Botticelli Quotes

“When the Devil was a woman,
When Lilith wound
Her ebony hair in heavy braids,
And framed
Her pale features all 'round
With Botticelli's tangled thoughts,
When she, smiling softly,
Ringed all her slim fingers
In golden bands with brilliant stones,
When she leafed through Villiers
And loved Huysmans,
When she fathomed Maeterlinck's silence
And bathed her Soul
In Gabriel d'Annunzio's colors,
She even laughed
And as she laughed,
The little princess of serpents sprang
Out of her mouth.
Then the most beautiful of she-devils
Sought after the serpent,
She seized the Queen of Serpents
With her ringed finger,
So that she wound and hissed
Hissed, hissed
And spit venom.
In a heavy copper vase;
Damp earth,
Black damp earth
She scattered upon it.
Lightly her great hands caressed
This heavy copper vase
All around,
Her pale lips lightly sang
Her ancient curse.
Like a children's rhyme her curses chimed,
Soft and languid
Languid as the kisses,
That the damp earth drank
From her mouth,
But life arose in the vase,
And tempted by her languid kisses,
And tempted by those sweet tones,
From the black earth slowly there crept,
Orchids -
When the most beloved
Adorns her pale features before the mirror
All 'round with Botticelli's adders,
There creep sideways from the copper vase,
Orchids-
Devil's blossoms which the ancient earth,
Wed by Lilith's curse
To serpent's venom, has borne to the light
Orchids-
The Devil's blossoms-

"The Diary Of An Orange Tree”
― Hanns Heinz Ewers, Nachtmahr: Strange Tales

“In other words, Botticelli's ideal women look like women and not boys. They're soft and curvaceous. Healthy and rounded. Women of the size figured in this painting were considered beautiful for centuries, if not millennia. They were the aesthetic ideal during my lifetime and long after."

He brought his mouth to her neck before whispering, "My ideal hasn't changed.”
― Sylvain Reynard, The Raven

“We come up against beauty here — for the first time in our enquiry: beauty at which a novelist should never aim though he fails if he does not achieve it. I will conduct beauty to her proper place later on. Meanwhile please accept her as part of a completed plot. She looks a little surprised at being there, but beauty ought to look a little surprised: it is the emotion that best suits her face, as Botticelli knew when he painted her risen from the waves, between the winds and the flowers. The beauty who does not look surprised, who accepts her position as her due—she reminds us too much of a prima donna.”
― E.M. Forster, Aspects of the Novel

“Quasi sempre tendiamo a guardare il Rinascimento dal punto di vista degli artisti, eppure, se ci sforziamo di pensarci committenti, ci accorgiamo che il rapporto tra i Medici e Botticelli è molto simile a quello che abbiamo oggi con un muratore a cui chiediamo di ristrutturare un appartamento: ci affidiamo a lui per il lavoro, ma le piastrelle pretendiamo di sceglierle noi. Botticelli è ritenuto un grande artista , ma nel XV secolo un artista è socialmente più simile a un muratore che a un intellettuale e l'arte è così importante per la politica che non si può lasciarla in mano ad un semplice pittore.”
― Riccardo Falcinelli, Cromorama. Come il colore ha cambiato il nostro sguardo

“Giovanni's behavior had changed dramatically since he had opened that crate. He felt haunted. [After meeting the portrait of Botticelli's Bastard]”
― Stephen Maitland-Lewis, Botticelli's Bastard

“Finally his thumbing rewarded him with what he was seeking.
Veronese... Veronese... of course! As he'd told Genevieve, he'd seen a Veronese painting when he'd visited Italy. Memorably because he'd found it erotic: Venus and Mars again, and this time Venus was not wearing a shred, and Mars was kneeling, getting ready to, as he'd inappropriately shared with Genevieve, give Venus a pleasuring.
"Genevieve loves a particular 'kind' of painter..." Harry began in a lecturing tone.
"She likes light and a grace of line, mythological subjects rich in subtext. She believes Botticelli is not rated highly enough as a painter. I happen to agree. I've seen his 'Venus and Mars' and I am quite moved by his use of mythological subjects. Very sensual."
Harry looked thunderstruck.
Hmm. The duke didn't know why he should feel authentically pleased by the fact that Genevieve had entrusted him with a confidence she hadn't yet confided in Harry.
"She hadn't shared that particular insight with you about Botticelli, Osborne? Perhaps it's a new one. One she's had only recently.”
― Julie Anne Long, What I Did for a Duke

“Ah, such complexity, such inexplicable combinations, such strange matter, and yet very human face so compelling, every hand so exquisitely wrought.”
― Anne Rice, Blood And Gold

“Als aan de grond genageld stond ik voor Masaccio’s Verbanning uit het paradijs. In een sombere, bruine omgeving, die in niets leek op een tuin, hield Adam zijn gebogen hoofd bedekt met zijn handen. Eva’s ogen waren gewonde holtes die bijna dicht waren geknepen en haar openstaande mond uitte een gekwelde kreet die door de tijd echode en in mijn hart weergalmde. Het pathos van hun schaamte ontroerde me zo erg dat mijn benen verslapten. Ik hield me vast aan de stenen balustrade. Tussen Eva en mij voelde ik geen kloof van eeuwen gapen.
“Ik wil haar in mijn armen nemen om haar te troosten,” zei ik zacht.
“Michelangelo, Rafaël en Botticelli zaten precies hier dit fresco na te tekenen,” zei Pietro met een nonchalance alsof hij meer dan honderd jaar geleden tussen ze had gestaan.”
― Susan Vreeland, The Passion of Artemisia