How influential was the Florentine Italian Renaissance on the art of Botticelli.
In my related study, I am going to be looking further into the Florentine Italian Renaissance through the works of Botticelli. I have previously studied Botticelli within my practical response, analysing many paintings such as the “Birth of Venus” and “Primavera”. In this essay I intend to look at Botticelli further, along with other artists of a similar kind. I have previously created an exhibition room in which I placed the Botticelli paintings on the walls, along with many other symbolism paintings.
Botticelli’s real name was Alessandro di Mariano di Vanni Filipepi. His self portrait is presented to the right. He was an early Renaissance painter of Italy. As well as the small number of mythological subjects, which are his best known works as of today, he painted a wide range of religious subjects and also some portraits. Botticelli's best-known works are The Birth of Venus and Primavera, which I have previously studied within my practical response, both presented below; Primavera to the left, The Birth of Venus to the right, which are both in the Uffizi in Florence. He lived all his life in the same neighbourhood of Florence, with his only significant time elsewhere, the months he spent painting in Pisa in 1474 and the Sistine Chapel in Rome in 1481. Botticelli has been described as "an outsider in the mainstream of Italian painting", who also had an interest in many of the developments most associated with Quattrocento (14th century art—Italian for four hundred) paintings, such as the realistic depiction of human anatomy, perspective, and landscape, all of these being referenced previously, and the use of direct borrowings from classical art. His training enabled him to represent all these aspects of painting.
What was the Italian Renaissance in terms of artwork and Botticelli?
Botticelli was a well known artist of the Italian Renaissance period. Towards the end of the 14th century, a large number of Italian thinkers declared that they were living in a new age of art. The middle ages were over, they explained that the new ages would be considered a ‘re-birth’. This was the birth of the period known as the Renaissance, (which is another word for rebirth). Many art, scientific and cultural elements share common themes with todays culture. This period heavily influenced the work of Botticelli; in this essay I will be explaining how. During the Italian Renaissance, art was everywhere. No other artistic movement has contributed more to development of art as a whole. The Italian Renaissance had a large impact on many styles of artwork, including artists such as Botticelli. The period followed a great interest In the classical learning and values of ancient Greece and Rome. This great new revolution in art opened the eyes of people to new artist techniques.
Techniques within the Italian Renaissance period. During the Renaissance, the great interest into Rome and Greece lead to an explosion in knowledge about the human form within art as well as innovations in maths and science. Also during the renaissance, beauty within art became connected to morality, and it became widespread. This can be seen in Botticelli’s The Birth of Venus, which I will later discuss, the nude human form, linear perspective and atmospheric perspective. The artists themselves were elevated in social status. Because of this their creations of work were not ‘crafts’ but miraculous creations that were divinely inspired. Sandro Botticelli arises as a dominant artist during this period.
In Florence, Botticelli’s most famous work, The Birth of Venus’ shows the Goddess rising up from the sea on a conch shell. Including many of the elements of beauty within art and the nude human, using the features of Italian Renaissance art.
Botticelli’s The Birth of Venus was revolutionary for this time period, being the first large scale Renaissance painting with a mythological subject. Admiration for antiquity—ancient Greek and Roman civilisation were a large feature of the Renaissance, and it was an interest that was shared by many artists of the same time period. The Birth of Venus transfers us into a world of dreams and poetry. Venus, in the centre, is flanked by the West Wind and an attendant Hour. The elongated figures float against a simple flat background as though they are paper. As I previously mentioned, The Birth of Venus includes nude form and beauty, which in the Italian Renaissance, is related to modesty. Here, you can see Venus covering her nude body in ‘modesty’ using her hair. She is also portrayed as ‘beauty’ with her long flowing gold locks and perfectly painted symmetrical face.
Primavera is another one of Botticelli’s pieces of work influenced by the Italian Renaissance. The Primavera, the title of which means “Spring�, is among the greatest works at the Uffizi Museum in Florence. While the exact meaning of the painting eludes us, we do know the identities of many of the figures who are shown in it. In the centre is the Roman goddess, Venus (I have previously mentioned how Botticelli incorporates her beauty and modesty into his paintings). Her presence is a reflection of the humanist interest in the classical world which was popular in Florence at this time. She is depicted as an idealized woman, slightly off-centre, with her head tilted and gesturing to her right. Above her is a blindfolded cupid (her son), and behind him the tree limbs form an arch which conveniently frame Venus and provide her with a privileged position in the painting. http://www.italianrenaissance.org/a-closer-look-botticellis-primavera/
Italian Renaissance— Florence 1400 Botticelli spent most of his life in his native Florence. Florence is above all a city of art, and the birth place of artists such as Botticelli himself. Florence in the 1400’s was a city of revival, not just economically, but culturally too. It was essentially Florence that gave life to new impulses of reviewing art, such as Botticelli’s which will be the base of the Renaissance. Florentine Renaissance had many characteristics, such as: -Humanism, which is a stance that emphasises the value of human beings, both individually and collectively, genuinely favouring critical thinking over traditional faith. Botticelli could play an infinite numbers of variations. He was Filippo Lippi’s best pupil (which I will be referring to later) and by comparing his earlier work, it is clear that his master could easily see, with slight alternations of emphasis, naïve prose can become sophisticated poetry. In other words, Botticelli’s temperament was a complex one. Botticelli basically belongs to Gothic art , the lyrical side of Italian painting. Botticelli’s virgins like those in Primavera have an unhealthy, complicated wistfulness, and when he was persuaded to illustrate pagan themes, his Venus, his Mercury, his three Graces all had the same refined sadness as his virgins. -The Laws of Perspective was also a major characteristic. The term “perspective” or “linear perspective” is an attempt to represent a three dimensional object or scene in a two dimensional surface like paper. The artists tries to display the image as if it is seen in person. The perspective in the painting is what gives it its depth. Before the Renaissance, painters had not understood the geometry involved in perspective. Botticelli also imbedded this into his work. Within the next pages, I will be analysing a painting created in this style, which Botticelli took inspiration from.
Example of Florentine Renaissance Artwork. https://www.wga.hu/html_m/p/piero/3/04flage1.html
The Flagellation—Piero Della Francesca Piero Della Francesca illustrates a particular type of inspiration Botticelli incorporated within his work in terms of perspective. Perspective was inspired by his belief in the perfect geometry underlying God’s creation. He devoted much of his life to study this. Within his art, the mathematical genius can be seen in his perspective frequency. The Flagellation, the architectural proportions and dimensions have symbolic undertones, which altogether use light, reflecting the divine order of things. Botticelli incorporated these factors within his own artwork. The eight figures in this painting are intimately related to their architectural surroundings. Their number—eight is deliberately echoed throughout the composition: in the large terra-cotta squares which are eight tiles deep and eight tiles wide and in the eight pointed star on the pavement just behind and in front of Christ. In the Christian symbolism, the number eight can allude to Christ’s resurrection.
The perspective of Piero’s architectural setting is so logical and precise that individuals have been able to reconstruct the room as if it were real architecture. Below is the example of the room from above. The light within the painting is manipulated to the extent that a mysterious secondary source has been discovered. The light seems to have a supernatural significance, it is positioned directly in the line of Christ’s gaze, and it has no possible natural source in the scene depicted. Botticelli used similar techniques to these to ensure his work looked as professional as the Florentine Renaissance pieces. This is where Piero has incorporated Laws of Perspective into his artwork, in which Botticelli took inspiration from.
Botticelli—Venus and Mars.—Florentine Renaissance Mars, the God of War, was one of the many lovers of Venus, the Goddess of Love. Here, Mars is portrayed to be asleep and is unarmed, meanwhile Venus is awake and alert. The meaning of the picture is that love conquers war, also love conquers all. The wide format of this painting suggests that it was created for a wedding, and was to be hung possibly on a bedroom wall. This painting also includes all the main aspects of Florentine Renaissance art, mostly the Laws of Perspective. Botticelli had learned these techniques previously from his teacher, Filippo Lippi, then further developed the skills when Lippi left Florence. Botticelli also took into account other artists work of the same period, as shown previously. The use of geometry was incorporated once again to show depth and three dimensions within the painting. This illusion has been created by Botticelli situating the characters to the front of the frame of work. The landscape, which is dusky and almost blurred, gives the illusion of a three dimensional distance within the two dimensional painting. The Florentine Renaissance impacted Botticelli’s work in this way, enabling it to be more professional and sophisticated with the use of dimensions.
Alongside this, it is also evident how the later Florence Renaissance influenced Botticelli’s work. After losing his teacher Fillippo Lippi, Botticelli worked further to develop his devoted artist skills. His work changed and improved drastically. After Lippi left Florence, Botticelli worked to improve the soft, frail figural style he had learned from his teacher Lippi. He studied the sculptural style of Antonio Pollaiuolo and Andrea del Verrocchio, the popular leading Florentine painters of the 1460s, and under their influence Botticelli produced figures of sculptural roundness and strength developing what he had learned from Lippi further. He also replaced Lippi’s delicate approach with a robust and vigorous naturalism, shaped always by conceptions of ideal beauty. Already by 1470 Botticelli was established in Florence as becoming an independent master with his own workshop. Absorbed in his art, he never married, and he lived with his family. Around 1478–81 Botticelli entered his artistic maturity. All tentativeness in his work disappeared and was replaced by mastery. He was able to integrate figure and setting into harmonious compositions and to draw the human form with a compelling vitality. This reflects in his work Annunciation, also within his painting, Venus and Mars. https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/artists/sandro-botticelli
Botticelli’s Early Life The Italian painter Botticelli was one of the major artists in Florence during the Renaissance.
Sandro Botticelli was born in 1445 in Florence. However, details about Botticelli’s early life are limited. His career began early at age 14. Such delicate expressions on the faces of Botticelli's models in addition to his decorative approach led to his growing notoriety as an artist.
Botticelli's rising talent meant that by the age of 15 he was able to open a workshop of his own. Such a development of talent led to a distinctive artistic style. In the year 1460 Botticelli began his training with Fra Filippo Lippi (who I will be referring to later on), being one of the greatest painters of the Renaissance.
Filippo Lippi and the development of Botticelli (perspective). Before Botticelli’s career began in Rome, he was apprenticed to Fra Filippo Lippi who was one of the best Florentine painters of that day. Lippi gave Botticelli solid training of the Florentine style of painting. Botticelli's paintings avoided technical short-cuts throughout his life, and when well treated they have survived in good condition for their age. Elements in style and compositions that are reminiscent of Lippi also continue to appear throughout his career. Overall, Botticelli learned the bases of hi abilities from Lippi. However, he decided to leave him in 1467, then a few years later, in 1469 Filippo Lippi died. Most likely a few years earlier than this, when Botticelli left Lippi, he opened his own artistic workshop based on the undoubted influence that the Florentine period and Lippi had on his style of work. Influenced also by the monumentality of Masaccio's painting, it was from Lippi that Botticelli learned a more intimate and detailed manner. Even at this early date, his work was characterized by a conception of the figure as if seen in low relief, drawn with clear contours, and minimizing strong contrasts of light and shadow which would indicate fully modelled forms. This is evident in Botticelli’s The Birth of Venus. Lippi's synthesis of the new control of three-dimensional forms, tender expressiveness in face and gesture, and decorative details inherited from the late Gothic style were the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandro_Botticelli strongest influences on
Botticelli— Annunciation 1482– 1488
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Cestello_Annunciation
The Cestello Annunciation, is a painting in tempera on panel made in 1489 for the church of the Florentine monastery of Cestello. The meaning of the painting is the Annunciation, in which the angel Gabriel shown to the left, visits the Virgin Mary, to the right, to 'announce' to her. She has been chosen by God to bear the Christ child that should she accept this invitation. This painting was originally composed by Lippi, Botticelli’s teacher. Botticelli made appropriate improvements. The subject of the Annunciation is common in Christian art and has been depicted within many artists, in multiple formats, and in different time periods throughout history. Botticelli’s Annunciation shows features such as ‘The Laws of Perspective’ this meaning that Botticelli has managed to represent a three dimensional model of the environment in which he was constructing in his painting. This can be seen within the shadows that he has used, giving depth to the room. Also, the effect of the room narrowing in size makes the room look quite deep, due to this the angel looks as if it is in the middle of the room. This technique is what has given the painting its overall depth. Thus conveying that Botticelli had talented geometric skills, which he had acquired after Lippi left Florence. The technique of Humanism has also been used within this painting, this is the emphasis of human beings, Botticelli has enabled this to happen by giving Mary the same pose and position as the angel Gabriel, making them both look equal within the painting.
Botticelli’s mythological pieces of work. The period from 1478-90 saw Botticelli at his most creative state. This was the period during which he produced his famous mythological works, such as 'The Birth of Venus' (in the Uffizi, Florence) and 'Venus and Mars'. In these he successfully combined a decorative use of line with elements of the classical tradition, seen in the harmony of his composition and the supple contours of his figures. https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/artists/sandro-botticelli
Botticelli became very popular and well known for his mythological paintings. From spending time with people, such as the Medici family. Botticelli found classical poetry and was inspired to paint mythological art with hidden symbols related to it, hidden symbols within paintings being the main element I have previously studied in my practical response. The “Birth of Venus”, as referenced above, which mythology and symbolism are both featured. Venus – the Goddess of beauty and love in Greek mythology stands in the centre of this painting. Botticelli’s composition is not concerned with space, he focuses solely on divine beauty. The emphasis is on Venus and what she represents.
Botticelli’s link with Medici—The adoration of the Magi.
Only five years older than Lorenzo Medici, Botticelli had a name for himself under the apprenticeship of Filippo Lippi, an infamous Medici artist. Such intimacy with the most powerful family in Florence was critical to Botticelli’s career, the Medici family fell over themselves to keep Botticelli busy, for example, Botticelli’s Adoration of the Magi. With such sophisticated understanding of his friend’s ideas, Botticelli had successfully developed his own form of visual poetry, compact with symbolism and private jokes. This can be seen within The Birth Of Venus. Although Botticelli remained close to Lorenzo and the Medici family, his own brother had become a discipline of Savonarola. After Lorenzo’s death, Botticelli swept along by religious fervor. His later paintings, such as the “Lamentation over the dead Christ” reflected the apocalyptic themes of Savonarola. Botticelli, fearing his own everlasting salvation, went even so far as to hurl some of his own paintings onto the Bonfires of the Vanities. No one will ever know what masterpieces of the Renaissance may have been lost forever due to such zealous fundamentalism. www.pbs.org/empires/medici/renaissance/botticelli.html
To conclude, Botticelli’s overall artistic style and life was massively impacted by other artists within the Florentine Italian Renaissance, including Filippo Lippi and the Medici family. Botticelli’s artwork improved significantly and became sophisticated through the techniques of Linear perspective, making his paintings more professionally geometrical, with humanism, in which he incorporated great beauty into his characters, e.g. Venus, showing her beauty along with modesty. Botticelli’s influence can be seen visually within both Primevera and The Birth of Venus.
Bibliography—Websites https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandro_Botticelli http://www.history.com/topics/renaissance-art https://www.wga.hu/html_m/p/piero/3/04flage1.html
https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/sandro-botticellivenus-and-mars https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filippo_Lippi https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/artists/sandro-botticelli http://www.sparknotes.com/history/european/renaissance1/ section2/ http://viticodevagamundo.blogspot.co.uk/2010/11/anunciacaoannunciation.html https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cestello_Annunciation www.pbs.org/empires/medici/renaissance/botticelli.html