30. Aphrodite

Aphrodite: Greek Goddess of Love and Beauty

100 Gods and Goddesses Challenge

I just woke up and drew this, yeeeeahhhh. If I knew what time I woke up I could be more accurate, but alas...

My images of the Greek Gods are heavily influenced by my first Greek Mythology book ever: The Gods and Goddesses of Mount Olympus by Aliki. Everything else has become secondary to me, hahaha. I was debating with myself whether to make Aphrodite blonde or black-haired, but I settled on blonde since it was an ideal of beauty at the time... and Aliki's version was blonde, haha. *shrug* The flowers in her hair are all symbols typically associated: red anemones (flowers that grew from Adonis' blood when he was castrated by a boar), apple blossoms (apples are typically associated with love), and prickly lettuce (the plant Adonis was laid on, thought to represent impotency or the death of love).

Aphrodite is interesting because there are two very distinct sides: Aphrodite Urania or "Heavenly Aphrodite" as opposed to Aphrodite Pandemos or "Aphrodite of the People". The former referred to the spiritual metaphysical romantic love, while the latter refers to crude physical love and lust. She's also interesting because in the Near Eastern mythology where she is thought to originate from, the entities of love and war are often represented in one goddess. In Greek Mythology, Aphrodite and Ares are distinct entities (but they do have a few romantic flings here and there, haha.)

Here is Aphrodite admiring the golden apple she received from Paris.

EDIT: Made the background less obnoxious