What is strangest is that he carries this sentiment into classical subjects, its most complete expression being a picture in the Uffizii, of Venus rising from the sea, in which the grotesque emblems of the middle age, and a landscape full of its peculiar feeling, and even its strange draperies, powdered all over in the Gothic manner with a quaint conceit of daisies, frame a figure that reminds you of the faultless nude studies of Ingres.
At first, perhaps, you are attracted only by a quaintness of design, which seems to recall all at once whatever you have read of Florence in the fifteenth century; afterwards you may think that this quaintness must be incongruous with the subject, and that the colour is cadaverous or at least cold. And yet, the more you come to understand what imaginative colouring really is, that all colour is no mere delightful quality of natural things, but a spirit upon them by which they become expressive to the spirit, the better you will like this peculiar quality of colour; and you will find that quaint design of Botticelli’s a more direct inlet into the Greek temper than the works of the Greeks themselves even of the finest period.
Of the Greeks as they really were, of their difference from ourselves, of the aspects of their outward life, we know far more than Botticelli, or his most learned contemporaries; but for us long familiarity has taken off the edge of the lesson, and we are hardly conscious of what we owe to the Hellenic spirit. But in pictures like this of Botticelli’s you have a record of the first impression made by it on minds turned back towards it, in almost painful aspiration, from a world in which it had been ignored so long; and in the passion, the energy, the industry of realization, with which Botticelli carries out his intention, is the exact measure of the legitimate influence over the human mind of the imaginative system of which this is perhaps the central subject.
The light is indeed cold-mere sunless dawn; but a later painter would have cloyed you with sunshine; and you can see the better for that quietness in the morning air each long promontory, as it slopes down to the water’s edge. Men go forth to their labours until the evening; but she is awake before them, and you might think that the sorrow in her face was at the thought of the whole long day of love yet to come. An emblematical figure of the wind blow hard across the grey water, moving forward the dainty-lipped shell on which she sails, the sea ‘showing his teeth,” as it moves, in thin lines of foam, and sucking in, one by one, the falling roses, each severe in outline, plucked off short at the stalk, but embrowned a little, as Botticelli’s flowers always are. Botticelli meant all this imagery to be altogether pleasurable; and it was partly an incompleteness of resources, inseparable from the art of that time, that subdued and chilled it. But his predilection for minor tones counts also; and what is unmistakable is the sadness with which he has conceived the goddess of pleasure, as the depository of a great power over the lives of men.
最奇怪的是，他以傳統的主題來呈現這種傷感。
他最完整的表現——維納斯自海中升起——已成為烏菲茲美術館的一景。他用許多中世紀怪誕的象徵、奇詭的地景、怪異的衣褶，以及那些充滿古典風味，以哥德式風格四處散落的雛菊，框架出一個會令人想起安格爾那完美的裸體素描的女體。
起初或許你是被畫中古老風情所吸引，畫中的一切似乎立刻令你回想起你腦中屬於十五世紀佛羅倫斯的一切；但之後你大概會想，這樣的古風好像與主題不太切合；還有顏色，那顏色實在太蒼白了，或起碼是冷調的。
然而，當一個人越能理解所謂想像的色彩究竟為何時，色彩本身便不僅只是一種自然事物所具備的令人愉悅的特質，而成為一種精神性的展現，而你也將因此更能欣賞這種典雅的色彩風格。之後你就會發現，波提且利那古典的形制其實是一種對希臘風情更直接的導入，甚至比那些希臘人自己所創作最好的作品更加典型。
希臘人與我們之間的差異，不論在生活上或其他，我們知道的都比波提且利以及他最懂歷史的同代人要多；但對我們而言，這些長久的熟悉感同時也淡化了這些概念中真正具有穿透力的部分，使我們幾乎不再察覺到希臘化時代真正的精神。
但在像波提且利這樣的畫作當中，我們卻能看見一種初次受到希臘化精神觸動的片刻，被他以一種熱切、渴求的態度保留了下來。波提且利以其熱情、精力與系統化的理解所呈現出的，是一種人類想像力所能達到的極致與精確的表達，而這也是我所認為的圖畫中的意旨。
畫中的光線雖是清冷的破曉時分，但一個後起的藝術家大概會用太多的陽光來倒盡你的胃口，同時你卻發現自己可以在這種清晨的光線裡，更清楚感受到每個輕緩地延伸至海裡的岬角當中的靜謐；人們清晨出門工作直到傍晚，但她卻比我們還早起，你甚至會以為她臉上的哀傷是因為想到將面對一整天的思念而起的。
象徵風神的形象吹過灰色的水面，推動她所站立其上那形狀優美的蚌殼。當蚌殼移動時，海面上的泡沫讓海彷彿「露出它的牙齒」，並一朵朵地吸入那從空中落下的玫瑰——線條分明，花莖極短，有些黯淡，一向是波提且利所繪的花。
波提且利有意讓所有這些想像的畫面顯得歡悅無比，但由於畫面中一切的根源並不完備——因為藝術與時代的無法分割——而某種程度地壓抑並冷卻了它的欣喜；不過波提且利對冷色調的偏好也是一個因素。但不會錯認的是，他在這個喜悅的女神形象當中所注入的哀傷，已具有牽引人們情緒的力量。
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