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Primavera (Botticelli)

Primavera (Italian pronunciation: [primaˈvɛːra], meaning "Spring"), is a large panel painting in tempera paint by the Italian Renaissance painter Sandro Botticelli made in the late 1470s or early 1480s (datings vary). It has been described as "one of the most written about, and most controversial paintings in the world",[1] and also "one of the most popular paintings in Western art".[2]

Primavera
ArtistSandro Botticelli
Yearlate 1470s or early 1480s
MediumTempera on panel
Dimensions202 cm × 314 cm (80 in × 124 in)
LocationUffizi, Florence

The painting depicts a group of figures from classical mythology in a garden, but no story has been found that brings this particular group together.[3] Most critics agree that the painting is an allegory based on the lush growth of Spring, but accounts of any precise meaning vary, though many involve the Renaissance Neoplatonism which then fascinated intellectual circles in Florence. The subject was first described as Primavera by the art historian Giorgio Vasari who saw it at Villa Castello, just outside Florence, by 1550.[4]

Although the two are now known not to be a pair, the painting is inevitably discussed with Botticelli's other very large mythological painting, The Birth of Venus, also in the Uffizi. They are among the most famous paintings in the world, and icons of the Italian Renaissance; of the two, the Birth is even better known than the Primavera.[5] As depictions of subjects from classical mythology on a very large scale, they were virtually unprecedented in Western art since classical antiquity.[6]

The history of the painting is not certainly known; it may have been commissioned by one of the Medici family, but the certainty of its commission is unknown. It draws from a number of classical and Renaissance literary sources, including the works of the Ancient Roman poet Ovid and, less certainly, Lucretius, and may also allude to a poem by Poliziano, the Medici house poet who may have helped Botticelli devise the composition. Since 1919 the painting has been part of the collection of the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, Italy.

Composition edit

 
Venus standing in her arch.

The painting features six female figures and two male, along with a cupid, in an orange grove. The movement of the composition is from right to left, so following that direction the standard identification of the figures is as follows: At the far right, "Zephyrus, the biting wind of March, kidnaps and possesses the nymph Chloris, whom he later marries and transforms into a deity; she becomes the goddess of Spring, eternal bearer of life, and is seen scattering roses on the ground."[7] The transformation is indicated by the flowers coming out of Chloris’s mouth [8]

In the centre (but not exactly so) and somewhat set back from the other figures, stands Venus, a red-draped woman in blue. Like the flower-gatherer, she returns the viewer's gaze. The trees behind her form a broken arch to draw the eye. In the air above her, a blindfolded Cupid aims his bow to the left.[9] On the left of the painting, the Three Graces, a group of three females also in diaphanous white, join hands in a dance. At the extreme left Mercury, clothed in red with a sword and a helmet, raises his caduceus or wooden rod towards some wispy gray clouds.[10]

The interactions between the figures are enigmatic. Zephyrus and Chloris are looking at each other. Flora and Venus look out at the viewer, the Cupid is blindfolded, and Mercury has turned his back on the others, and looks up at the clouds. The central Grace looks towards him, while the other two seem to look at each other. Flora's smile was very unusual in painting at this date.[11]

The pastoral scenery is elaborate. There are 500 identified plant species depicted in the painting, with about 190 different flowers,[12] of which at least 130 can be specifically identified.[1] The overall appearance, and size, of the painting is similar to that of the millefleur ("thousand flower") Flemish tapestries that were popular decorations for palaces at the time.[13]

These tapestries had not caught up by the 1480s with the artistic developments of the Italian Renaissance, and the composition of the painting has aspects that belong to this still Gothic style. The figures are spread in a rough line across the front of the picture space, "set side by side like pearls on a string".[14] It is now known that in the setting for which the painting was designed, the bottom was about at eye level, or slightly above it, partly explaining "the gently rising plane" on which the figures stand.[15]

The feet of Venus are considerably higher than those of the others, showing she is behind them, but she is at the same scale, if not larger, than the other figures. Overlapping of other figures by Mercury's sword and Chloris' hands shows that they stand slightly in front of the left Grace and Flora, respectively, which might not be obvious otherwise, for example from their feet. It has been argued that the flowers do not grow smaller to the rear of the picture space, certainly a feature of the millefleur tapestries.[16]

The costumes of the figures are versions of the dress of contemporary Florence, though the sort of "quasi-theatrical costumes designed for masquerades of the sort that Vasari wrote were invented by Lorenzo de' Medici for civic festivals and tournaments."[17] The lack of an obvious narrative may relate to the world of pageants and tableaux vivants as well as typically static Gothic allegories.

Meaning edit

 
The Three Graces

Various interpretations of the figures have been set forth,[18] but it is generally agreed that at least at one level the painting is "an elaborate mythological allegory of the burgeoning fertility of the world."[2] It is thought that Botticelli had help devising the composition of the painting and whatever meanings it was intended to contain, as it appears that the painting reflects a deep knowledge of classical literature and philosophy that Botticelli is unlikely to have possessed. Poliziano is usually thought to have been involved in this,[19] though Marsilio Ficino, another member of Lorenzo de' Medici's circle and a key figure in Renaissance Neoplatonism, has also often been mentioned.[20]

One aspect of the painting is a depiction of the progress of the season of spring, reading from right to left. The wind of early Spring blows on the land and brings forth growth and flowers, presided over by Venus, goddess of April, with at the left Mercury, the god of the month of May in an early Roman calendar, chasing away the last clouds before summer.[21] As well as being part of a sequence over the season, Mercury in dispelling the clouds is acting as the guard of the garden, partly explaining his military dress and his facing out of the picture space. A passage in Virgil's Aeneid describes him clearing the skies with his caduceus.[22] A more positive, Neoplatonist view of the clouds is that they are "the benificent veils through which the splendour of transcendent truth may reach the beholder without destroying him."[23]

Venus presides over the garden – an orange grove (a Medici symbol). It is also the Garden of the Hesperides of classical myth, from which the golden apples used in the Judgement of Paris came; the Hellenistic Greeks had decided that these were citrus fruits, exotic to them.[24] According to Claudian, no clouds were allowed there.[25] Venus stands in front of the dark leaves of a myrtle bush. According to Hesiod, Venus had been born of the sea after the semen of Uranus had fallen upon the waters. Coming ashore in a shell she had clothed her nakedness in myrtle, and so the plant became sacred to her.[26] Venus appears here in her character as a goddess of marriage, clothed and with her hair modestly covered, as married women were expected to appear in public.[27]

The Three Graces are sisters, and traditionally accompany Venus. In classical art (but not literature) they are normally nude, and typically stand still as they hold hands, but the depiction here is very close to one adapting Seneca by Leon Battista Alberti in his De pictura (1435), which Botticelli certainly knew.[28] From the left they are identified by Edgar Wind as Voluptas, Castitas, and Pulchritudo (Pleasure, Chastity and Beauty),[29] though other names are found in mythology, and it is noticeable that many writers, including Lightbown and the Ettlingers, refrain from naming Botticelli's Graces at all.

 
Botticelli's Pallas and the Centaur (1482) has been proposed as the companion piece to Primavera.[30]

Cupid's arrow is aimed at the middle Grace — Chastity, according to Wind — and the impact of love on chastity, leading to a marriage, features in many interpretations.[31] Chastity looks towards Mercury, and some interpretations, especially those identifying the figures as modelled on actual individuals, see this couple as one to match Chloris and Zephyrus on the other side of the painting.

In a different interpretation the Earthy carnal love represented by Zephyrus to the right is renounced by the central figure of the Graces, who has turned her back to the scene, unconcerned by the threat represented to her by Cupid. Her focus is on Mercury, who himself gazes beyond the canvas at what many believe hung as the companion piece to Primavera: Pallas and the Centaur, in which "love oriented towards knowledge" (embodied by Pallas Athena) proves triumphant over lust (symbolized by the centaur).[32]

The basic identification of the figures is now widely agreed,[33] but in the past other names have sometimes been used for the females on the right, who are two stages of the same person in the usual interpretation. The woman in the flowered dress may be called Primavera (a personification of Spring), with Flora the figure pursued by Zephyrus.[34][35] One scholar suggested in 2011 that the central figure is not Venus at all, but Persephone.[36]

In addition to its overt meaning, the painting has been interpreted as an illustration of the ideal of Neoplatonic love popularized among the Medicis and their followers by Marsilio Ficino.[30] The Neoplatonic philosophers saw Venus as ruling over both Earthly and divine love and argued that she was the classical equivalent of the Virgin Mary; this is alluded to by the way she is framed in an altar-like setting that is similar to contemporary images of the Virgin Mary.[37][38] Venus' hand gesture of welcome, probably directed to the viewer, is the same as that used by Mary to the Archangel Gabriel in contemporary paintings of the Annunciation.[39]

Punning allusions to Medici names probably include the golden balls of the oranges, recalling those on the Medici coat of arms, the laurel trees at right, for either Lorenzo, and the flames on the costume of both Mercury (for whom they are a regular attribute) and Venus, which are also an attribute of Saint Laurence (Lorenzo in Italian). Mercury was the god of medicine and "doctors", medici in Italian. Such puns for the Medici, and in Venus and Mars the Vespucci, run through all Botticelli's mythological paintings.[40]

Sources edit

Of the very many literary sources that may have fed into the painting,[41] the clearest was first noted in modern times by Aby Warburg in 1893, in his seminal dissertation on the painting.[42] The group at the right of the painting was inspired by a description by the Roman poet Ovid of the arrival of Spring (Fasti, Book 5, 2 May). In this the wood nymph Chloris recounts how her naked charms attracted the first wind of Spring, Zephyr. Zephyr pursued her and as she was ravished, flowers sprang from her mouth and she became transformed into Flora, goddess of flowers.[43] In Ovid's work the reader is told 'till then the earth had been but of one colour'. From Chloris' name the colour may be guessed to have been green – the Greek word for green is khloros, the root of words like chlorophyll – and may be why Botticeli painted Zephyr in shades of bluish-green.[44]

Other specific elements may have been derived from a poem by Poliziano.[45] As Poliziano's poem, "Rusticus", was published in 1483 and the painting is generally held to have been completed by around 1482,[1][46] some scholars have argued that the influence was reversed,[47] bearing in mind that Poliziano is generally thought to have helped with devising the allegory in the painting.[48]

Another inspiration for the painting seems to have been the poem by Lucretius "De rerum natura", which includes the lines, "Spring-time and Venus come, and Venus' boy, / The winged harbinger, steps on before, / And hard on Zephyr's foot-prints Mother Flora, / Sprinkling the ways before them, filleth all / With colors and with odors excellent."[49][50][51]

Where there is a plethora of literary sources, most of them probably not known directly by Botticelli, or set out for him by advisors, the visual sources are a different matter:

But where, in the visual rather than the literary sense, did the vision come from? That is the mystery of genius. From antique sarcophagi, from a few gems and reliefs, and perhaps some fragments of Aretine ware; from those drawings of classical remains by contemporary artists which were circulated in the Florentine workshops, like the architects' pattern-books of the 18th century; from such scanty and mediocre material, Botticelli has created one of the most personal evocations of physical beauty in the whole of art, the Three Graces of the Primavera. (Kenneth Clark)[52]

History edit

 
Mercury may have been modeled after Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco de' Medici,[53] or possibly his cousin Giuliano de' Medici.[54]

The origin of the painting is unclear. Botticelli was away in Rome for many months in 1481/82, painting in the Sistine Chapel, and suggested dates are in recent years mostly later than this, but still sometimes before. Thinking has been somewhat changed by the publication in 1975 of an inventory from 1499 of the collection of Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco de' Medici.[55]

The 1499 inventory records it hanging in the city palace of Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco de' Medici and his brother Giovanni "Il Popolano". They were the cousins of Lorenzo de' Medici ("Lorenzo il Magnifico"), who was effectively the ruler of Florence, and after their father's early death had been his wards.[56] It hung over a large lettuccio, an elaborate piece of furniture including a raised base, a seat and a backboard, probably topped with a cornice. The bottom of the painting was probably at about the viewer's eye-level, so rather higher than it is hung today.[57]

 
Flora, the goddess of flowers and the season of spring.

In the same room was Botticelli's Pallas and the Centaur, and also a large tondo with the Virgin and Child. The tondo is now unidentified, but is a type of painting especially associated with Botticelli. This was given the highest value of the three paintings, at 180 lire. A further inventory of 1503 records that the Primavera had a large white frame.[58]

In the first edition of his Life of Botticelli, published in 1550, Giorgio Vasari said that he had seen this painting, and the Birth of Venus, hanging in the Medici country Villa di Castello. Before the inventory was known it was usually believed that both paintings were made for the villa, probably soon after it was acquired in 1477, either commissioned by Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco or perhaps given to him by his older cousin and guardian Lorenzo de' Medici. Rather oddly, Vasari says both paintings contained female nudes, which is not strictly the case here.[59]

 
Chloris and Zephyrus.

Most scholars now connect the painting to the marriage of Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco de' Medici. Paintings and furniture were often given as presents celebrating weddings. The marriage was on 19 July 1482, but had been postponed after the death of the elder Lorenzo's mother on 25 March. It was originally planned for May.[60] Recent datings tend to prefer the early 1480s, after Botticelli's return from Rome, suggesting it was directly commissioned in connection with this wedding, a view supported by many.[61]

Another older theory, assuming an early date, suggests the older Lorenzo commissioned the portrait to celebrate the birth of his nephew Giulio di Giuliano de' Medici (who later became Pope), but changed his mind after the assassination of Giulo's father, his brother Giuliano in 1478, having it instead completed as a wedding gift for Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco.[7][62]

It is frequently suggested that Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco is the model for Mercury in the portrait, and his bride Semiramide represented as Flora (or Venus).[53] In older theories, placing the painting in the 1470s, it was proposed that the model for Venus was Simonetta Vespucci, wife of Marco Vespucci and according to popular legend the mistress of Giuliano de' Medici (who is also sometimes said to have been the model for Mercury);[54] these identifications largely depend on an early date, in the 1470s, as both were dead by 1478. Simonetta was the aunt of Lorenzo's bride Semiramide.[63] Summarizing the many interpretations of the painting, Leopold Ettlinger includes "descending to the ludricous – a Wagnerian pantomime enacted in memory of the murdered Giuliano de' Medici and his beloved Simonetta Vespucci with the Germanic Norns disguised as the Mediterranean Graces."[64]

 
Detail of Flora's gown

Whenever this painting and the Birth of Venus were united at Castello, they have remained together ever since. They stayed in Castello until 1815, when they were transferred to the Uffizi. For some years until 1919 they were kept in the Galleria dell'Accademia, another government museum in Florence.[65] Since 1919, it has hung in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence. During the Italian campaign of World War Two, the picture was moved to Montegufoni Castle about ten miles south west of Florence to protect it from wartime bombing.[66]

It was returned to the Uffizi Gallery where it remains to the present day. In 1978, the painting was restored.[67] The work has darkened considerably over the course of time.[45]

See also edit

References edit

  1. ^ a b c Fossi 1998, p. 5.
  2. ^ a b Cunningham & Reich 2009, p. 282.
  3. ^ Dempsey
  4. ^ Foster & Tudor-Craig 1986, p. 42.
  5. ^ Ettlingers, 134; Legouix, 118
  6. ^ Ettlingers, 119
  7. ^ a b Capretti 2002, p. 48.
  8. ^ Giovanni Garcia-Fenech, "Spring mysteries: Botticelli’s Primavera", Artstor, 2013
  9. ^ Lightbown, 126–128
  10. ^ Lightbown, 128–135
  11. ^ Lightbown, 138
  12. ^ Capretti 2002, p. 49.
  13. ^ Lightbown, 123; Ettlingers, 120, 122
  14. ^ Ettlingers, 122
  15. ^ Lightbown, 122
  16. ^ Ettlingers, 119–120
  17. ^ Dempsey
  18. ^ Ettlingers, 118–119 gives a spirited quick summary
  19. ^ Dempsey
  20. ^ Wind, 113–114, 126–127; Ettlingers, 129
  21. ^ Dempsey
  22. ^ Lightbown, 136–137
  23. ^ Wind, 123–124, 123 quoted
  24. ^ Lightbown, 126
  25. ^ Hartt, 332
  26. ^ Foster & Tudor-Craig 1986, p. 44.
  27. ^ Lightbown, 127–128, 130
  28. ^ Lightbown, 130–132; Ettlingers, 120
  29. ^ Wind, 117–119
  30. ^ a b Deimling 2000, p. 45.
  31. ^ Lightbown, 133; Wind, 119–121
  32. ^ Deimling, 45–46. But Mercury seems clearly to be looking above him, as he works on the clouds.
  33. ^ Lightbown, 126–140; Ettlingers, 122–124; Dempsey
  34. ^ Steinmann 1901, p. 82-84.
  35. ^ Wind, 116–117. Vasari's "recollection that the picture 'signifies spring' (dinotando la primavera)" is blamed for some writers wanting to identify a figure as the personification of Primavera. For Kenneth Clark, 96, Chloris is "Spring"; Ettlingers, 124
  36. ^ Kline, Jonathan (2011). "Botticelli's "Return of Persephone": On the Source and Subject of the "Primavera"". The Sixteenth Century Journal. 42 (3): 665–688. JSTOR 23076486.
  37. ^ Harris & Zucker.
  38. ^ Hartt, 332
  39. ^ Ettlingers, 128; Clark, 96
  40. ^ Hartt, 332–333
  41. ^ Hartt, 332
  42. ^ Lightbown, 140; Dempsey
  43. ^ Lightbown, 140
  44. ^ Foster & Tudor-Craig 1986, p. 45.
  45. ^ a b Steinmann 1901, p. 80.
  46. ^ Lightbown, captions to his pictures
  47. ^ Cheney 1985, p. 52.
  48. ^ Dempsey
  49. ^ Deimling 2000, p. 43.
  50. ^ Lucretius.
  51. ^ Lightbown, 137, 138
  52. ^ Clark, 92
  53. ^ a b Fisher 2011, p. 12.
  54. ^ a b Heyl 1912, p. 89-90.
  55. ^ Lightbown, 142; Inventory publication
  56. ^ Lightbown, 120–122
  57. ^ Lightbown, 122
  58. ^ Lightbown, 122
  59. ^ Lightbown, 142; Vasari, 148
  60. ^ Lightbown, 122; Dempsey
  61. ^ Lightbown, 142–143
  62. ^ Lightbown, 121–122
  63. ^ Lightbown, 120–122
  64. ^ Ettlingers, 118–119
  65. ^ Legouix, 115–118
  66. ^ Healey 2011.
  67. ^ Lightbown, 143–145

Sources edit

  • Capretti, Elena (1 January 2002). Botticelli. Giunti Editore Firenze Italy. ISBN 978-88-09-21433-0. Retrieved 16 July 2010.
  • Cheney, Liana (1985). Quattrocento Neoplatonism and Medici humanism in Botticelli's mythological paintings. University Press of America.
  • Clark, Kenneth (1949), The Nude, A Study in Ideal Form, various eds., page refs from Pelican ed. of 1960
  • Cunningham, Lawrence S.; John J. Reich (16 January 2009). Culture & Values, Volume II: A Survey of the Humanities with Readings. Cengage Learning. ISBN 978-0-495-56926-8. Retrieved 16 July 2010.
  • Deimling, Barbara (1 May 2000). Sandro Botticelli, 1444/45-1510. Taschen. ISBN 978-3-8228-5992-6. Retrieved 16 July 2010.
  • Dempsey, Charles (2000), "Botticelli, Sandro", Grove Art Online, Oxford Art Online. Oxford University Press. Web. 15 May. 2017.
  • "Ettlingers":Ettlinger, Leopold with Helen S. Ettlinger (1976), Botticelli, Thames and Hudson (World of Art), ISBN 0500201536
  • Fisher, Celia (2011). Flowers of the Renaissance. London: Lincoln.
  • Fossi, Gloria (1998). Botticelli. Primavera (Inglese ed.). Giunti Editore Firenze Italy. ISBN 978-88-09-21459-0. Retrieved 16 July 2010.
  • Foster, Richard; Tudor-Craig, Pamela (1986). The Secret Life of Paintings. Woodbridge, UK: Boydell Press. ISBN 978-0-85115-439-8.
  • Harris, Beth; Steven Zucker. . SmARThistory. Khan Academy. Archived from the original on 6 March 2012. Retrieved 29 February 2012.
  • Healey, Tim (5 January 2011). "Denis Healey: the artist within". The Guardian.
  • Heyl, Charles Christian (1912). The art of the Uffizi Palace and the Florence Academy. L.C. Page. p. 88.
  • Legouix, Susan (2004), Botticelli (rev. ed.), Chaucer Press, ISBN 1904449212
  • Lightbown, Ronald (1989), Sandro Botticelli: Life and Work, Thames and Hudson
  • Lucretius. On the Nature of Things, William Ellery Leonard, trnsl. at Project Gutenberg
  • Snow-Smith, Joanne (1993). The Primavera of Sandro Botticelli: A Neoplatonic Interpretation. Peter Lang International Academic Publishers. ISBN 978-0820417363.
  • Steinmann, Ernst (1901). Botticelli. Velhagen & Klasing. p. 78. Retrieved 16 July 2010.
  • Vasari (1550, 1568), selected & ed. George Bull, Artists of the Renaissance, Penguin 1965 (page nos from BCA edn, 1979). (in a different translation)
  • Wind, Edgar (1958), Pagan Mysteries in the Renaissance, 1967 ed., Peregrine Books

primavera, botticelli, primavera, italian, pronunciation, primaˈvɛːra, meaning, spring, large, panel, painting, tempera, paint, italian, renaissance, painter, sandro, botticelli, made, late, 1470s, early, 1480s, datings, vary, been, described, most, written, a. Primavera Italian pronunciation primaˈvɛːra meaning Spring is a large panel painting in tempera paint by the Italian Renaissance painter Sandro Botticelli made in the late 1470s or early 1480s datings vary It has been described as one of the most written about and most controversial paintings in the world 1 and also one of the most popular paintings in Western art 2 PrimaveraArtistSandro BotticelliYearlate 1470s or early 1480sMediumTempera on panelDimensions202 cm 314 cm 80 in 124 in LocationUffizi FlorenceThe painting depicts a group of figures from classical mythology in a garden but no story has been found that brings this particular group together 3 Most critics agree that the painting is an allegory based on the lush growth of Spring but accounts of any precise meaning vary though many involve the Renaissance Neoplatonism which then fascinated intellectual circles in Florence The subject was first described as Primavera by the art historian Giorgio Vasari who saw it at Villa Castello just outside Florence by 1550 4 Although the two are now known not to be a pair the painting is inevitably discussed with Botticelli s other very large mythological painting The Birth of Venus also in the Uffizi They are among the most famous paintings in the world and icons of the Italian Renaissance of the two the Birth is even better known than the Primavera 5 As depictions of subjects from classical mythology on a very large scale they were virtually unprecedented in Western art since classical antiquity 6 The history of the painting is not certainly known it may have been commissioned by one of the Medici family but the certainty of its commission is unknown It draws from a number of classical and Renaissance literary sources including the works of the Ancient Roman poet Ovid and less certainly Lucretius and may also allude to a poem by Poliziano the Medici house poet who may have helped Botticelli devise the composition Since 1919 the painting has been part of the collection of the Uffizi Gallery in Florence Italy Contents 1 Composition 2 Meaning 3 Sources 4 History 5 See also 6 References 7 SourcesComposition edit nbsp Venus standing in her arch The painting features six female figures and two male along with a cupid in an orange grove The movement of the composition is from right to left so following that direction the standard identification of the figures is as follows At the far right Zephyrus the biting wind of March kidnaps and possesses the nymph Chloris whom he later marries and transforms into a deity she becomes the goddess of Spring eternal bearer of life and is seen scattering roses on the ground 7 The transformation is indicated by the flowers coming out of Chloris s mouth 8 In the centre but not exactly so and somewhat set back from the other figures stands Venus a red draped woman in blue Like the flower gatherer she returns the viewer s gaze The trees behind her form a broken arch to draw the eye In the air above her a blindfolded Cupid aims his bow to the left 9 On the left of the painting the Three Graces a group of three females also in diaphanous white join hands in a dance At the extreme left Mercury clothed in red with a sword and a helmet raises his caduceus or wooden rod towards some wispy gray clouds 10 The interactions between the figures are enigmatic Zephyrus and Chloris are looking at each other Flora and Venus look out at the viewer the Cupid is blindfolded and Mercury has turned his back on the others and looks up at the clouds The central Grace looks towards him while the other two seem to look at each other Flora s smile was very unusual in painting at this date 11 The pastoral scenery is elaborate There are 500 identified plant species depicted in the painting with about 190 different flowers 12 of which at least 130 can be specifically identified 1 The overall appearance and size of the painting is similar to that of the millefleur thousand flower Flemish tapestries that were popular decorations for palaces at the time 13 These tapestries had not caught up by the 1480s with the artistic developments of the Italian Renaissance and the composition of the painting has aspects that belong to this still Gothic style The figures are spread in a rough line across the front of the picture space set side by side like pearls on a string 14 It is now known that in the setting for which the painting was designed the bottom was about at eye level or slightly above it partly explaining the gently rising plane on which the figures stand 15 The feet of Venus are considerably higher than those of the others showing she is behind them but she is at the same scale if not larger than the other figures Overlapping of other figures by Mercury s sword and Chloris hands shows that they stand slightly in front of the left Grace and Flora respectively which might not be obvious otherwise for example from their feet It has been argued that the flowers do not grow smaller to the rear of the picture space certainly a feature of the millefleur tapestries 16 The costumes of the figures are versions of the dress of contemporary Florence though the sort of quasi theatrical costumes designed for masquerades of the sort that Vasari wrote were invented by Lorenzo de Medici for civic festivals and tournaments 17 The lack of an obvious narrative may relate to the world of pageants and tableaux vivants as well as typically static Gothic allegories Meaning edit nbsp The Three GracesVarious interpretations of the figures have been set forth 18 but it is generally agreed that at least at one level the painting is an elaborate mythological allegory of the burgeoning fertility of the world 2 It is thought that Botticelli had help devising the composition of the painting and whatever meanings it was intended to contain as it appears that the painting reflects a deep knowledge of classical literature and philosophy that Botticelli is unlikely to have possessed Poliziano is usually thought to have been involved in this 19 though Marsilio Ficino another member of Lorenzo de Medici s circle and a key figure in Renaissance Neoplatonism has also often been mentioned 20 One aspect of the painting is a depiction of the progress of the season of spring reading from right to left The wind of early Spring blows on the land and brings forth growth and flowers presided over by Venus goddess of April with at the left Mercury the god of the month of May in an early Roman calendar chasing away the last clouds before summer 21 As well as being part of a sequence over the season Mercury in dispelling the clouds is acting as the guard of the garden partly explaining his military dress and his facing out of the picture space A passage in Virgil s Aeneid describes him clearing the skies with his caduceus 22 A more positive Neoplatonist view of the clouds is that they are the benificent veils through which the splendour of transcendent truth may reach the beholder without destroying him 23 Venus presides over the garden an orange grove a Medici symbol It is also the Garden of the Hesperides of classical myth from which the golden apples used in the Judgement of Paris came the Hellenistic Greeks had decided that these were citrus fruits exotic to them 24 According to Claudian no clouds were allowed there 25 Venus stands in front of the dark leaves of a myrtle bush According to Hesiod Venus had been born of the sea after the semen of Uranus had fallen upon the waters Coming ashore in a shell she had clothed her nakedness in myrtle and so the plant became sacred to her 26 Venus appears here in her character as a goddess of marriage clothed and with her hair modestly covered as married women were expected to appear in public 27 The Three Graces are sisters and traditionally accompany Venus In classical art but not literature they are normally nude and typically stand still as they hold hands but the depiction here is very close to one adapting Seneca by Leon Battista Alberti in his De pictura 1435 which Botticelli certainly knew 28 From the left they are identified by Edgar Wind as Voluptas Castitas and Pulchritudo Pleasure Chastity and Beauty 29 though other names are found in mythology and it is noticeable that many writers including Lightbown and the Ettlingers refrain from naming Botticelli s Graces at all nbsp Botticelli s Pallas and the Centaur 1482 has been proposed as the companion piece to Primavera 30 Cupid s arrow is aimed at the middle Grace Chastity according to Wind and the impact of love on chastity leading to a marriage features in many interpretations 31 Chastity looks towards Mercury and some interpretations especially those identifying the figures as modelled on actual individuals see this couple as one to match Chloris and Zephyrus on the other side of the painting In a different interpretation the Earthy carnal love represented by Zephyrus to the right is renounced by the central figure of the Graces who has turned her back to the scene unconcerned by the threat represented to her by Cupid Her focus is on Mercury who himself gazes beyond the canvas at what many believe hung as the companion piece to Primavera Pallas and the Centaur in which love oriented towards knowledge embodied by Pallas Athena proves triumphant over lust symbolized by the centaur 32 The basic identification of the figures is now widely agreed 33 but in the past other names have sometimes been used for the females on the right who are two stages of the same person in the usual interpretation The woman in the flowered dress may be called Primavera a personification of Spring with Flora the figure pursued by Zephyrus 34 35 One scholar suggested in 2011 that the central figure is not Venus at all but Persephone 36 In addition to its overt meaning the painting has been interpreted as an illustration of the ideal of Neoplatonic love popularized among the Medicis and their followers by Marsilio Ficino 30 The Neoplatonic philosophers saw Venus as ruling over both Earthly and divine love and argued that she was the classical equivalent of the Virgin Mary this is alluded to by the way she is framed in an altar like setting that is similar to contemporary images of the Virgin Mary 37 38 Venus hand gesture of welcome probably directed to the viewer is the same as that used by Mary to the Archangel Gabriel in contemporary paintings of the Annunciation 39 Punning allusions to Medici names probably include the golden balls of the oranges recalling those on the Medici coat of arms the laurel trees at right for either Lorenzo and the flames on the costume of both Mercury for whom they are a regular attribute and Venus which are also an attribute of Saint Laurence Lorenzo in Italian Mercury was the god of medicine and doctors medici in Italian Such puns for the Medici and in Venus and Mars the Vespucci run through all Botticelli s mythological paintings 40 Sources editOf the very many literary sources that may have fed into the painting 41 the clearest was first noted in modern times by Aby Warburg in 1893 in his seminal dissertation on the painting 42 The group at the right of the painting was inspired by a description by the Roman poet Ovid of the arrival of Spring Fasti Book 5 2 May In this the wood nymph Chloris recounts how her naked charms attracted the first wind of Spring Zephyr Zephyr pursued her and as she was ravished flowers sprang from her mouth and she became transformed into Flora goddess of flowers 43 In Ovid s work the reader is told till then the earth had been but of one colour From Chloris name the colour may be guessed to have been green the Greek word for green is khloros the root of words like chlorophyll and may be why Botticeli painted Zephyr in shades of bluish green 44 Other specific elements may have been derived from a poem by Poliziano 45 As Poliziano s poem Rusticus was published in 1483 and the painting is generally held to have been completed by around 1482 1 46 some scholars have argued that the influence was reversed 47 bearing in mind that Poliziano is generally thought to have helped with devising the allegory in the painting 48 Another inspiration for the painting seems to have been the poem by Lucretius De rerum natura which includes the lines Spring time and Venus come and Venus boy The winged harbinger steps on before And hard on Zephyr s foot prints Mother Flora Sprinkling the ways before them filleth all With colors and with odors excellent 49 50 51 Where there is a plethora of literary sources most of them probably not known directly by Botticelli or set out for him by advisors the visual sources are a different matter But where in the visual rather than the literary sense did the vision come from That is the mystery of genius From antique sarcophagi from a few gems and reliefs and perhaps some fragments of Aretine ware from those drawings of classical remains by contemporary artists which were circulated in the Florentine workshops like the architects pattern books of the 18th century from such scanty and mediocre material Botticelli has created one of the most personal evocations of physical beauty in the whole of art the Three Graces of the Primavera Kenneth Clark 52 History edit nbsp Mercury may have been modeled after Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco de Medici 53 or possibly his cousin Giuliano de Medici 54 The origin of the painting is unclear Botticelli was away in Rome for many months in 1481 82 painting in the Sistine Chapel and suggested dates are in recent years mostly later than this but still sometimes before Thinking has been somewhat changed by the publication in 1975 of an inventory from 1499 of the collection of Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco de Medici 55 The 1499 inventory records it hanging in the city palace of Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco de Medici and his brother Giovanni Il Popolano They were the cousins of Lorenzo de Medici Lorenzo il Magnifico who was effectively the ruler of Florence and after their father s early death had been his wards 56 It hung over a large lettuccio an elaborate piece of furniture including a raised base a seat and a backboard probably topped with a cornice The bottom of the painting was probably at about the viewer s eye level so rather higher than it is hung today 57 nbsp Flora the goddess of flowers and the season of spring In the same room was Botticelli s Pallas and the Centaur and also a large tondo with the Virgin and Child The tondo is now unidentified but is a type of painting especially associated with Botticelli This was given the highest value of the three paintings at 180 lire A further inventory of 1503 records that the Primavera had a large white frame 58 In the first edition of his Life of Botticelli published in 1550 Giorgio Vasari said that he had seen this painting and the Birth of Venus hanging in the Medici country Villa di Castello Before the inventory was known it was usually believed that both paintings were made for the villa probably soon after it was acquired in 1477 either commissioned by Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco or perhaps given to him by his older cousin and guardian Lorenzo de Medici Rather oddly Vasari says both paintings contained female nudes which is not strictly the case here 59 nbsp Chloris and Zephyrus Most scholars now connect the painting to the marriage of Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco de Medici Paintings and furniture were often given as presents celebrating weddings The marriage was on 19 July 1482 but had been postponed after the death of the elder Lorenzo s mother on 25 March It was originally planned for May 60 Recent datings tend to prefer the early 1480s after Botticelli s return from Rome suggesting it was directly commissioned in connection with this wedding a view supported by many 61 Another older theory assuming an early date suggests the older Lorenzo commissioned the portrait to celebrate the birth of his nephew Giulio di Giuliano de Medici who later became Pope but changed his mind after the assassination of Giulo s father his brother Giuliano in 1478 having it instead completed as a wedding gift for Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco 7 62 It is frequently suggested that Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco is the model for Mercury in the portrait and his bride Semiramide represented as Flora or Venus 53 In older theories placing the painting in the 1470s it was proposed that the model for Venus was Simonetta Vespucci wife of Marco Vespucci and according to popular legend the mistress of Giuliano de Medici who is also sometimes said to have been the model for Mercury 54 these identifications largely depend on an early date in the 1470s as both were dead by 1478 Simonetta was the aunt of Lorenzo s bride Semiramide 63 Summarizing the many interpretations of the painting Leopold Ettlinger includes descending to the ludricous a Wagnerian pantomime enacted in memory of the murdered Giuliano de Medici and his beloved Simonetta Vespucci with the Germanic Norns disguised as the Mediterranean Graces 64 nbsp Detail of Flora s gownWhenever this painting and the Birth of Venus were united at Castello they have remained together ever since They stayed in Castello until 1815 when they were transferred to the Uffizi For some years until 1919 they were kept in the Galleria dell Accademia another government museum in Florence 65 Since 1919 it has hung in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence During the Italian campaign of World War Two the picture was moved to Montegufoni Castle about ten miles south west of Florence to protect it from wartime bombing 66 It was returned to the Uffizi Gallery where it remains to the present day In 1978 the painting was restored 67 The work has darkened considerably over the course of time 45 See also editList of works by Sandro BotticelliReferences edit a b c Fossi 1998 p 5 a b Cunningham amp Reich 2009 p 282 Dempsey Foster amp Tudor Craig 1986 p 42 Ettlingers 134 Legouix 118 Ettlingers 119 a b Capretti 2002 p 48 Giovanni Garcia Fenech Spring mysteries Botticelli s Primavera Artstor 2013 Lightbown 126 128 Lightbown 128 135 Lightbown 138 Capretti 2002 p 49 Lightbown 123 Ettlingers 120 122 Ettlingers 122 Lightbown 122 Ettlingers 119 120 Dempsey Ettlingers 118 119 gives a spirited quick summary Dempsey Wind 113 114 126 127 Ettlingers 129 Dempsey Lightbown 136 137 Wind 123 124 123 quoted Lightbown 126 Hartt 332 Foster amp Tudor Craig 1986 p 44 Lightbown 127 128 130 Lightbown 130 132 Ettlingers 120 Wind 117 119 a b Deimling 2000 p 45 Lightbown 133 Wind 119 121 Deimling 45 46 But Mercury seems clearly to be looking above him as he works on the clouds Lightbown 126 140 Ettlingers 122 124 Dempsey Steinmann 1901 p 82 84 Wind 116 117 Vasari s recollection that the picture signifies spring dinotando la primavera is blamed for some writers wanting to identify a figure as the personification of Primavera For Kenneth Clark 96 Chloris is Spring Ettlingers 124 Kline Jonathan 2011 Botticelli s Return of Persephone On the Source and Subject of the Primavera The Sixteenth Century Journal 42 3 665 688 JSTOR 23076486 Harris amp Zucker Hartt 332 Ettlingers 128 Clark 96 Hartt 332 333 Hartt 332 Lightbown 140 Dempsey Lightbown 140 Foster amp Tudor Craig 1986 p 45 a b Steinmann 1901 p 80 Lightbown captions to his pictures Cheney 1985 p 52 Dempsey Deimling 2000 p 43 Lucretius Lightbown 137 138 Clark 92 a b Fisher 2011 p 12 a b Heyl 1912 p 89 90 Lightbown 142 Inventory publication Lightbown 120 122 Lightbown 122 Lightbown 122 Lightbown 142 Vasari 148 Lightbown 122 Dempsey Lightbown 142 143 Lightbown 121 122 Lightbown 120 122 Ettlingers 118 119 Legouix 115 118 Healey 2011 Lightbown 143 145Sources edit nbsp Wikimedia Commons has media related to Primavera by Sandro Botticelli Capretti Elena 1 January 2002 Botticelli Giunti Editore Firenze Italy ISBN 978 88 09 21433 0 Retrieved 16 July 2010 Cheney Liana 1985 Quattrocento Neoplatonism and Medici humanism in Botticelli s mythological paintings University Press of America Clark Kenneth 1949 The Nude A Study in Ideal Form various eds page refs from Pelican ed of 1960 Cunningham Lawrence S John J Reich 16 January 2009 Culture amp Values Volume II A Survey of the Humanities with Readings Cengage Learning ISBN 978 0 495 56926 8 Retrieved 16 July 2010 Deimling Barbara 1 May 2000 Sandro Botticelli 1444 45 1510 Taschen ISBN 978 3 8228 5992 6 Retrieved 16 July 2010 Dempsey Charles 2000 Botticelli Sandro Grove Art Online Oxford Art Online Oxford University Press Web 15 May 2017 Ettlingers Ettlinger Leopold with Helen S Ettlinger 1976 Botticelli Thames and Hudson World of Art ISBN 0500201536 Fisher Celia 2011 Flowers of the Renaissance London Lincoln Fossi Gloria 1998 Botticelli Primavera Inglese ed Giunti Editore Firenze Italy ISBN 978 88 09 21459 0 Retrieved 16 July 2010 Foster Richard Tudor Craig Pamela 1986 The Secret Life of Paintings Woodbridge UK Boydell Press ISBN 978 0 85115 439 8 Harris Beth Steven Zucker Botticelli s Primavera SmARThistory Khan Academy Archived from the original on 6 March 2012 Retrieved 29 February 2012 Healey Tim 5 January 2011 Denis Healey the artist within The Guardian Heyl Charles Christian 1912 The art of the Uffizi Palace and the Florence Academy L C Page p 88 Legouix Susan 2004 Botticelli rev ed Chaucer Press ISBN 1904449212 Lightbown Ronald 1989 Sandro Botticelli Life and Work Thames and HudsonLucretius On the Nature of Things William Ellery Leonard trnsl at Project Gutenberg Snow Smith Joanne 1993 The Primavera of Sandro Botticelli A Neoplatonic Interpretation Peter Lang International Academic Publishers ISBN 978 0820417363 Steinmann Ernst 1901 Botticelli Velhagen amp Klasing p 78 Retrieved 16 July 2010 Vasari 1550 1568 selected amp ed George Bull Artists of the Renaissance Penguin 1965 page nos from BCA edn 1979 Vasari Life on line in a different translation Wind Edgar 1958 Pagan Mysteries in the Renaissance 1967 ed Peregrine Books Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Primavera Botticelli amp oldid 1207015644, 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