Originally painted in the mid 1480s by Italian artist Sandro Botticelli, The Birth of Venus is a classic iconic masterwork, one which I felt cried out for a modern adaptation honoring the almost mythical birth of acclaimed thespian and equally iconic Nicolas Cage.
Having already lovingly painted Nicolas Cage’s portrait for my previous work Saint Nicolas of Cage, I digitally re-used his portrait by adding it to a high resolution copy of the Botticelli painting. Rather than a quick cut and paste (as seen so often in sloppy amateurish attempts online) I carefully manipulated both my own work and the original to attempt to seamlessly blend the two images as closely together as possible. To this end, I even created a special Photoshop brush which mimicked Botticelli’s distinctive hair brushwork, using it to add the flowing locks of Venus to Cage’s head, echoing a scene from Con Air. I also carefully matched the textured surface of Nic Cage’s face to the original Botticelli to create this new piece “The Birth of Nic Cage”. Behold in his glory!
(The images shown here are a cropped version of the full final painting.)