the botticelli renaissance

Botticelli, Sandro,The Birth of Venus (detail), c. 1485, Tempera on canvas, Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence

The Botticelli Renaissance

Botticelli, Sandro,The Birth of Venus (detail), c. 1485, Tempera on canvas, Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence

Botticelli, Sandro,The Birth of Venus, c. 1485, Tempera on canvas, Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence

Botticelli, Sandro, Primavera (detail), c. 1482, Tempera on panel, Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence

Botticelli, Sandro, Primavera, c. 1482, Tempera on panel, Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence

Botticelli, Sandro, Venus and Mars (detail), c. 1483, Tempera on wood, National Gallery, London

Botticelli, Sandro, Venus and Mars, c. 1483, Tempera on wood, National Gallery, London

The Botticelli Renaissance

Gemäldegalerie, Staatliche Museen, Berlin

Botticelli,

more than almost any other Old Master, inspired and continues to

inspire modern and contemporary art….

This study in profile was discovered in the Palazzo Medici in Florence. The subject was taken to be Simonetta Vespucci (1453-1476), a beauty well known in the city at the time. With the identity of the person established, the picture became very famous. Fashion and advertising have ensured a lasting comeback for this Botticelli Girl. As a direct result of it the painter has become an integral part of an omnipresent pop culture.

Botticelli, Sandro, Portrait of a Young Woman, 1475, Staatliche Museen, Berlin

A young woman touches her naked breast, from which a jet of milk spurts representing Charity or Abundance. Lack of clarity on the meaning behind the painting to this day leaves viewers at a loss and has inspired modern artists such as Cindy Sherman.

Sandro Botticelli: Allegoric Portrait, 1480. Human Bios GmbH

In her History Portraits series the artist Cindy Sherman displays her interest in Old Masters as constructs of reality. Here she re-creates these constructs in large-format photographs, working with a playful relish peppered with grotesque insights into her own methods.

Cindy Sherman: History Portraits. Untitled #225, 1990, Metro Pictures

This picture of the Madonna flanked by the two Saint Johns was commissioned by the Bardi family for an altar in Santo Spirito Church in Florence. From there it was transferred in 1829, as a purchased work, to the new Berlin Gemäldegalerie (Old Master Paintings).

Sandro Botticelli: Bardi-Altar, 1484, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Maurice Denis: The child with the blue pants, 1897, ADAGP – RMN-Grand Palais (Musée d'Orsay

In the background of this painting by the symbolist painter Maurice Denis a reproduction can be seen of Botticelli’s "Madonna and Child with the young John the Baptist" from the Louvre. Denis uses this reference consciously to add an intensely religious connotation to this portrait of his wife and daughter.

Depicted here is Giuliano de’ Medici (1453-1478), who was killed by conspirators in April 1478. The work was instrumental in establishing Botticelli as a pro-Medici artist. This view of Botticelli continues to dominate interpretations of works by him that had no link to the Medicis.

Sandro Botticelli: Guiliano de' Medici, 1478, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Botticelli also gave significant impetus to the pictorial genre “Portrait”, which was still a young genre in the 15th century. This chest portrait of a young man in a fur-trimmed waistcoat and red cap is counted among his literally appealing works, and, in 1921 for example, swept the art historian Berenson away into veritable storms of enthusiasm.

Botticelli, Sandro, Portrait of a Young Man, 1482-83, National Gallery of Art, Washington

A young lady, simply but elegantly attired, is seated at a café table, one arm over the back of the chair and hands folded in her lap. In a brown study, she looks past the viewer, as if waiting for something. Antonio Donghi (1897-1963), an exponent of Magic Realism, uses aspects of posture and composition often encountered in the work of Botticelli and his contemporaries – the slightly deflected torso in the middle ground, the full-frontal pose, the use of large areas of colour and the inclusion of part of a framed interior in the background.

Antonio Donghi: Woman at the café, 1932, 2015 Archivio Fotografico - Fondazione Musei Civici di Venezia

This video piece by New York artist Michael Joaquin Grey (b. 1961) is entitled "Between Simonetta" and was produced in 2011. It explores the theme of feminine beauty, central to an appreciation of Botticelli. A famous female study by Botticelli, the work known as Simonetta, is subjected to a process of continuous transmutation until it is so different from the original that the profile diverges from the idealistic form and takes on aspects of caricature.

Michael Joaquin Grey: Between Simonetta, 2011, Michael Joaquin Grey

The poet and painter Rossetti developed the depiction of a sensitive female type, heavily influenced by Botticelli’s Madonnas and portraiture. He himself owned an important work by the Renaissance master – "Portrait of a Lady known as Smeralda Bandinelli" (today in the Victoria & Albert Museum, London).

Dante Gabriel Rossetti: The Daydream, 1880, Victoria and Albert Museum, London

In developing his own ideas, the surrealist René Magritte (1898-1967) used a number of Botticelli’s works, here the goddess Flora from Botticelli’s "Allegory of Spring" (Uffizi, Florence). Flora is superimposed on a male figure, who is looking at a springtime wood.

Dante Gabriel Rossetti: The Daydream, 1880, Victoria and Albert Museum, London

Like Botticelli’s Venus, the foam-born goddess of love depicted by French salon painter William Bouguereau also appears in classical contrapposto on a seashell. But in contrast to the 15th century model, she is not covering her genitals, but lifting her arms to arrange her long hair and thus reveals her body for viewing.

William Bouguereau: Birth of Venus, 1879. Musée d'Orsay, Paris.

This Botticelli Venus harks back to the famous Birth of Venus at the Uffizi in Florence. Even before Botticelli’s death the "Birth of Venus" had achieved such prominent status that the principal character was taken out of the group and rendered on its own as a separate picture. Many Florentine palazzi in the Renaissance featured similar Venus images. Botticelli’s figure was to become one of the most celebrated motifs in the history of art.

Sandro Botticelli: Venus, 1490, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Edgar Degas: Drawing after Botticelli's "Birth of Venus", 1859, K. Feilchenfeldt

Degas sketched Botticelli’s Venus during visits to the Uffizi Gallery with his artist friend Gustav Moreau in 1858 and 1859. . It is a little-known fact that Degas, who was later to be seen as an Impressionist painter, was fascinated early on in his career by the quality of Botticelli’s linearity.

Yin Xin: Venus, after Botticelli, 2008 © Yin Xin

The Chinese Yin Xin (b. 1959) addresses the traditions of Western art. He references famous old-master paintings, producing his own Asian-tinted interpretations. Protagonists and settings appear strangely familiar, yet foreign, as in this painting based on Botticelli’s famous Venus.

Yin Xin: Venus, after Botticelli, 2008 © Yin Xin

Gustave Moreau: Copy after Botticelli's "Birth of Venus", 1859, Réunion des musées nationaux

"The Birth of Venus" is not merely Botticelli’s best-known work; it is also an iconic work in the history of European art. All the more surprising, then, that the painting, which went on show to the general public for the first time in 1815, did not begin its gradual rise in popularity until the mid 19th century. Visiting the Uffizi with Degas, Gustave Moreau was so struck by the work that he produced a number of drawings, both of the painting as a whole and of individual figures, including this coloured sketch.

In her digital print, Japanese artist Tomoko Nagao (b. 1976, resident in Milan) has transposed Botticelli’s Birth of Venus into a world of material things endlessly promoted by the advertising industry and added an alienation aspect through references to computer games. In her picture, Venus emerges not from a seashell, as Botticelli has her doing, but from a portable gaming console surrounded by consumer brands such as EasyJet and Barila.

Tomoko Nagao: Botticelli - The Birth of Venus with Baci, Esselunga, Barilla, PSP and EasyJet, 2012 , Tomoko Nagao

Andy Warhol (1928-1987) was instrumental in establishing Botticelli’s status and posthumous fame as a universally renowned Renaissance painter. Warhol employed the Venus figure – albeit only her head, as a fragment - in gaudy pop-art paintings and silkscreen prints. The pop versions appear flat and somewhat decorative, but this echoes aspects of Botticelli’s own work, since the master also used clearly outlined fields of brilliant colour. And it is precisely this use of the outline that accounts for the decorative effect in Botticelli’s work.

Andy Warhol: Details of Renaissance Paintings (Sandro Botticelli, Birth of Venus, 1482), 1984Collection of The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh

David Lachapelle, Rape of Africa, detail, 2009, Chromogenic print

The Rape of Africa, Venus is the black model Naomi Campbell and Mars is the white model Caleb Lane. As Africa, Venus is not triumphant but resigned, calloused in her stillness. Unlike Botticelli's Venus, Naomi Campbell is only half dressed, with her legs and right breast revealed and what remains of her torn dress transparent. Far from seeming depleted or vanquished, to borrow from Wiggins, Caleb Lane as Mars rests casually and carefree, with one finger placed pointedly on the tip of an upright golden bone. Surrounding Mars, three black boys, impossible to read as anything but child soldiers, play with weapons and armor

David Lachapelle, Rape of Africa, 2009, Chromogenic print

David LaChapelle, Rebirth of Venus, 2009, David LaChapelle Studio

The US photographer and director David LaChapelle (b. 1963) often borrows motifs from an earlier age for his vibrantly coloured photographs, a number of which draw on works by Botticelli. This 2009 piece, the "Rebirth of Venus", illustrates how Botticelli’s famous picture in the Uffizi has acquired the status of pop art.

cast The Botticelli Renaissance

images and text credit www. Music wav. created olga.e.

thanks for watching

David LaChapelle, Rebirth of Venus, detail, 2009, David LaChapelle Studio

the botticelli renaissance

Art & Photos