Beyond the Birth of Venus: A Glimpse into the Life and Work of Sandro Botticelli

written by Kate Tricarico

Leonardo Da Vinci once said, “The painter's mind is a copy of the divine mind, since it operates freely in creating the many kinds of animals, plants, fruits, landscapes, countryside’s, ruins, and awe-inspiring places.” A contemporary of Da Vinci, Sandro Botticelli was a masterful artist who captured the shadows of his artistic mind with paint and brush. The artists of the Italian Renaissance were great masters. They knew their craft and they knew their talents. But this quote by Da Vinci is only a small example of the common thought of men during this age. After the spiritually saturated years of the middle ages, the Renaissance was a rebirth of humanistic ideas which, in turn, placed man above every other created being and form. While devotion and worship of God had not entirely dissipated during this time period, the emphasis on creating art to reflect on God divinity which would therefore inspire worship became less existent. The painters and sculptors of the Renaissance concerned themselves with tangible reality as well as pagan mythology. Sandro Botticelli was one such artist. Through his use of exquisite strokes, Sandro Botticelli was one of the most influential artists during the Renaissance shift from Christian to pagan subject. His brush operated freely, and he created some of the most famous canvases in history.

Born in Florence, Italy on March1, 1445, Alessandro di Mariano Filipepi was more than just a child of a middle class working family. Though his father was a tanner by trade, from a young age Botticelli showed the potential to be more than a mere laborer. "Disturbed by the boy's whimsical mind, his father placed him with a goldsmith, a friend of his named Botticello, a quite competent master of that trade in those days” (Ball-Romney). This very Botticello to whom Botticelli was first apprenticed, is the man on whose name Botticelli based his artistic pseudonym. Alessandro di Mariano Filipepi became Sandro Botticelli. Working with gold, Botticelli interacted with many artists in Florence and when he became old enough to speak his mind, the young Botticelli begged his father to apprentice him to the noteworthy Filippo Lippi, a well respected painter in Florence at the time. Lippi taught Botticelli the system of painting frescos as well as his personal method of painting, which was more based upon what he felt, rather than a purely realistic approach. While under Lippi’s roof, Botticelli also learned about linear perspective in the arts. His style of linear elements and anti-classical spirit are believed to have eventually influenced the great Michelangelo himself (Hayes). Under Lippi’s direction, the young Botticelli flourished, and swiftly surpassed his master in both talent and technique.

In 1467, the high spirited, young and adventurous Botticelli left Lippi’s workshop and set himself up under the tutelage of Antonio del Pollaiol and his brother Pietro, who were the leading Florentine painters of the 1460s. These two artists, known historically as the Pollaiol brothers, painted canvasses that clung to an aura of bitterness and harsh brutality. It was with these two brothers that Botticelli grew in his rendering of the human body through clear brushstrokes, and learned to emphasize the naturalistic rather than the idealistic approach to art. Combining his skills acquired from the training given to him by Lippi, with the instruction he received from the Pollaiol brothers, Botticelli grew to become a great master of the art of painting. Even at this early stage in his career, his works were characterized by a conception of the figures, drawn with clear contours, and minimizing strong contrasts of light and shadow in order to indicated clearly modeled forms. “The forms in his paintings are defined with a line that is at once incisive and flowing, and there is a growing ability to suggest the character and even the mood of the figures by action, pose, and facial expression” (Lightbown). “In 1470, the brothers gave Botticelli a commission from "the Tribunal of the Arts della Mercanzia" for a series of "Virtues," originally a project from the Medici patrons, and he opened his own workshop” (Ball-Romney). This commission, and the becoming master of his own studio threw Botticelli into the spheres of great Florentine artists, and it was during this time that he began to truly make his name known.

During this period of history in Florence, other artists were thriving and developing new Renaissance styles that were both revolutionary and shocking. Neoplatonism became a prominent mode of painting in Florence, as this technique was expressly admired by the ruling Medici family. The doctrine of Neoplatonism holds that all existence consists of emanations from the one with whom the soul may be reunited (Webster). During the Renaissance this manner of art fused pagan and Christian themes while at the same time elevating estheticism as a deeply transcendental element of art. The Medici family appreciated Botticelli’s approval of Neoplatonism and as a result “they commissioned work from him, which in turn simultaneously increased his popularity as he helped to spread their favored philosophies. Having the favor of politically powerful people gave Botticelli a measure of freedom of expression that he might not have had otherwise” (Ball-Romney). While during the middle ages, the very idea of painting pagan gods or goddesses was considered scandalous as well as irreligious, in the early Renaissance time period of Botticelli, Neoplatonism, and all those who painted according to that style, prospered.

Modern viewers claim that Sandro Botticelli’s works La Primavera and The Birth of Venus epitomize the spirit of the Renaissance. “At the time Botticelli was painting, other artists were searching for a way to express humanity and the natural world through scientific knowledge especially in the areas of perspective and anatomy. Botticelli seems to have completely ignored this movement” (Ball-Romney) Rather, he focused instead on perfecting his skills with a brush and clinging closely to the confines of Neoplatonism in his art. It is suspected that Botticelli was not nearly as devoted to Neoplatonism as his efforts may suggest, but rather, that since his patron, the Medici family, was still devoted to this style and form of art, Botticelli insisted on remaining loyal to it as well. With help from the Medici family, Botticelli created many works containing references to non-Christian mythology and medieval courtly love, most notably La Primavera and The Birth of Venus. As these two paintings were completed, the Renaissance was epitomized with paint.

Commissioned by Lorenzo Di Medici between 1478 and 1485, La Primavera is one of history’s most highly exalted work of art because it has nourished innumerable interpretations of the composition as well as its references to the philosophy, literature and history of the time period itself. Though there is no signature on the 80 by 124 inch panel, records from the Medici household in the sixteenth century declare the painting to be a work of Sandro Botticelli. In this iconographic painting, nine life-sized, nearly naked images are portrayed. In the center of these nine is the goddess Venus who presents spring (primavera) and the pagan idea that she ushers in the season. In comparison to Medieval paintings where Christ and the Virgin Mary were represented all laudatory traits and virtues, in pagan art of the Renaissance, each individual character within the context of the work of art represents a unique and individual virtue or idea. “In the painting the leading figure is in fact Venus herself, the god of Love (as also indicated by the presence of Cupid), and hence an allegory of the virtuous intellectual activities that elevate man from the senses (Zephyrus- Chloris- Flora) through reason (the Graces) to contemplation (Mercury)” (Capretti). It is interesting to note that in the context of the painting itself, there are no shadows cast by any of the characters within the text of this work. This is a powerful action on Botticelli’s part to illustrate the wraith like spiritual quality of these pagan divinities. Furthermore, the grass beneath their dancing feet is neither trampled, nor are any of the flowers crushed. It is often said that these details are contextual errors on Botticelli’s part, however, art historians agree that instead of a dimensional mistake, these elements of La Primavera are intentional, and attest to the great amount of philosophical symbolism and intellectual composition which Botticelli combined with physical paint in order to produce his masterpieces.

Also commissioned by the Medici family in Florence, yet painted several years later, between the years 1482 and 1486, The Birth of Venus is a form of visual poetry, and it is the oldest large-scale painting on canvas to have been found in Tuscany. The painting again depicts the pagan goddess Venus, having emerged from the sea as a full grown woman, arriving at the sea-shore flanked by the Zephers, who are blowing her to shore, on her right and one of the Horae, goddesses of the seasons, who hands her a flowered cloak with which to cover herself. Despite the common title of this magnificent work, historian and scholar alike have stated that contrary to popular belief, the painting depicts the goddess arriving on the shores of Cyprus instead of her actual birth. “Like Botticelli’s other allegorical compositions, the Birth of Venus too has been the subject of numerous studies designed to discover the key for the correct interpretation of the painting” (Capretti). The most widely accepted philosophical interpretation of the symbolism beneath the paint of Botticelli’s work is that The Birth of Venus is a “representation of the superior virtue incarnated in the sublime beauty born of the union of spirit and matter, idea and nature, in line with the principles of the Neoplatonic philosophy” (Capretti). The scenery of the place on which Venus lands is sheltered by the fronds of the citrus trees that are one of the most famous and widely recognized symbols of the Medici family. Symbolically, the goddess of love thus gives birth to a new era in the land rendered peaceful and flourishing by the Medici.

When the Medici family lost its political potency in Florence after the death of Lorenzo the Magnificent, a religious figure by the name of Girolamo Savonarola ruled in their place from approximately 1494 to 1497. Savonarola was an Italian Dominican priest until his execution in 1498, and as a direct result of his changes to the political and religious power of the city, many of Botticelli's paintings no longer exist. Over the course of Savonarola’s short reign, he is best known for his Bonfire of the Vanities in 1497, in which anything that he deemed immoral and unnecessary was burned. During Savonarola’s rule, Botticelli appeared to have a change of heart about the Neoplatonism that he had earlier so espoused to his paintings and instead the evolution of his style began to include thicker and harsher elements that would better compliment his strict adherence to the prevailing doctrine of the new rule in Florence. Historians debate whether or not Botticelli’s actions during this time period were conducted merely out of self-preservation or if he truly became penitent. Nevertheless, when Savonarola issued the decree that all books, cosmetics, work of poets, games and artwork were to be burned in the center of Piazza della Signora in the heart of Florence, Botticelli was an active participant and filled the heap of vanities with many of his own precious paintings. The potency of having to burn his masterpieces so affected Botticelli, that he was never able to fully recover and his painting dated after the death of Savonarola cannot be compared to the illustrious compositions he produced during the reign of the Medicis that had so epitomized the spirit of the Renaissance.

The Renaissance liberated men from the narrow confines of medieval philosophy and opened the doors to a true expression of tangible reality and ancient mythology. Like Da Vinci and Michelangelo, Botticelli shall forever be remembered. For unlike the mediocre art of his already forgotten contemporaries, Botticelli epitomized the ideals of his generation by his use of underlying thought and philosophical plot in his grand expressions of tangible reality. Combining paint with ideas, Botticelli became more than just the poor son of a Tuscan tanner. Though he has been called, at times, whimsical, his level of depth and intelligence is symbolized in his canvases, expertly sheltered by shadow and light in the complex reality of his fresh compositions. Through his use of exquisite strokes, where lines pursue one another in slow-moving rhythms, Sandro Botticelli is, to this day, one of the most influential artists from the Renaissance period where Christian thought shifted to pagan subject. While both the Medicis and Neoplatonism have since passed into historical legend, the works of Alessandro di Mariano Filipepi continue to live on.

Works Cited

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Capretti, Elena. “Sandro Botticelli, Primavera.” Mediateca di Palazzo Medici Riccardi. 2007. Provincia di Firenze. 05 December 2009 < style="mso-tab-count: 1"> medici.it/mediateca/en/schede.php?id_scheda=78>

Hayes, Rebecca. “Sandro Botticelli: Famous Artist for the Medici.”Associated Content News. 14 April 2005. AssociatedContent.com. 05 December 2009.<http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/1353/sandro_botticelli_famous_ artist_for_pg2_pg2.html?cat=2>

Lightbown, Ronald W. “The Early Renaissance: Botticelli.” From Paleolithic Age to Contemporary Art. 25 November 2009. World History of Art. 05 December 2009.< http://www.all-art.org/early_renaissance/botticelli16a.html>

“Bonfire of the Vanities.”Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. July 2008. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. 05 December. 2009. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonfire_of_the_Vanities>.

"Neoplatonism." Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary. 2009.Merriam-Webster Online. 8 December 2009