Picturing Venus in the Renaissance print

Developments in the art of printmaking in Renaissance Europe occurred during the same historical period as the discovery of many of what would become Europe’s most celebrated antique sculptures. Each new discovery of an antique sculpture generated great interest, with artists converging on new finds in order to draw them, and subsequently to make prints, which could then be circulated broadly. Prints after ancient sculpture were the visual element of this great transfer of culture from antiquity into early modern Europe. The leading painter, Raphael, was a student of antiquity and indeed became curator of antiquities for all Rome, and also central to the development of the Renaissance print. He designed prints incorporating knowledge of ancient sculpture, and his practice stimulated the production of prints by others. Accompanying an exhibition in Glasgow in 2014, Picturing Venus describes the development of imagery of the goddess Venus during the long Renaissance and presents a selection of some of the remarkable old master prints in the collection of the Hunterian Art Gallery, University of Glasgow