Sandro Botticelli (Florence 1445-1510)
• The Ancient Myth : La Primavera (1477-8)
• A Humanist Venus, at the center of the composition, is the
allegory of Goodness, Love as Culture and Civilization
• Zephir on the right, blows, giving Clori, the Nymph, the gift of
creating flowers
• She is transformed in Flora, La Primavera, queen of flowers
• On the left Mercury (Greek Hermes), recognized by his symbolic
wand and his winged sandals
• The three female figures are the Graces, who follow Venus. In
Greek mythology, Spring was dedicated to them
• Above flies Cupid, god of Love, shooting an arrow to one of the
Graces
• The setting is an idealized Nature, where flowers and fruits are
present at the same time
• The composition is based on a central view of which Venus
is the focal point
• The groupings are at each side of her figure
• The curving of the branches forms a green niche around the
goddess
• The lines of the composition depart from her figure,
presented as the world’s most powerful force: Love, Beauty
and Virtue, fundamental Humanist values
• Botticelli uses a masterly flow of lines. Lines, which
envelops and veil the human body, are the instrument of the
artist’s expression
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The Portrait
• Benozzo Gozzoli (1420-97)
• Il corteo dei Magi
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Most refined example of political propaganda
The young Lorenzo is the protagonist
Lorenzo looks directly into the viewer’s eye
In the Renaissance perceptive code this is typical of the
portrait: it expresses the “ego” the will power and the
strong personality
Leonardo da Vinci (Vinci 1452 - Cioux1519)
• Artist and scientist, tended both to the understanding of reality
and to the fantastic transformation of scientific observations
• Passionate explorer of Nature, he studied the way light affects the
environment, the human figure and the landscape
• THE AEREAL PERSPECTIVE
• The Renaissance artist preferred to locate his figure within an
architectural space. Leonardo discovers the Atmospheric Effect
• It is an impalpable element, made of light, air, color, humidity that
is evident in the natural, open space
• Leonardo locates his figures in an open landscape or in front of
open windows
• Realizes the illusion of depth through the interplay of light and
shade, and through a gradual chiaroscuro present at all planes of
the composition
La Vergine delle Rocce
• Realized for Ludovico il Moro (Milan)
• The figures of Jesus, Mary and little Saint John are located in an
unusual space: a grotto
• Aim of Leonardo was to represent a pristine natural environment of
which the human figure would be an integral part
• The architecture is formed by the rocks, stalactites and stalagmites,
while on the ground a selection of carefully painted plants (that
Leonardo had included in his botanical studies)
• The composition forms an ideal pyramid with its peak above the
Madonna’s head
• The chiaroscuro informs the entire composition: the Sfumato
• It consists of a plastic relief of the bodies that he obtains, delicately,
by eliminating the hard contours, and by diffusing the form in the
atmosphere
• The ideal of beauty for Leonardo is not the vivid light that
sculpts the forms, but the softness of shade, the diffusing
effect that caresses and veils them
• The message does not have a religious content
• He does not tell a religious story to educate
• He expresses his artistic vision of the world, in which,
man, nature, sacred and mundane are one
• In the natural environment plants and Nature emerge from
the shadows, feebly illuminated by a soft light
• The rocks dissolve in the background in the pure lightness
of the air
• The rocky space is irregular, an antithesis to the clear and
regular spaces of the Quattrocento paintings