(Top) Robert Fowler The Birth of Venus (Middle) Anthony Canova The Three Graces (Bottom) Francois Boucher Vulcan Presenting Venus with Arms for Aeneas

I'm looking for a Venus/Muse type figure to use as a statue in a small still life painting. I find the tackiness of Fowler's image somehow amusing - but would the result be too subtly ironic therefore complicit with the tackiness? Boucher's colours are great! I want to exploit those candy pinks and powder blues that seem to be a great visual shorthand for that kind of saccharin C18th Romanticism and chocolate-boxey painting in general. Perhaps my aspirations for painting are developing a softer edge? It may be that Poussin had unwittingly prepared the ground for that - both in my interest and in general.

There's a thin line between high and low here - it could all easily slip over in some sort of awful Boris Vallejo rock album cover world like this: