Blog / September, 14, 2026

Venus in Scorpio

When you plunge Venus into the sign of the dark underworld, you come away with an aesthetic of horrors. Blood reds, purplish greys, and sickly greens. Surface beauty shall be exposed for all its manipulations: flesh that’s gnarled and jaundiced, ghostly figures pale and smooth, or matte black as the void. This is why Venus is in her fall in Scorpio. She is Venus, the planet of love, art, music, perfumes, and decoration. She still longs to connect with others. She still adorns in order to attract, but in Scorpio she may haunt. Easy and charming are not her methods of seduction. She prefers the raw honesty of pain and lust. For this placement, beauty is the power of unearthing the repressed. Love is warts and all. As Kara Walker (who has a Venus in Scorpio) says, “I do what I am feeling and what I’m feeling is monstrous. And I do it in the nicest possible way.”

As always, all the following people have Venus in Scorpio. . .

**Diego Velázquez, *The Toilet of Venus ('The Rokeby Venus')*, 1647-51**

**Gregg Araki - *Totally F***ed Up*, 1994**

**Pedro Almodovar - *Tie Me Up, Tie Me Down*, 1989**

**Artemisia Gentileschi - *Judith Slaying Holofernes,* 1620**

Nick Cave - Red Right Hand, 1994

Dorothy Draper - Greenbrier Resort, West Virginia (above ground). Draper was commissioned to redecorate the Greenbrier after it had served as a hospital during WWII. The US govt also then approached the resort to build a bunker to house Congress in the event of a nuclear holocaust.

**Dorothy Draper - Greenbrier Resort bunker**

**Johannes Vermeer - *A Lady Writing*, 1665**

**Mary Wigman - *Hexentanz* (*Witch Dance*), 1914**

**Elsa Schiaparelli, claw gloves, 1938**

**Elsa Schiaparelli, gown worn by Shari Herbert in 1949**

John Singer Sargent, *Madame X (Virginie Amélie Avegno Gautreau)*, 1883-4. This painting famously caused a scandal when it was first shown. Not only because people found her skin tone to be corpse-like, but because it was originally painted with a suggestive slip of her strap off her shoulder. It was later painted over so the strap was in place.

**Gianni Versace, Elizabeth Hurley wearing the safety pin dress from Spring 1994**

**Zoe Bleu - at the *Dracula: A Love Tale* premiere, 2025**

**Chris Cunningham - *Rubber Johnny,* 2005**

**Gregg Araki - *The Doom Generation,* 1995**

**Kara Walker - an "attendant" from *A Subtelty, or the Marvelous Sugar Baby,* 2014**

**Catherine Hardwicke - *Thirteen*, 2003**

**Kerry James Marshall - *The Lost Boys (A.K.A. Untitled)*, 1993**

**The Osbournes - Ozzy & Sharon each have a Scorpio Venus, Kelly & Jack each have Scorpio Suns**

Quentin Blake - illustration for Roald Dahl's *The Twits*, 1980

**El Greco - *The Opening of the Fifth Seal*, 1614**

**Lucien Freud - *Sunny Morning-Eight Legs,* 1997**

**Lucien Freud - *Leigh Bowery (Seated)*, 1990**

Pauline Anna Strom - Rain on Ancient Quays, 1982