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10
UNIT IV BOTTICELLI (1445-1510)
Among the painters of the poetic current in the late fifteenth century, Sandro Botticelli stands
alone in depth of feeling and delicacy of style. His concentration on line is so deep and his research
into the unreal is so enchanting, that it is difficult to believe that he studied with Filippo Lippi, a
follower of Masaccio. Although aloof from scientific current and criticized by the young Leonardo
da Vinci Botticelli remained the leading painter resident in Florence in the 1480s and 1490s. Before
him the old masters had drawn the inspiration for their works from the Bible. Botticelli delighted in
myths, fables, and poetry, his nature was imaginative. The artist was the first to make his painting a
means for the delight of the secular as well as the religious world.
Botticelli was closely associated with the Medici and his fortune paralleled theirs. After the
death of Lorenzo, that ended the world in which Botticelli had found honours and fame, the painter
was greatly impressed by the preaching of Savonarola. Soon he became an ardent disciple of this
great prophet. When Savonarola demanded that bonfires should be made of the "profane pictures",
he contributed many of his works of art to the bonfire pile. In his later life Botticelli turned to a
religious style, and after 1500 gave up painting altogether.
Botticelli's most celebrated pictures, the Primavera (The Allegory of Spring) and the Birth of
Venus were painted at a slight distance from each other in time, the first on panel, the second on
canvas. Later the two paintings were considered companion pieces. Both have been interpreted in
different ways. The Primavera with its ambiguous but clear meaning, is far from being the simple
pagan mythology that it appears to be at first sight. No explanation of the Primavera is wholly
successful. Probably the Primavera symbolizes Lorenzo Medici's real wedding in 1482.
A Christianized Venus, modestly dressed and resembling Botticelli's Madonnas, reigns in the
midst of a dark grove of trees bearing golden fruit. At the right Zephyrus, the wind-god, pursues the
nymph Chloris; flowers issue from her mouth. She is transformed into the goddess Flora, clothed in
a flower-covered gown, from its folds she strews blossoms upon the lawn. At the left Mercury is
dispelling tiny clouds from the golden apple, the symbol of the Medici family. Between Mercury
and Venus the Three Graces dance in a ring. These lovely creatures are shown in transparent
garments. This painting is a complex allegory. As in all Botticelli's mature works his figures are
extremely attenuated, with long necks, torsos, arms and sloping shoulders. Their beautiful faces and
graceful bodies and limbs seem almost bloodless and weightless, their white feet touch the ground
so lightly that not a flower or a leaf is bent. The individual forms are perfectly modelled. Botticelli's
representation of figures in motion is far beyond anything that preceded him and has never been
excelled. The composition is based on an interweaving of linear patterns, drapery folds, streaming
or braided hair, trunks, and leaves. Such a picture, both in content and style, represents a withdrawal
from naturalism of the Early Florentine Renaissance.
The Birth of Venus may show the effects of Botticelli's residence in Rome in the early 1480s.
Venus, according to the ancient myth, was born from the sea. Upon a sea represented without
concern for space, and dotted with little V-shaped marks for waves, Botticelli's Venus stands lightly
in a beautiful cockleshell, wafted by two embracing wind-gods, toward a highly stylized shore. This
Venus, proportioned like the Three Graces, differs from the splendid Venuses of classical antiquity.
She uses the curving streams of her long hair to cover her nakedness. She can't wait for the cloak
that one of the Hours is about to spread around her. Botticelli's allegory is related to the Christian
tradition with which he tried to reconcile the pagan legend. The composition has been compared to
medieval and Renaissance representations of the Baptism of Christ. It may be argued that this is a
rather artificial interpretation, but it is an interpretation that made sense to the fifteenth century.
Later, under the impact of Savonarola's preaching and the troubles besetting Italy Botticelli's
imagery becomes less esoteric and more Christian. The best possible example is the Mystic Nativity.
In order to emphasize the importance of the Madonna and Child and the relative unimportance of
the humans, Botticelli has reverted to the early medieval device of disregarding scale and
perspective and grading the actual sizes of the figures according to their importance; hence the
Madonna is far the largest although placed apparently in the middle distance. The feature that links
Botticelli most firmly with the Florentine artistic heritage is his linear perspective.