Page "The Birth of Venus (Botticelli)" Paragraph 16

: Such a deliberately re-creative act as Botticelli may have performed with his Birth of Venus would go a long way towards explaining the curious flatness and linearity of the painting, which seem so very out of keeping with the direction of Renaissance art and with Botticelli's own approach to painting.

Was the two-dimensionality of this painting a deliberate attempt to replicate the style of ancient painting as found on Greek vases or on the walls of Etruscan tombs?