Sandro Botticelli
Born: 1445
Died: 1510
Summary of Sandro Botticelli
Perhaps Botticelli was the Early Renaissance’s largest humanist painter, yet much of his life and inspirations remain a mystery to us. The peak of cultural prosperity in Medici’s Florence is its paintings; it is a wealthy society that encourages the advancement of art, philosophy, and literature. He has been commissioned to paint many diverse themes over his lengthy career, but at the core of his work he has always sought beauty and virtue, the characteristics of the goddess Venus, which is the subject of many of her most renowned works.
Influenced by the resurgence of Greek and Roman ideals in Florence at that time, Botticelli was one of the first western painters to portray non-religious subjects since ancient times. It was a breakthrough in Western art to realise that art might be for pleasure and not just for religious reasons.
Botticelli bridged the gap between the Gothic mediaeval painting style and the developing humanistic realism. His work incorporates a growing understanding of human anatomy and perspective while retaining a decorative aspect that is not present in or appears a long time after the work of painters of the following High Renaissance period. His paintings sought to reach the ideal of beauty, and he shared realistically when a more creative form suited the general aesthetic concept better.
His study of emotional depth in traditional Christian themes was unusual in a period of great iconographic religious art. He portrayed his themes in a manner that made them relatable to the average person, stressing their interpersonal connections. This is especially obvious in his early Madonna and Child paintings, which distinguish Botticelli in terms of love and compassion between mother and child.
Childhood
Sandro Botticelli was born Alessandro di Mariano Filipepi. His date of birth is not known, although his dad, a tanner, filed tax papers claiming that he was two years old in 1447 and 13 years old in 1458. Botticelli was not sure. Historians of art thus concluded that he was born around 1445.
There is little known about the early life of the artist, although it is believed that he grew up in Florence on Via Borgo Ognissanti. All his life, Botticelli resided in this rather impoverished part of the city. According to tradition, one of the four elder brothers of the artist gave him the name “Botticelli,” meaning “little barrel,” and the moniker stuck. He was also referred to as “Sandro Mariano Botticelli” in the document as early as 1470.
Early Life
According to the art historian Giorgio Vasari, Botticelli joined Fra Filippo Lippi’s workshops (1406-1459) towards the end of the 1450’s in his book Lives of the Artists, published in 1550. Lippi’s modest and lovely paintings, in particular Madonna and Child, are renowned to him. His clarity of lineage and the use of the women had a major impact on the style of Botticelli, especially in early works like the Eucharistic Virgin (c. 1472). The lines are seen in the paintings of Lippi, at Prato Cathedral, close outside Florence.
Although there is no record, Lippi’s major artistic impact indicates that Botticelli was probably an apprentice in his workshop. It was customary at the period for apprentices to begin at or before the age of thirteen, thus Botticelli probably started his artistic instruction early on.
Lippi was patronised by the influential Medici family, and soon Botticelli too took use of this relationship. Records indicate that the family relocated to Via Nuova in 1464 to link up with the rich Vespucci family, including Amerigo Vespucci, the explorer and traveller of America.
In the 19th century a rumour began to circulate that, while Botticelli employed the beautiful Cousine Simonetta from Amérigo to model many of his renowned paintings, it is doubtful that the truth would be true, since Simonetta was already deceased when Botticelli started to paint them.
The first known Botticelli painting was Fortitude from a panel of seven virtue paintings, the other six were painted in the Antonio del Pollaiuolo’s studio, which was first commissioned. The naturalist interpretation of the human body and a knowledge of anatomy that Pollaiuolo claimed to have learned from dissected dead corpses inspired Botticelli.
But Botticelli always retained genuine naturalism, preferring a deformed figure if the larger concept was better served. The early Madonnas of Botticelli clearly show the genuine warmth and compassion that distinguishes her work throughout his lifetime.
At the late 1460s, Botticelli was also believed to be working in Andrea del Verrocchio’s studio, which is more renowned for its sculpture than its painting, and the sculptural outlines of Botticelli’s figures show their influence. By 1470 Botticelli had returned to the house of his family at Via Nuova and established his studio there.
The distinctive style of Botticelli made it simple for his workshop to duplicate or complete works he began, thus many are paintings where the distinguishing hand of the artist is difficult to identify among his trainees.
Mid Life
In 1472, Botticelli’s status enabled him to join the Compagnia di San Luca group of Florentine artists. His early work was for Florence churches, notably his Adoration of the Magi (c.1476) to Santa Maria Novella, one of the most significant religious places in the city. This artwork includes portraits of Cosimo de’ Medici, his sons Piero and Giovanni and other members of the Medici dynasty. The artwork is also said to contain the artist’s sole known self-portrait.
In 1481 Pope Sixtus IV ordered the Botticelli to supervise the decorating of the newly constructed Sistine Chapel in the Vatican as well as the most renowned works of the studio during this time, the most popular provider of Madonna to the private and public employers in Florence. In this project Botticelli has produced a number of frescos, frequently missed by tourists whose eyes are directly attracted to the renowned ceiling of Michelangelo.
Giorgio Vasari remarks, “having therefore acquired still greater fame and reputation among the great number of competitors who worked with him, both Florentines and men of other cities, he received from the Pope a good sum of money, the whole of which he consumed and squandered in a moment during his residence in Rome, where he lived in haphazard fashion, as was his wont.”
Botticelli was at the front of a significant change in western Europe as the mediaeval “dark ages” were coming to an end, while Renaissance Humanism and rational science began to create a whole new vision of the world that would ultimately be brought up to light some decades later. Botticelli began work on his two most renowned pieces, Primavera (late 1470-early 1480s), and The Birth of Venus shortly after his return to Florence (c. 1486).
Vasari observed these pieces at Pierfrancesco de’ Medici’s home and was long supposed to be meant for this website, but the origins and the commissioners of these two paintings are now unclear for art historians. It is probable that a member of the Medici family commissioned them both, although this is unclear.
The Florence of the Medici was a wealthy and liberal society that made culture flourish. Cosimo de’ Medici set established a college and invited academics from throughout Europe to come to Florence to discuss Renaissance and neoplatonic philosophy. The traditional themes of these paintings indicate that, while Botticelli was not a member, he may have been connected with the academy.
For the Neoplatonists, Venus was an essential figure in the development of human virtue in all its manifestations, and appears in many of Botticelli’s most renowned paintings of the time. A change in science, society and philosophy occurred, and Botticelli’s paintings shaped this new view, announcing the birth of a modern world.
In these pictures, we can see the tensions between the mediaeval and the modern, formerly Christian, with art that was largely devoted, highly decorative and stylistic, and latter, rational, scientific and glorifying classical art that originated in what the Neoplatonists believed to be a more advanced culture.
Botticelli collaborated with many other major Florentine Renaissance painters. However, he didn’t get on very well with others. Leonardo da Vinci wrote in his Book of Pittura that Botticelli once said that he does not enjoy landscape painting since “by throwing a sponge soaked with different colours at a wall, one can make a spot in which a beautiful landscape can be seen.” “Although that stain may suggest ideas, it will not teach you to complete any art, and the above mentioned painter (Botticelli) paints very bad landscapes.” Leonardo said furiously in his journal.
Late Life
Some time in the 1490s, Botticelli rented a modest farm and rural home with his brother Simone on the outskirts of Florence. The artist seems to have lived a bachelor’s life—surely never married. He recounts a storey about an interchange between Botticelli and his patron Tommaso Soderini in Angelo Poliziano’s Detti Piacevoli (1477).
When Soderini questioned Botticelli why he was not married, Botticelli said that he lately dreamt of marrying, experienced a profound sorrow and then went about the city to stop sleeping and to resume his dream.
There is an allegation against Botticelli in the Florentine Archives from 1502 that he has “kept a boy” which has led to conjecture that he may have been homosexual or bisexual.
Art historians are split on how much this should be read, because charges in such a way at the period were a frequent type of petty calumny. Many historians have also observed the homo-erotic trends in paintings like St Sebastian (c. 1474).
In the 1490s, after Lorenzo de’ Medici’s death and Charles VIII’s conquest of France, the political environment in Florence altered considerably. A Dominican monk called Girolamo Savonarola, who in apocalyptic sermons attacked the moral principles of Florentine society, started to have a major impact on the city as the family Medici gained control. The extreme ideas of Savonarola were also accepted more easily in Florence at the time, since the city still was suffering from the terrible outbreak of the Bubonic plague.
Many people had the confidence that God’s retribution of their materialistic lives was this terrible event. This holy zeal ended on Tuesday 1497 in The Burning of the Vanities, in which many of Botticelli’s paintings were believed to have perished and his only surviving works are those already in the hands of the Medici.
The 1500s paintings are darker and more openly spiritual, but still characterised by the warmth and creative brilliance of Botticelli. Paintings such as Mystic Crucifixion (1501) and Mystic Nativity (1501) have an emotional intensity which demonstrates a better grasp of the tragedy of the human state and a greater attention to the environment, whether it is a detailed imagination or a rustic building.
What happened to Botticelli in this time is discussed by academics, some of whom believe that the more openly religious themes of his late works are additional proof of Savonarola’s becoming a disciple.
Some believe he was out of employment towards the end of his life because of the advantages of the more scientific and humanist artists like Leonardo da Vinci. Vasari says Botticelli was fake and spent the money he had previously earned in his work. Whatever the cause, a poor guy appears to have perished.
Botticelli died in 1510 and was buried at the Vespucci chapel in the Ognissanti Church in Florence, a few metres away from where he grew up and spent his whole life. His tomb is characterised by a modest marble circle.
Over the ages, Botticelli’s impact on the path of art history and popular culture has rivalled a few other painters. His legacy starts with painters such as Filippino Lippi who had tutored Botticelli early in life, Filippo Lippi’s son. Botticelli completed the Filippino Lippi fresco in an unusual manner, The Adoration of the Kings (1496) (the master’s work was more typical for a student, not versa).
Giorgio Vasari considered Botticelli to be the pinnacle of the “golden age” of art attained during the reign of Lorenzo de’ Medici, the great patron of the arts.
However, while he was known during his life, Botticelli’s reputation suffered for many centuries following his death. Perhaps since Botticelli’s work was based in a mediaeval heritage forgotten during the High Renaissance, his work was rejected alongside Gothic art. So-called because the Goths and Vandals, believed to be uncultured, were supposed to have affected it at the time.
Another hypothesis speculates that Botticelli’s career after medicines was forced to flee Florence, and authority was once seized by Christian conservative forces who condemned the decay of the previous rulers and painters that they sponsored.
Sandro Botticelli Facts
Why did Sandro Botticelli burn his paintings?
Savonarola delivered stirring lectures in which he decried Florence as morally depraved and overly materialistic in its outlook. Botticelli, swayed by Savonarola’s theological conservatism, destroyed many of his own paintings, particularly those from his earlier, more secular period.
Was Sandro Botticelli a Medici?
The beginnings of one’s life. On March 1, 1445, in Florence, Italy, a boy named Sandro Botticelli was born. Because of his creative temperament, he was adopted by the Medici family and grew up alongside Lorenzo, Bianca, and Giuliano as if they were his own siblings, and he grew up with a great deal of admiration for the family.
What is Sandro Botticelli famous for?
As a Florentine painter and draughtsman, Sandro Botticelli at the height of his renown was one of Italy’s most highly regarded painters. Aside from his life-size mythological paintings like “Venus and Mars,” he was also known for his delicate Madonna and Child paintings, altarpieces, and other religious subjects.
Did Botticelli know Leonardo da Vinci?
Perhaps Leonardo remained close to Botticelli and helped him overcome his demons during this tough time. On the other hand, Leonardo was not a dogmatic religious person. He could see God in nature, but he was unafraid of God.
Did Botticelli and Michelangelo know each other?
Italian Renaissance painter Sandro Botticelli is widely regarded as one of the most innovative and creative artists of the period. Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo, both of whom were close friends of his, are now as well-known as he was.
Why is The Birth of Venus by Botticelli so important?
One of the most well-known images of Venus’ arrival on land is known as “Birth of Venus,” and it depicts the goddess as she is born out of the sea spray and blown to Cyprus by Zephyr and possibly Aura.
Famous Art by Sandro Botticelli
Adoration of the Magi
1475
Guaspare di Zanobi del Lama, a banker who constructed a chapel in Florence’s Santa Maria Novelli cathedral, commissioned this significant early work by Botticelli. This topic may be decorated by Del Lama, since one of the Magi, usually called “Caspar” or “Gaspare” is his namesake. The piece portrays many members of the Medici family, including Cosimo the Elder and his sons Piero and Giovanni, all of whom, according to Vasari’s Lives of the Artists, were dead when the work was created, as the 3 Magi. The Medici family often joined the Magi or Three Kings from the Nativity tale and even travelled through the streets of Florence, dressed in every Epiphany. The Medici were friends of the del Lama family and were major supporters themselves for Botticelli. Although the motives of El Lama for commissioning these portraits as part of a painting are unknown, it was often used to include portraits of the aristocracy in religious settings at that time, pointing to the strong link between art and money and power in the Renaissance Florence.
Venus and Mars
1485
Botticelli goes once again to a mythical theme in this panel painting. Venus is the goddess of love, reclining on the grass, while her lover, Mars, the god of war, sleeps and falls in love. Several juvenile faunas frolic in the scene, trying to wake Mars with a conch shell in her ear. The artwork also has some guinea pigments (in Italian “vespe”), which may allude to the Vespucci family, who resided in the vicinity of Botticelli or may refer to love stings. The fundamental theme of the piece may be interpreted as “love conquers war”
The Birth of Venus
1486
This artwork is one of the most popular art works in the world. Whilst Botticelli lost popularity after his death, in the late 19th century his reputation was restored and, since then, Venus was born into worldwide renown. The artwork shows Venus, the goddess of love, atop a huge shell sailing from the seaside. She is blasted into the ground by the God of the West, Zephyr, while a lady waits with a cloak.
Like the previous Primavera, the birth of Venus is pioneering for portraying a large-scale non-religious event from ancient mythology. The presence of such a prominent, almost life-sized female nude was almost unparalleled in Western art. The piece pays a clear tribute to ancient art, imitating the manner of “Venus Pudica” of a naked woman who, but not successfully, tries to maintain her modesty with her hands and her erosively loaded long hair in this instance.
BULLET POINTED (SUMMARISED)
Best for Students and a Huge Time Saver
- Perhaps Botticelli was the Early Renaissance’s largest humanist painter yet much of his life and inspirations remain a mystery to us.
- The peak of cultural prosperity of Medici’s Florence is its paintings, a wealthy society that encourages the advancement of art, philosophy and literature.
- He has been commissioned to paint many diverse themes over his lengthy career, but at the core of his work he has always sought beauty and virtue, the characteristics of the goddess Venus which is the subject of many of its most renowned works.Influenced by the resurgence of Greek and Roman ideals in Florence at that time, Botticelli was one of the first western painters to portray non-religious subjects since ancient times.
- It was a breakthrough in Western art that art might be for pleasure and not just for religious reasons.Botticelli bridged the gap between the Gothic mediaeval painting style and the developing humanistic realism.
- His work incorporates growing understanding of human anatomy and perspective, while retaining a decorative aspect that is not present in or a long time after the work of painters of the following High Renaissance period.
- His paintings sought to reach the ideal of beauty and he shared realistically when a more creative form suited the general aesthetic concept better.His study of emotional depth in traditional Christian themes was unusual in a period of great iconographic religious art.
- He portrayed his themes in a manner that made them related to an average person, stressing their interpersonal connections.
- This is especially obvious in his early Madonna and Child paintings, which distinguishes Botticelli in terms of love and compassion between mother and child.
En.wikipedia.org, https://en.wikipedia.org/.
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