This Finnish postcard featuring art by Albert Edelfelt is a far cry from the last Edelfelt postcard I received, and is a great improvement.   Nina sent me this card from Helsinki, saying “I chose this card for you because I think it was suitable for your preferences.”  Most suitable indeed.

The piece here is entitled “On the beach, the Temple of Venus in the background” and was produced in 1903.  Edelfelt died in 1905 at the age of 51; clearly his appreciation of the female form never waned.

Katja sent this over from Tampere, Finland: “Here’s some European beauty for you. If I had painted this painting (I wish!), I’d have left the angels out of it.  But still, amazingly beautiful, the sea and Venus’ hair.”  Agreed on all points.

Alexandre Cabanel’s La naissance de Vénus was the hit of 1863′s Salon de Paris (an annual workshop and competition which was sponsored by the French Government), but it was overshadowed by the controversy surrounding Édouard Manet’s Olympia.  Olympia had several points against her: she was clearly a prostitute; the painting was done in rougher strokes than were popular at the time; she was being attended by a black maid and a black cat, which suggested some sort of social commentary.  The painting was so unpopular that police had to be stationed in front of the canvas to protect it.

By contrast, La naissance de Vénus was an homage to the old masters, suggesting eroticism without the overt suggestion of sex.  After the unveiling, Cabanel made several duplicates of the painting by commission; one of them hangs in the Metropolitan Museum of Art.  The original hangs in the Musée d’Orsay.