving inland toward the trees might make it easier to build a shelter, but I’d be far less visible. Not to mention any deadly spiders or snakes I might bump into by accident. I decided to tough it out on the beach.

I wandered the coast a little, being sure not to stray too far from my sign, and climbed atop a rocky outcropping over a small lagoon, being careful not to slip on the wet rocks. There was no visible sign of any other islands.

Of course, I knew that. There was one inhabited island a a few kilometers to the southeast, but not close enough or large enough to see with the naked eye. Whichever direction it was, I sure wasn’t going to be swimming there, and I didn’t want to even consider trying to raft over there. I’d never sailed in my life.

My thoughts were interrupted by the sound of bubbles in the water. I peered into the lagoon—it was deep, dark blue, and I couldn’t see the bottom.

The bubbling ceased, and I looked a little closer, expecting to see some aquatic animal, but what I found instead was far more intense.

An almost-human face, staring at me, through the surface of the water. And no, it wasn’t my reflection.

It was a good bit larger than a human’s face anyway—by 4 or 5 times, maybe. Covered in scales. And the nose wasn’t quite right. The eyes, though, were what immediately made me think: “That’s a person.”

The face burst from the water like a breaching whale, followed by the upper body attached to it. Now, even as I stood high up on the rocks, it towered over me.

Another thought, but not my own this time, echoed in my head:

You’re right. Not a human. But a person, yes.

All I could do was stand there and gawk. Eventually, I just crossed my arms and stood there in the rain, lips pursed.

“Huh.”

The being’s eyes widened as it continued to look me over.

That’s an interesting reaction for a human! Have you seen my kind before or something?

I shifted a bit and decided to initiate conversation again, with this <i>person</i>. I didn’t have any clue what was going on with the whole telepathy deal, so I just spoke out loud instead.

“Can’t say I have. But not much can surprise me at this point.”

You’re not even a little bit scared?

The sea-person grinned a bit after sending this thought, revealing several rows on rows of teeth like those of a shark. Though this wasn’t in any way comforting, I really didn’t have the emotional energy to get upset about it. I had things to do.

“No. I don’t think I am.”

That’s unusual. They cocked their head to the side. Not afraid I might eat you, or something like that?

“Well, for one thing, there’s nothing stopping me from doing this.” I hopped backwards off the rocks, further inland. It didn’t look like they had legs, so it would be difficult for them to get past the rocks.

And what’s the other thing?

I let out a small grunt of amusement.

“Wouldn’t be the first time.” Their eyes widened and they grabbed hold of the rocks and pulled themself closer.

You must be REALLY well traveled.

“You could say that. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got a shelter to build.” I turned to leave, but was interrupted by a shrill noise in my brain as well as my ears this time.

WAIT!!

I looked back only to see the person (I guess you COULD call them a mermaid, since they had a tail instead of legs and appendages that looked like fins, but it was a far stretch from the pop culture variety) making a face almost like a pout, save a couple of teeth that were long enough to jut out.

I can help you with the shelter.

“How do you propose you do that? You can’t get out of the water, can you?”

I can BE the shelter. I can put you inside.

I turned around again, and bent over to pick up a couple pieces of useful-looking driftwood.

“Forget it. If you’re looking for an easy meal, you won’t find it on this island.”

I promise I won’t hurt you. I don’t want a meal or anything! And I can only eat small stuff anyway.

“Yeah, bullshit. Not with those teeth.”

They’re for cracking open shells.

As a demonstration, the being dove into the water and re-emerged with a solid looking clam about the size of a football. They bit into the clam effortlessly, piercing a hole into the shell, then put the clam to their lips and slurped out the meat.

“If that was supposed to make me feel better, it didn’t. Anyway, how are you gonna go about eating me is you ‘can only eat small things?’”

I’m not going to eat you! I have a storage stomach that can fit large things. My kind stores our young inside to keep them safe from predators. Only tiny pieces of food can pass through it.

I couldn’t make too many assumptions about mer-people, knowing nothing about one, but to me this one gave off the impression of the human equivalent of an inexperienced and optimistic kid. I still didn’t trust them entirely, but seeing the way they communicated, and didn’t seem to have any issue finding real, non-me food, I didn’t see what reason they’d have to lie to me. I was also kind of curious to know more about them. Curiosity killed the cat and all that, but I was already in mortal peril with no shelter and no food.

“Alright, fine. I’ll do it. I’m too sick of this rain.”

I climbed further back up the rocks, almost slipping once or twice on the now-soaked surface. A pair of giant silvery webbed hands reached for me, and in the moment, I was too in awe of the shimmering scales to be frightened.

I was lifted, somewhat roughly, off the ground, and in a swift motion, my upper body was placed in the mer-person’s mouth. They had a pretty human-looking tongue, and I wasn’t sure whether that made it better or worse. The long teeth I’d seen early were just far enough apart that I could be wedged comfortably between them. Well, I wasn’t being bitten, so I was safe at that point.

Without struggling, I let myself descend smoothly down the being’s throat as they tilted their head toward the rainy sky. It was damp inside, but at least I had some relief from being pelted with heavy raindrops.

It only took one gulp to drag me into the small cavern that was the storage stomach. Amazingly, the fleshy walls were glowing a soft blue. It wasn’t big enough for me to stretch my limbs out, but it wasn’t so cramped I couldn’t move.

Everything okay?

“Yeah... this is really something,” I murmured more to myself than them.

The glow is for young ones. It’s to make them feel safe. Does it work on humans?

“I dunno. It’s pretty neat, for sure.”

I heard (or maybe felt) a loud purring noise coming from all around me, and some pressure pushing up against my side.

I should probably tell you more about myself, now that we’re better acquainted. I’m male, and you can call me Markov.

I gave one of the fleshy walls a heavy pat.

“Nice to meet you, Markov.”

It is a pleasure.

Whenever I heard his voice in my mind, it sounded cheery. It was strange, since it was more of a feeling than a literal sound.

Suddenly, the space I was in lurched as I was flipped upside down, and I let out a rather embarrassing yelp upon hitting the squishy glowing floor with my face. The movement stopped for a moment, then changed to a slow undulation of the stomach walls.

Sorry! I know you’re not used to this. I just started swimming, that’s all.

���Oof. Warn me next time.”

I shuffled around, squirming to regain the more comfortable position I’d held earlier. The swimming movements stopped for a second, then started up again.

I’m going to take you to the human settlement on the nearby island. Is that okay?

I have a vaguely amused huff of relief.

“Sounds perfect to me.”

--I may write a sequel to this chapter after a few other fics I have planned.--

[caveartfair]

A Look at Botticelli’s “Birth of Venus” in Pop Culture

The Birth of Venus, ca. 1486 . Sandro Botticelli Uffizi Gallery, Florence

Today, Sandro Botticelli’s The Birth of Venus (ca. 1486) is everywhere. The early Renaissance painter’s rendition of the goddess of love has been used to sell Reebok sneakers, suitcases, and Adobe Illustrator software; inspired photoshoots and music videos featuring the likes of Beyoncé and Lady Gaga; and versions of it graced the cover of The New Yorker twice. The painting has become an indispensable part of the Western art historical canon—so much so that when someone starts an Instagram of Timothée Chalamet photoshopped into famous artworks, there he is as Zephyr, hovering beside Venus as she drifts to shore.

But the ubiquity of The Birth of Venus was not a foregone conclusion. In fact, for several centuries, it was more or less unimaginable.

Botticelli, born around 1445, certainly did earn acclaim during his lifetime. Trained in the workshop of Fra Filippo Lippi, one of Florence’s leading painters, the young man quickly became a favorite of the Medici family after opening his own workshop in 1470. (The Birth of Venus was one such commission, for the home of Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco de’ Medici.) By 1481, Pope Sixtus IV was commissioning Botticelli to decorate Rome’s recently completed Sistine Chapel.

But in the final years of his life, Botticelli’s work became overtly religious and heavily stylized, losing its earlier idealized naturalism. It was around this time that the artist became a devout follower of a fanatical reformist preacher; he may even have renounced his earlier, non-religious paintings. After his death in 1510, Botticelli’s work quickly faded from view.

It wasn’t until the 19th century that a subtle reassessment of the artist began to take root. Even Victorian art critic John Ruskin, who originally derided a Botticelli painting of the Madonna and Child as “so ugly that I’ve dared not show it to a human soul,” eventually came around. “As an artist he is incomparable,” he noted, decades later.  

Yet even then, it was Botticelli’s related work, Primavera (ca. 1477–82), that was his best known. It wasn’t until Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini organized a series of traveling exhibitions of the Italian Old Masters as a political move that The Birth of Venus developed its primacy among Botticelli’s oeuvre. Painted on canvas (rather than wood, like Primavera), it could be shipped internationally without the fear of warping or cracking. The piece was a smash hit in London, Paris, and San Francisco’s 1935 World’s Fair; and, finally, in 1940 at New York’s Museum of Modern Art. In some 74 days, the museum welcomed 290,000 visitors; newspapers reported that one in every 25 people in the city saw the work.

At present, the painting is the centerpiece of Florence’s Uffizi Gallery. The Birth of Venus depicts a moment from the Greek myth in which Kronos severs Uranus’s genitals and throws them into the sea; Venus, or Aphrodite, emerges fully formed from the foam of a cresting wave. Carried by a shell, the goddess drifts to shore in Cyprus. In Botticelli’s work, which pulls its imagery from a 15th-century poem by Agnolo Poliziano, she is propelled by the gentle breeze of Zephyr, the west wind, and balances on a giant scallop shell. A young woman, perhaps Hora of spring or one of the graces, runs to meet her, proffering a robe dotted with flowers.

Its mythological subject matter is significant. As John B. Nici notes in his book Famous Works of Art—and How They Got That Way, it is the “first monumental female nude of a pagan goddess since the ancient world, and for that reason alone it must have raised eyebrows.”

The Birth of Venus has since become a standard of beauty. As such, it’s also become something to rebel against, a way to call attention to racist and sexist ideas of attractiveness. The image has been used endlessly as a marketing tool, parodied and leveraged to signify quality and culture. In fact, writes Stefan Weppelmann in the catalogue for the Victoria and Albert Museum’s 2016 exhibition “Botticelli Reimagined,” the painting’s “perpetual international reiterations have ultimately led to its becoming a general shorthand for Western high art per se.”

Below, we trace the endless ways Botticelli’s Venus has been remixed and reborn in fine art and in pop culture—from Andy Warhol to Monty Python.

Lady Gaga, “Applause” (2013)

The cover of Lady Gaga’s 2013 album Artpop was designed by Jeff Koons, featuring one of the Neo-Pop artist’s signature blue gazing balls placed strategically between the pop star’s legs. Behind her, slivers of Botticelli’s The Birth of Venus and Gian Lorenzo Bernini’s Apollo and Daphne fan out in an art historical mashup. Koons has said his intention was to present Gaga in the role of Venus, to reflect “the pursuit and the enjoyment of aesthetics and of beauty. And of the desire to continually have transcendence.”

But the Botticelli references extended beyond just the album cover—in the music video for the song “Applause,” the singer dons a smattering of seashells and a voluminous blonde wig to become Venus herself (a look she’d previewed during a performance at the MTV VMAs earlier that year). And in another Artpop song explicitly titled “Venus,” Gaga pens a synthpop ode to the goddess of love.

The New Yorker (1992 and 2014)  

Susan Davis, May 25, 1992, 1992. © Susan Davis and The New Yorker. Courtesy of The New Yorker.

Roz Chast, Venus on the Beach, August 4, 2014. © Roz Chast and The New Yorker. Courtesy of The New Yorker.

Yes, Botticelli’s Venus is a cover girl. The Renaissance painting has been the subject of at least two New Yorker cover illustrations since the 1990s. In the first, for a May 1992 issue, illustrator Susan Davis replaced Zephyr’s gentle breeze with the hot air of a blow dryer. Venus, clothed in a fluffy white robe and clutching a round brush in her other hand, is clearly primping. It’s a humorous take on the original painting, which depicts the goddess emerging from the sea in all her natural, unadorned beauty. Yet as au naturel as she may be, Botticelli’s Venus became an idealized standard of beauty—an image of perfection that non-goddesses needed blowouts and makeup to rival.

In the decades since Davis’s cover, we’ve seen the introduction of the internet, cell phones, and social media. Each new technological development has made it easier to share and replicate images, including world-famous artworks such as The Birth of Venus. Thus, in Roz Chast’s cover for the August 4, 2014, issue, Venus is washed ashore only to be greeted by a swarm of iPhone camera lenses, rather than a soft breeze and a delicate robe.

Dr. No (1962)

Even James Bond got a little taste of The Birth of Venus. In 1958, novelist Ian Fleming published his sixth novel about Agent 007; chapter eight found him on a Jamaican shore. “The whole scene, the empty beach, the green and blue sea, the naked girl with the strands of fair hair, reminded Bond of something,” Fleming wrote. “He searched his mind. Yes, she was Botticelli’s Venus, seen from behind.” The book was soon adapted into a movie, 1962’s Dr. No, which featured Ursula Andress as that (now bikini-clad) girl. She plays Honey Ryder, a Jamaican shell diver who comes in from the surf clutching two large conches—a nod to Venus, borne over the waves on a shell of her own.

Forty years later, in Die Another Day (2002), Halle Berry got a Botticelli moment of her own when she played agent Jinx Johnson opposite Pierce Brosnan’s Bond.

Rip Cronk, Venice on the Half-Shell (1978)

Rip Cronk, Venus on the Half Shell, 1981, at Venice Beach, CA, 1983. Photo by Rob Corder, via Flickr.

Venus got a SoCal makeover in this series of murals by artist Rip Cronk. As a muralist-in-residence for Los Angeles’s Social and Public Art Resource Center in the 1970s and ’80s, Cronk received a commission to complete Venice on the Half-Shell (1981), his first large-scale interpretation of Botticelli’s work. Cronk’s 20th-century Venus wears roller skates, short-shorts, leg warmers, and a crop top; she’s also no longer a blonde. Half of a giant clam shell hovers behind her as she skates leisurely down the Venice Beach boardwalk.

When years of weather and graffiti ruined the work, which was originally on display in the Venice Pavilion, he painted a second version: Venice Reconstituted (1989). “Even a very famous painting won’t be seen by the number of people who will see this,” Cronk told the Los Angeles Times in 1989. He interpreted the mural a third time in 2010, titling it Venice Kinesis in a reference to the neighborhood’s continuing evolution.

Yin Xin, Venus, after Botticelli (2008)

Venus, after Boticelli, 2008. Yin Xin "Botticelli Reimagined" at Victoria & Albert Museum, London

It was a moment with Mary Magdalene, rendered by French Baroque painter Georges de La Tour, that precipiated Yin Xin’s artistic career. “I’m from China, I grew up with a Communist education, but the painting touched me,” the artist told Women’s Wear Daily in 2016. “It was able to transcend religion and culture. I wanted to know what was behind it, to find the soul of the artist.” Today, Xin’s paintings are characterized by the way he reworks canonical Western art to include Chinese characteristics—and Venus, after Botticelli (2008) offers a prime example.

The canvas, cropped to show only the goddess’s head, reveals long, wavy locks that have been transformed from blonde to black; her facial features now read as Asian rather than European. As Stefan Weppelmann writes in the catalogue for the V&A’s 2016 show “Botticelli Reimagined,” Xin’s painting, “in its combination of Western and Far Eastern elements, stresses how much our perception of a cultural artefact is dependent on and determined by the culture that produced it.”

David LaChapelle, Rebirth of Venus (2009)

Rebirth of Venus, 2009. David LaChapelle "The Botticelli Renaissance" at Gemäldegalerie, Berlin (2015-2016)

The fashion world has long been interested in Venus, from an early American Vogue cover to Elsa Schiaparelli’s flower-studded evening dress to Dolce & Gabbana’s skintight collage. Although photographer David LaChapelle retired from shooting for fashion magazines in 2006 to focus on art, he, too, shares a fascination with Botticelli’s goddess.

Rebirth of Venus (2009)reflects his Pop sensibilities, echoing the slick, carefully arranged, even Baroque compositions of his portraits of stars like Pamela Anderson, Lady Gaga, and Hillary Clinton. This shoot took place spontaneously in Hawaii, where the photographer lives, on a bluff overlooking the South Pacific. “The tropical setting was not exactly the Mediterranean that would have inspired Botticelli’s palette; the colors are punchier,” LaChapelle told British Vogue. In his version, Venus is tanned and toned, wearing only a golden crown and a pair of sparkly teal heels. Unlike Botticelli’s original, there’s an air of raw sexuality—emphasized by the shell, which has become a symbol for her genitals rather than a platform to ride across the waves.

Awol Erizku, Beyoncé’s pregnancy and maternity portraits (2017)

Much like Xin, photographer Awol Erizku replaces the white models of Old Master paintings with black ones in his portraits. So it’s little surprise that the series of pregnancy (and later, maternity) portraits he took of Beyoncé last year practically ooze art historical references. (Pitchfork even asked a trained art historian to analyze the images.)

In images released to announce her pregnancy, Beyoncé claims the role of Venus, often echoing the demure pose of Botticelli’s goddess by holding her hands in front of her breasts and cradling her belly. The lush flower arrangement in the background of one image riffs on the pink blooms that tumble through the air in the 15th-century painting.

A maternity portrait, taken after the twins were born, references The Birth of Venus more explicitly, with Beyoncé’s standing pose and floor-length, ruffled robe. Yet, unlike the goddess, she gazes towards the camera. As Andrianna Campbell notes, “Bey’s image underscores this contemporary moment where the model, as both patron and matriarch, can control the dissemination of her likeness to a broad audience via social media.”

Andy Warhol, Venus (1985)

In 2014, a cache of Warhols were discovered—not in a dusty basement or a flea market, but on a series of decades-old floppy discs. Warhol, who first encountered a personal computer at Sean Lennon’s 9th birthday party, signed on in 1985 as a spokesperson for Commodore (Apple’s then-rival). He was intrigued by the possibility of computer-assisted drawing, and used ProPaint to craft digital versions of his self-portraits and signature Campbell’s soup cans. The previous year, he’d completed a print series entitled “Details of Renaissance Portraits,” in which he cropped, flattened, simplified, and recolored portions of works, including The Birth of Venus. So it’s little surprise that Venus makes an appearance in these computer-based artworks, albeit with a third eye courtesy of the copy-and-paste tool.

Terry Gilliam, The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (1988)

After taking an art history course, director and comedian Terry Gilliam told the BBC in 2016 that Botticelli’s Venus “was always in the back of [his] mind.” We see her first in the cut-out animations of Monty Python’s Flying Circus, of which Gilliam was a member. Venus, standing quietly on her half-shell, is provoked into an energetic dance number replete with leaps and high kicks.

Later, for Gilliam’s 1988 film The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, Uma Thurman was cast as the goddess herself. Her entrance through the palace’s fountain in a monumental clamshell animates Botticelli’s iconic painting—throwing in an audience of dumbfounded European nobles, as well. “I suppose I like the idea of modernizing paintings,” Gilliam explained. “They had their context in their own time, now let’s take it and take it off the wall of the museum and put it on television and make people laugh or smile or even…go to the museum to see it for real.”

from Artsy News