{"id":698,"date":"2026-06-26T12:03:07","date_gmt":"2026-06-26T16:03:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.clarku.edu\/visual-and-performing-arts\/?p=698"},"modified":"2026-07-05T16:15:04","modified_gmt":"2026-07-05T20:15:04","slug":"reading-venus-unlocking-the-complexity-of-renaissance-allegory","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.clarku.edu\/visual-and-performing-arts\/reading-venus-unlocking-the-complexity-of-renaissance-allegory\/","title":{"rendered":"Reading Venus: Unlocking the complexity of Renaissance allegory"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"Emily<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Emily Abney \u201924 spent her senior year at Clark asking a scholarly question: how does the Venus who appears in Italian Renaissance painting compare to the Venus of Ovid\u2019s original Latin texts, where the goddess is vengeful, complicated, and fully human? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Her thesis, \u201cThe Birth of a Venetian Venus: From the Page to the Painting,\u201d required fluency in two distinct forms of evidence: literary analysis of classical texts and formal analysis of visual art. Working with Professor John Garton, Abney examined how the printing and publishing of Ovid’s work in 15th and 16th-century Venice created the conditions for allegorical nude portraiture to flourish as a genre. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Background research took her to Venice, Florence, and the Netherlands \u2014 studying works including the Ghent Altarpiece and the collections at the Uffizi, the Ca\u2019 d\u2019Oro, and the Gallerie dell\u2019Accademia \u2014 and culminated in an acceptance to the Courtauld Institute of Art in London, one of the world’s leading centers for art historical research. \u201cIt\u2019s fulfilling to see my work come to light,\u201d she says, \u201cand to uncover more about this understudied area of art history.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Read the full story in ClarkU News<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For her senior thesis, Emily Abney \u201924 compared depictions of Venus in allegorical paintings to descriptions of the goddess in the original Latin texts of Ovid.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":695,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-698","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-research-and-writing"],"yoast_head":"\nReading Venus: Unlocking the complexity of Renaissance allegory | Department of Visual and Performing Arts | Clark University<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.clarku.edu\/visual-and-performing-arts\/reading-venus-unlocking-the-complexity-of-renaissance-allegory\/\" \/>\n<meta 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