Spring: Synthesis.

If The Birth of Venus represents the four Elements, in Spring, Botticelli shows the relationship of three vital and dialectic states. In both works Venus is the center of interest.

The first is natural life, the state before human; the Wind, a masculine element, enters tempestuously from the right, captures Earth and deflowers her; everything in these figures is opposing, the sex, the colors, the attitudes, Wind showing firmness and Earth lack of coordination; from this union of two contradictory beings surges the Spring, who advances serenely distributing flowers.

The second phase takes place in the human state: Castitas and Voluptas are in diametrically opposed positions, since the first desires to maintain the ring of the dance while the latter desires to go to Mercury, anticipating with this gesture, the effect of the arrow which Cupid is shooting; Pulchritudo, the third, tries to reconcile the two extremes: to go where Castitas leads and to restrain Voluptas, and thus symbolizes Harmony and Balance; the attitudes of Castitas and Voluptas are completely opposed, while the position of Pulchritudo's body, her weight on only one foot, and giving a hand to each, seeks compromise.

The third stage of the dialectic takes place in a divine state: to the fiery furor of Cupid, evident in the flaming point of his arrow, is opposed the mysterious contemplation of Mercury, poking with his caduceus in the clouds which represent the occult mysteries. It is Venus who gives the Final Harmony and Balance; situated as she is, centrally between Spring and Pulchritudo, also characters full of Balance, she is the final synthesis of all Harmony.

The position of the masculine characters, triangular and marginal, and their similar characterization (winged and armed, Cupid with arrows, Mercury with a sword, and Aeolus with his hurricane breath) strengthens the dialectic character and tripartite composition.