A Visual Analysis on Botticelli’s Primavera (left) and Birth of Venus (right) During Early-Renaissance, Florence was dominated by the Medici family. Nobles hired artists to paint for them and exerted their power through paintings. Compared with the artists of earlier age, the artists of Early Renaissance, influenced by Neo-Platonic worldview, started to use a more mathematical and realistic method to present subject matters in their artworks. Many influential artists of the time, including Brunelleschi and Donatello, imitated the nature more precisely than those had done before, by using one-point perspective and depicting figures in real size—the true spirit of Naturalism. Facing these challenges established by his predecessors, Sandro Botticelli, a Florentine painter, intended to make something different and elevated. Compared with other artists of the time, he depicted his subject matters more idealistically. As a humanistic artist, he transformed Naturalism into a more idealized form, by using blurred colors, dynamic positions, and poetic effects. He focused more on the “beauty” itself than his contemporaries did. From my perspective, this is the elevation of artists—they transformed from mere craftsmen, who helped nobles seek power through paintings, to real philosophers and intellectuals.
The two paintings by Botticelli, the Primavera and the Birth of Venus, were commissioned by Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco de’Medici, the second cousin of Lorenzo the Magnificent[1]. Both paintings were hung above a couch outside the wedding chamber in Lorenzo’s residence and were seen as wedding paintings that suggest appropriate behaviors of the bride and the groom[2]. The central figure of the two paintings, Venus, is the goddess of love, fertility, and desire. She connects divine love with secular love, embodying elevated meanings for the Medici’s marriage. Both paintings, styled in a feminist way with blurred colors and floral patterns, served as visual tools to teach the bride how to behave in a marriage. In the following paragraphs, I will focus on how visual details of these two paintings reflect their central theme—marriage and love. Then I will explain how Botticelli demonstrated them in a more idealistic way than other Early-Renaissance painters had ever done. The Primavera was painted to commemorate Lorenzo’s wedding which took place in the spring (month of May) of 1482. “Primavera” itself means springtime in Italian[3], and the painting depicts a dance in a garden which serves as a staging platform for love. The background of the painting, decorated by orange trees and flowers, symbolizes fertility, and its delicacy demonstrates the painter’s efforts invested into this artwork. In the center of the painting, Venus, who is fully clothed but veiled, looks as if she is pregnant. As the goddess of love and marriage, she represents the wife of Lorenzo, and that her image is depicted by Venus indicates the power of the Medici family at the time. On the very left of Primavera (our right), the wind god, Zephyr, representing the divine power of love, sweeps down and grabs the almost naked forest nymph Chloris, in a moment when Chloris will be raped. This rape scene signifies the bride’s absolute submission to the groom[4]. After being raped, Chloris transfers to Flora who, in Roman mythology, is as much a goddess of fertility as she is of flowers. On the right side of Primavera (our left), three graces who represent the qualities in the bride that inspire the groom’s love are Beauty, Chastity, and Voluptas ( who represents carnal delectation of sex)[5]. The Cupid above Venus is aiming his arrow at Chastity, indicating that the bride is about to lose her virginity. Behind the three graces stands a handsome and masculine man trying to reach the orange above him. He is an idealized portrait of Lorenzo de’Medici. Lorenzo’s appearance in the painting, as in the case of depicting the wife as Venus, shows the Medici’s power of the time. In the Primavera, Botticelli depicts classical Christian figures to express the theme of love and marriage for the Medici family in Renaissance Florence, combining classical themes with contemporary humanism. The Birth of Venus, which was painted several years after the wedding, derives its characters from the Primavera. Using the same floral decoration as background, this painting depicts the birth of Venus who is just coming out of water. Although the original idea of the Birth of Venus remains in question, one possibility is that it was painted after the wife had already given birth, because the Venus, radically naked and standing on a shell, gives people a feeling of new-born. Her beautiful body is not strictly contrapposto, but is more flexible, giving the viewer a feeling of sensual and erotic beauty. Likewise, other figures in this painting also evolve from the original ones in the Primavera. On the right of Birth of Venus (our left), Zephyrs and Chloris, who originally appear in the rape scene in the Primavera, now intertwine together, implying that the husband and the wife have already united. Floral, on the left side of the painting (our right), is no longer the static figure representing fertility, but becomes the attendant who is going to wrap the body of Venus. In this Renaissance painting, Botticelli did not depict classical figures in a classical context; however, as he did in the Primavera, he associated divine love with secular love, depicting Christian figures in a more humanistic theme. Just as other artists of the time, Botticelli portrayed classical figures in his paintings to help the Medici family exert their power. However, his style of painting is less realistic than those of other Naturalist artists who depicted nature precisely. All of the figures in Botticelli’s painting are dynamic. He focused on their movements and revealed their psychological characters. In the Primavera, the Venus seems a little sad to me because she is about to get married, and marriage has never been a simple thing for a woman, especially for women of the time when they did not have a high status in family. On the other hand, the Venus in the Birth of Venus looks more serene, because after giving birth, she has the peaceful expression of a mother. Botticelli’s idealized Naturalism can also be seen from the structure and the background of his paintings. For example, the Primavera can be read as a poem from (our) right to left[6], and four people are in a group with the last person, the Venus and the image of Lorenzo, as the final line of the verse. This poetic characteristic of the Primavera reveals the beauty of Botticelli’s paintings, which is idealistic instead of mathematical and realistic. On the other hand, in the Birth of Venus, all the figures are flowing on the bluish background where the sky and the water seem to melt together. Even though he did not use the atmospheric perspective invented by Leonardo da Vinci, this blurred background still shows his idealistic style of Renaissance naturalist paintings. As a humanist, Botticelli depicted beauty in a more idealistic and dynamic way than other artists of the time. He elevated the idea of an artist, initiating the transformation of artists from mere craftsmen to real philosophers and intellectuals who create beauty in their own forms. The Primavera and the Birth of Venus show these characteristics in their visual details and structures. Both of the two paintings by Botticelli not only fascinated people of the time when the paintings commissioned, but also make nowadays audience like us enthralled by their stylish accomplishments aesthetic meaning. References: [1]Kettlewell, James. Rethinking Classic Themes in Art History. http://www.jameskettlewell.com/botticelli.html. [2]Zirpolo, Lilian. Botticelli’s Primavera: A Lesson for the Bride. New York: Icon Editions, 1992. [3]Kettlewell, James. Rethinking Classic Themes in Art History. http://www.jameskettlewell.com/botticelli.html. [4]Zirpolo, Lilian. Botticelli’s Primavera: A Lesson for the Bride. New York: Icon Editions, 1992. [5] Zirpolo, Lilian. Botticelli’s Primavera: A Lesson for the Bride. New York: Icon Editions, 1992. [6]Kettlewell, James. Rethinking Classic Themes in Art History. http://www.jameskettlewell.com/botticelli.html. |
AuthorLayne |