Botičeli

by Federico Poletti

vi najveći istoričari umetnosti se slažu - mitološki prizori s Botičelijevih slika obeležavaju na jedinstven način epohu humanizma. Njegove slike svojom lirskom formom, neverovatnom tehnikom i blještavim bojama svedoče o visoko rafiniranom senzibilitetu.

Genres: Art, Italy, Nonfiction, History, Art History, Biography

160 pages, Paperback

First published October 24, 2011

Reviews

[Kalliope · Rating 5 out of 5]

Those eyes become our eyes


Sandro Botticelli (1445-1510) is one of the most engaging painters from the Florentine 15C. And this is a hard thing to claim given the very large number of extraordinary painters there were.

First there was his training. Although he came from a family of tanners, he learnt the art of artifice in the workshop of a goldsmith, in fact in more than one of these. In these workshops one acquired many skills, such as drawing, engraving, chiseling, carving, sculpting. One also learnt how to handle materials, whether these were metals, wood and pigments. But above all, one had to be meticulous, with a sharp eye for detail, and allow no tremor in the hands. His ability to depict preciosity, or the delicacy and lightness of his veils are unsurpassed. And he achieved this by his mastery of the precise drawing with which he could even cut the air.



veiled veils


Then there was his style. He certainly learnt a fair amount from older artists. He was a pupil of Filippo Lippi, Pollaiuolo, and, together with Leonardo, of Verrochio. But Botticelli quickly developed his own idiom managing to set up his own workshop at an early age. His images have a particular ‘look’ with the candor of the faces, the sinuosity of his figures, and the tenderness of his expressions. His depicted worlds are not of perceptible realms.




His association with the Medici clan adds another angle to this intriguing figure. He was under the protection of the powerful Lorenzo il Magnifico, but his most perplexing paintings were done for the other Lorenzo, the cousin to Il Magnifico. His famous Birth of Venus and Primavera may have been painted for Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco, from the secondary branch of the family of bankers. Admired as these iconic paintings are, we still do not know what they represent. But the Medici connection and their support of the neo-platonists hints at a complex textual background to these painted enigmatic tapestries.





And then there was also a dark side to his output. In the aftermath of the Pazzi conspiracy, he portrayed the executed conspirators. There were several.

Are we glad these have been lost?





His illustrations of Dante’s The Divine Comedy rank as the first ones done as a series, a drawing per Canto, rather than as accompanying illuminations to manuscript versions of the work. Blake, Doré and Dalí later followed his idea. In his admiration for Dante he also left us one of the most alluring portraits of the poet.




Perplexing was also his production during the time the Apocalyptic preacher Girolamo Savonarola extended the cape of fear over Florence. He participated in the foreboding with several ominous paintings that clash with the mythical and sensuous worlds of his earlier years. The Mystical Nativity, his only signed piece, is conceived as a prophecy.





Botticelli is now iconic and its position in our culture was stigmatized by Pop Art. But this was not always so. Even though the activities that took place in Florence during the 15C made the city the paradigm of culture in the West, it was the painters of the beginning of the 16C, from the so-called High Renaissance, that drew the interest of their posterity. That is, until the Pre-Raphaelites focused on those painters from whom they took their identity.




And via Ruskin, and his admirer, was Botticelli also delivered to the Proustians.



In the Louvre, what Proust would have seen..

[The Badger · Rating 5 out of 5]

Botticelli has done beautiful things for mythology. Too bad Edith Hamilton didn't study his works before turning Greek mythology into the most prudish, boring text imaginable. (The gods on Olympus aren't dead--Edith Hamilton just put them to sleep.)

[Erica Manning · Rating 2 out of 5]

Very little explanation or detail given. This is nice as a quick reference and overview, but I was left unimpressed and wanting.

[James · Rating 4 out of 5]

I came to recognize the influence of the Florentine goldsmiths in these beautiful, poetic works.