Intertwined winds (Zephyrus with Aura/Chloris) Symbolism

Intertwined winds (Zephyrus with Aura/Chloris) personify the life-giving West Wind and the spring breeze, a classical pairing revived in the Renaissance to signal desire, fertility, and the advent of spring. Depicted as an entwined couple exhaling a single gust, they act as the animating breath that carries beauty and new growth into the world.

Intertwined winds (Zephyrus with Aura/Chloris) in The Birth of Venus

In Sandro Botticelli's The Birth of Venus (c. 1484–1486), the goddess is borne to shore on a shell by the intertwined winds at left. Botticelli employs this motif (Zephyrus with Aura/Chloris) so that their shared breath becomes the engine of the scene, propelling Venus into view and aligning her arrival with love, spring, and renewal—an emphasis echoed by the flower-garlanded attendant who offers a rose-patterned mantle.

Common Themes

Flora & faunaMimesis vs. abstraction (truth vs. artifice)Medium reflexivity (art about art)Power & authoritySeasons & cyclesMarriage & domesticityBeauty & the ideal

Artworks Featuring This Symbol

The Birth of Venus by Sandro Botticelli

The Birth of Venus

Sandro Botticelli (c. 1484–1486)

In The Birth of Venus, <strong>Sandro Botticelli</strong> stages the sea-born goddess arriving on a <strong>scallop shell</strong>, blown ashore by intertwined <strong>winds</strong> and greeted by a flower-garlanded attendant who lifts a <strong>rose-patterned mantle</strong>. The painting’s crisp contours, elongated figures, and gilded highlights transform myth into an <strong>ideal of beauty</strong> that signals love, spring, and renewal <sup>[1]</sup><sup>[2]</sup>.