Sandro Botticelli
Florence’s most poetic painter.
Botticelli worked for the Medici family and painted both Christian subjects and classical myths. His lines are elegant and his figures seem almost to float.
Sandro Botticelli’s real name was Alessandro di Mariano Filipepi, and he was born in Florence around 1445. The nickname means “little barrel” and seems originally to have referred to an older brother. He was apprenticed to the painter Filippo Lippi, whose elegant lines and gentle Madonnas can be seen in his early works. By around 1470 he had his own workshop.
He received commissions early on from the Medici family and their circle. In The Adoration of the Magi in the Uffizi he has placed members of the Medici family among the Magi and probably himself at the edge of the picture. In 1481–82 he was one of the painters summoned to Rome to decorate the walls of the Sistine Chapel. His most famous works are two large mythological pictures, Primavera, around 1480, and The Birth of Venus, around 1485. Both hang in the Uffizi.
These pictures were something new. Classical goddesses on a large scale, almost on a par with religious subjects, were unusual. They reflect the philosophical ideas about beauty and love discussed in the Medici circle, but exactly how they should be interpreted is debated. Botticelli’s style is built on line. The contours are soft and flowing, hair and drapery flutter and the figures seem almost to float. He cared less about space and anatomy than about rhythm and elegance.
In the 1490s Florence was shaken by the preacher Savonarola, who condemned luxury and pagan images. Botticelli’s late works are more serious and intense, such as The Mystic Nativity in London from around 1500. How close he was to Savonarola, however, is uncertain. He also made a large number of drawings for Dante’s Divine Comedy. He never married and died in 1510.
During the 16th century he fell into the shadow of Leonardo and Michelangelo and was almost forgotten. In the 19th century he was rediscovered by English artists and critics, and today The Birth of Venus is among the most famous pictures in the world.