Botticelli all paintings. “Portrait of a Young Woman”, Sandro Botticelli - description

This often happens in the life of an amateur: you just discovered America, you just started to rejoice and be proud, and then bam - it turns out that it was discovered long before you! Well, first things first.

Every city has a must-see place. In Paris this is, of course, the Louvre, in Rome - the Coliseum, in St. Petersburg - the Hermitage, and in Florence - the Uffizi Gallery.

Of course, there is a lot to see in Florence besides the gallery, David alone is worth it!

This, as you guessed, is not the real David, but the real one here

The fact that the Uffizi Gallery is an obligatory point on any tourist route in Florence creates certain difficulties in getting into it. Our recommendation: book tickets in advance online herehttp://www.florence-museum.com/booking-tickets.php . Printed reservations must be exchanged for tickets at the gallery office opposite the main entrance. Well, then you have to stand in a tiny queue of advanced tourists just like you (compared to the huge neighboring queue of not advanced ones).

Finally, you are inside. Not everyone can try to go through the entire gallery at once. normal person, so you need to look first of all at the very best! For us, the paintings of the great painter of the Florentine era became such “the very best”RenaissanceSandro Botticelli.

His real name is Alessandro di Mariano di Vanni Filipepi. Botticelli, or roughly translated “from the family of barrels”, is rather a nickname that the thin Sandro “inherited” after his older brother - a fat man and truly a real “barrel” (such a special Florentine logic).

The Uffizi Gallery has several rooms dedicated to his works. “The Birth of Venus”, “Spring”, portraits of Dante and Giuliano Medici - these works by Botticelli have been known almost since school.

But reproductions in a textbook are one thing, but here are the originals, here they are, at arm’s length. An unforgettable experience! Looking at the paintings, I come to a completely unexpected conclusion that all the “main female roles“Most of Botticelli’s paintings presented in the Uffizi Gallery are given to the same “actress”! It seems that most of his paintings actually depict the same woman! The wife standing next to him comes to the same conclusion. Can't be? Judge for yourself

As we found out later, the secret of the stranger in Botticelli’s paintings was discovered back in the 16th century by the Italian painter Giorgio Vasari.

Vasari lived in Florence almost thirty years after Botticelli's death. As an artist, Vasari did not succeed, although at one time he was a student of Michelangelo himself. But he actually became the founder of modern art criticism, writing the main work of his life - collection 178biographies of Italian Renaissance artists " Lives of the most famous painters, sculptors and architects». It was in this work, published in 1568, that Giorgio Vasari put forward a hypothesis regarding the name of the woman whom Sandro Botticelli glorified in almost all of his works. According to Vasari, this woman is Simonetta Vespucci, the first beauty of Florence in the second half of the 15th century.

Contemporaries considered her beauty to be a divine gift, the embodiment of a perfect plan, and for her beauty the girl received the nickname Incomparable and Beautiful Simonetta.

In April 146916-year-old Simonetta married her peer Marco Vespucci, a distant relative of the future famous Florentine navigatorAmerigo Vespucci And,after which the new continent discovered by Columbus will be named (another example of a peculiar logic). I didn’t find a portrait of Marco Vespucci, but Amerigo is here

Of course, Simonetta Vespucci was inaccessible to Botticelli:

- But what does she care about me - she was in Paris,

- Marcel Marceau himself told her something!

After all, he is a simple, albeit fashionable, painter, but she is the wife of one of the bankers of the Medici family ruling in Florence, the one whose favor was sought by all Florentine noble men, including the ruler of the city, Lorenzo the Magnificent (here is his bust from the collection of the Uffizi Gallery)

as well as his younger brother Giuliano (here is his portrait by Botticelli):

With all this, Sandro, if he wanted, could admire Simonetta Vespucci every day - their house was adjacent to the Vespucci Palazzo. Did Simonetta know about Sandro’s existence? If she knew, then most likely she hardly attached any significance to this knowledge. But for Botticelli it was ideal woman. This is confirmed by the fact that “The Birth of Venus”, and “Spring”, and “Venus and Mars”, as well as “Portrait of a Young Woman” were written by the artist after the death of Simonetta, who died suddenly on April 26, 1476 at the age of 23 at the height of the tuberculosis epidemic that broke out in Florence. Thus, Botticelli returns to the image of Simonetta again and again, even 9 years after her death. But does it suit her image? After all, for obvious reasons, there are no photographs of Simonetta during her lifetime, and no clearly attributed portraits have survived. Most likely, Sandro was drawing a certain, in the words of the poet Mikhail Kuzmin, “for eternal ages, a symbol of fleeting youth,” embodied for him in Simonetta.

Sandro Botticelli never married, living great life, died at the age of 65 and, in accordance with his will, was buried in Florence in the Church of All Saints (Chiesa di Ognissanti), in which Simonetta Vespucci had previously been buried. We found this church, although just before it closed.

A black (!) Franciscan monk gave us a mini tour of the church.

This is such a love story.

But lastly, I would like to tell you another equally romantic, but also instructive story about love.

In Botticelli’s painting “The Birth of Venus” in the upper left corner we can see such a strange couple: a floating young man with puffy cheeks and a girl who has wrapped her beau not only with her arms, but also with her legs!

This young man is Zephyr, the god of the western spring wind, in the picture he is driving a shell with a newly born Venus to the shore. And the girl is the legal wife of Zephyr, the Greek goddess of flowers Chloris, whom the Romans called Flora.

At first, Chloris avoided Zephyr’s persistent advances and ignored him in every possible way. Here she is running away from the loving Zephyr in the right corner in Botticelli’s painting “Spring”.

In the end, Zephyr was overcome by such a wild passion that, having broken the Olympic record for catching up with girls, he overtook Chloris and took possession of her by force. Oh how! The result was that in the girl there arose no less, but a stronger, such a wild, forward, reciprocal passion for Zephyr that she clung to him with her whole body and never parted with him again, tightly wrapping her now husband with all her existing limbs .

And since then, Zephyr has always been with his wife Chlorida-Flora. And during the day, and at night, and on vacation, and at work, and at a concert, and at a banquet, and at football, and in the bathhouse at a meeting with classmates!

As they say, we ran into what we fought for! So study HISTORY!

Botticelli Sandro [actually Alessandro di Mariano Filipepi, Alessandro di Mariano Filipepi] (1445, Florence - May 17, 1510, Florence), Italian painter of the era Early Renaissance, representative of the Florentine school. Sandro Botticelli is one of the most bright artists Italian Renaissance. He created allegorical images captivating in their sublimity and gave the world an ideal female beauty. Born into the family of leather tanner Mariano di Vanni Filipepi; The nickname “Botticello” - “barrel” - was inherited from his older brother Giovanni. Among the first information about the artist is an entry in the cadastre of 1458, made by a father about the ill health of his youngest son. After completing his studies, Botticelli became an apprentice in the jewelry workshop of his brother Antonio, but did not stay there for long and around 1464 became an apprentice to the monk Fra Filippo Lippi from the monastery of Carmine, one of the most famous artists that time.

The style of Filippo Lippi had a huge influence on Botticelli, manifested mainly in certain types of faces (in a three-quarter turn), decorative and ornamental patterns of draperies, hands, a penchant for detail and a soft, lightened color, in its “waxy” glow. There is no exact information about the period of Botticelli's studies with Filippo Lippi and about their personal relationships, but it can be assumed that they got along well with each other, since a few years later Lippi's son became Botticelli's student. Their collaboration continued until 1467, when Filippo moved to Spoleto and Botticelli opened his workshop in Florence. In the works of the late 1460s, the fragile, flat linearity and grace adopted from Filippo Lippi are replaced by a more voluminous interpretation of figures. Around the same time, Botticelli began using ocher shadows to convey flesh color, a technique that became a prominent feature of his style. The early works of Sandro Botticelli are characterized by a clear construction of space, clear cut-and-shadow modeling, and interest in everyday details (“Adoration of the Magi”, circa 1474–1475, Uffizi).

From the end of the 1470s, after Botticelli’s rapprochement with the court of the Medici rulers of Florence and the circle of Florentine humanists, the features of aristocracy and sophistication intensified in his work, paintings on ancient and allegorical themes appeared, in which sensual pagan images are imbued with the sublime and at the same time poetic, lyrical spirituality (“Spring”, circa 1477–1478, “Birth of Venus”, circa 1482–1483, both in the Uffizi). The animation of the landscape, the fragile beauty of the figures, the musicality of light, trembling lines, the transparency of exquisite colors, as if woven from reflexes, create in them an atmosphere of dreaminess and slight sadness.

The artist’s easel portraits (portrait of a man with a medal, 1474, Uffizi Gallery, Florence; portrait of Giuliano Medici, 1470s, Bergamo; and others) are characterized by a combination of subtle nuances of the internal state of the human soul and clear detailing of the characters of those portrayed. Thanks to the Medici, Botticelli became closely acquainted with the ideas of humanists (a significant number of them were part of the Medici circle, a kind of elite intellectual center of Renaissance Florence), many of which were reflected in his work. For example, mythological paintings(“Pallas Athena and the Centaur”, 1482; “Venus and Mars”, 1483 and others) were, naturally, painted by the artist Botticelli at the request of the cultural elite and were intended to decorate the palazzo or villas of noble Florentine customers. Before the time of Sandro Botticelli, mythological themes in painting were found in decorative wedding decorations and objects applied arts, only occasionally becoming the subject of painting.

In 1481, Sandro Botticelli received an honorary commission from Pope Sixtus IV. The Pontiff has just finished building Sistine Chapel Vatican Palace and wished that the best artists would decorate it with their frescoes. Along with the most famous masters monumental painting of that time - Perugino, Cosimo Rossellini, Domenico Ghirlandaio, Pinturicchino and Signorelli - at the direction of the pope, Botticelli was also invited. In the frescoes executed by Sandro Botticelli in 1481–1482 in the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican (“Scenes from the Life of Moses”, “The Punishment of Korah, Dathan and Abiron”, “The Healing of the Leper and the Temptation of Christ”), the majestic harmony of landscape and ancient architecture is combined with internal plot tension , sharpness portrait characteristics. In all three frescoes, the artist masterfully solved the problem of presenting a complex theological program in clear, light and lively dramatic scenes; this makes full use of compositional effects.

Botticelli returned to Florence in the summer of 1482, perhaps due to the death of his father, but most likely on business in his own busy workshop. In the period between 1480 and 1490, his fame reached its apogee, and he began to receive such a huge number of orders that it was almost impossible to cope with them himself, so most of the Madonna and Child paintings were completed by his students, diligently, but not always brilliantly who copied the style of their master. During these years, Sandro Botticelli painted for the Medici several frescoes at the Villa Spedaletto in Volterra (1483–84), a painting for the altar niche in the Bardi Chapel at the Church of Santo Spirito (1485) and several allegorical frescoes at the Villa Lemmi. The magical grace, beauty, richness of imagination and brilliant execution inherent in paintings on mythological themes are also present in several of Botticelli's famous altarpieces painted during the 1480s. Among the best are the Bardi altarpiece with the image of the Madonna and Child with Saints John the Baptist and John the Evangelist (1485) and the “Annunciation by Cestello” (1489–1490, Uffizi).

In the 1490s, during the era of social unrest and mystical-ascetic sermons of the monk Savonarola that shook Florence, notes of drama, moralizing and religious exaltation appeared in Botticelli’s art (“Lamentation of Christ”, after 1490, Poldi Pezzoli Museum, Milan; “Slander” , after 1495, Uffizi). The sharp contrasts of bright color spots, the internal tension of the drawing, the dynamics and expression of the images indicate an extraordinary change in the artist’s worldview - towards greater religiosity and even a kind of mysticism. However, his drawings for Dante’s “Divine Comedy” (1492–1497, Engraving Cabinet, Berlin, and the Vatican Library), with acute emotional expressiveness, retain lightness of line and Renaissance clarity of images.

IN last years During the artist's life, his fame was declining: the era of new art was dawning and, accordingly, new fashion and new tastes. In 1505, he became a member of the city committee, which was supposed to determine the location of the installation of the statue of Michelangelo - his “David”, but other than this fact, other information about the last years of Botticelli’s life is unknown. It is noteworthy that when in 1502 Isabella d'Este was looking for a Florentine artist for herself and Botticelli agreed to the work, she rejected his services. Vasari in his “Biographies...” painted a depressing picture of the last years of the artist’s life, describing him as a poor man, “old and useless,” unable to stand on his feet without the help of crutches. Most likely, the image of a completely forgotten and poor artist is the creation of Vasari, who was prone to extremes in the biographies of artists.

Sandro Botticelli died in 1510; This is how the Quattrocento ended - this happiest era in Florentine art. Botticelli died at the age of 65 and was buried in the cemetery of the Florentine Church of Ognissanti. Until the 19th century, when his work was rediscovered by the Pre-Raphaelite artist Dante Gabriel Rossetti and art critics Walter Pater and John Ruskin, his name was virtually forgotten in art history. In Botticelli they saw something akin to the preferences of their era - spiritual grace and melancholy, “sympathy for humanity in its unstable states,” traits of morbidity and decadence. The next generation of researchers of Botticelli's painting, for example Herbert Horn, who wrote in the first decades of the 20th century, discerned something different in it - the ability to convey the plasticity and proportions of a figure - that is, signs of an energetic language characteristic of the art of the early Renaissance. We have quite different estimates. What defines Botticelli's art? The 20th century has done a lot to bring us closer to understanding it. The master’s paintings were organically included in the context of his time, connecting with artistic life, literature and humanistic ideas of Florence. Botticelli's painting, attractive and mysterious, is in tune with the worldview not only of the early Renaissance, but also of our time.

We continue the story about the work of Sandro Botticelli.

The two most famous paintings Botticelli, so-called " Primavera" ("Spring") and " Birth of Venus" were commissioned by the Medici and embody the cultural atmosphere that arose in the medical circle. Art historians are unanimous these works date back to 1477-1478 . The paintings were painted for Giovanni and Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco - the sons of Piero's brother "Gouty". Later, after the death of Lorenzo the Magnificent, this branch of the Medici family was in opposition to the rule of his son Piero, for which they earned themselves the nickname "dei Popolani" (Popolanskaya). Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco was a student of Marsilio Ficino. For your villas in Castello he ordered frescoes from the artist, and these two paintings were also intended for her.

In art historical studies, the content of these paintings is interpreted in various ways, including linking it with classical poetry, in particular, with the lines of Horace and Ovid. But along with this, the concept of Botticell’s compositions should have reflected the ideas of Ficino, which found their poetic embodiment in Poliziano.

The presence of Venus here symbolizes not sensual love in its pagan understanding, but acts as a humanistic ideal of spiritual love, " that conscious or semi-conscious aspiration of the soul upward, which purifies everything in its movement"(Chastel). Consequently, the images of Spring are of a cosmological-spiritual nature. The fertilizing Zephyr unites with Flora, giving birth to Primavera, Spring - symbol of the life-giving forces of Nature. Venus in the center of the composition (above her is Cupid blindfolded) - identified with Humanitas - complex of human spiritual properties , manifestations of which represent the three Graces; Mercury, looking upward, scatters the clouds with its caduceus.

How beautiful is each group in the famous painting by Sandro Botticelli - “Spring” (also in the Uffizi), united, full of rhythmic movement, blissfully conjugating with all the lines of the neighboring figures. Perhaps the ancient scenes of these compositions were suggested by the poet Poliziano, who worked at the court of Lorenzo. But their rhythm and charm are purely Botticelli.

then we see Venus,dance of the three graces

and, finally, Mercury, who, looking upward, removes with his caduceus the veil of clouds that prevents contemplation.

What is the content of the picture? Researchers have offered several interpretations. The theme of the composition is spring with its accompanying ancient deities. The center of the construction is Venus - not the embodiment of base passion, but the noble goddess of flowering and all goodwill on earth; this is a neoplatonic image. Expanding this context, scientists argued that the picture reflects the idea of ​​the creation of beauty by light divine love and about the contemplation of this beauty, leading from the earthly to the superterrestrial .

In the literature about Botticelli, it is common to another interpretation three listed characters: it is believed that Zephyr, the nymph Chloris and the goddess of flowering Flora, born in the union of Chloris with Zemphyr, are represented here.

Venus, the central figure of the composition, stands under the canopy of trees in this enchanted space of the spring forest. Her dress made of the finest fabric with golden threads of decoration and a luxurious scarlet cloak, symbolizing love, indicate that before us is the goddess of love and beauty. But other features also appear in her fragile appearance. The bowed head is covered with a gauze blanket, the kind Sandro liked to dress his Madonnas in. Venus's face with questioningly raised eyebrows expresses sadness and modesty; the meaning of her gesture is unclear - is it a greeting, timid defense or blissful acceptance?

The character resembles the Virgin Mary in the subject of the Annunciation (for example, in the painting by Alesso Baldovinetti). The pagan and Christian are hidden in a spiritualized image.

In other figures the compositions are also captured associations with religious motives. So, images of Zephyr and the nymph Chloris echo the medieval image of the devil not allowing souls into Paradise .

Graces, companions and maids of Venus, - the virtues generated by Beauty, their names - Chastity, Love, Pleasure . Botticelli's depiction of the beautiful triad is the very embodiment of dance. Slender figures with elongated, smoothly curving forms are intertwined in a rhythmic sequence of circular movement. The artist is extremely inventive in his interpretation of hairstyles, conveying hair simultaneously as a natural element and as a decorative material. Grace's hair is collected in strands, sometimes finely curly, sometimes falling in waves, sometimes scattering over her shoulders, like golden streams.

Light bends and turns of figures, dialogue of glances, graceful joining of hands and placement of feet - all this conveys the progressive rhythm of the dance. The relationships of its participants reflect the classical formula and at the same time the Neoplatonic understanding of Eros: Love leads Chastity to Pleasure and binds their hands . In Botticelli's image the idea of ​​mythological splendor comes to life, but his images are colored with genuine purity.

Let's move on to the second picture. (there was already a publication about this picture on the community pages , but I will try to dwell here on those points that were not touched upon in the previous publication)

"Birth of Venus"around 1477-85 Uffizi Gallery, Florence

The plot of Botticelli's masterpiece is resurrected one of the most poetic legends Ancient Greece . The goddess of love Aphrodite in Roman mythology - Venus) was born from foam sea ​​waves near the island of Cyprus. Marshmallow(the west wind) blows on the shell with the young beauty and drives it to the shore. Roses fall from his breath, and they seem to fill the picture with a subtle fragrance. Zephyr is depicted in the arms of his wife Chloris(the Romans called it Flora), mistress of the plant kingdom. Spring awaits Venus, ready to throw regal clothes on the goddess of love to hide the perfect beauty of her body. Spring's neck is decorated with a garland of evergreen myrtle, symbolizing eternal love.

The artist uses the gentle tones of dawn to carnate the figures rather than to interpret their surroundings. spatial environment, they are also attached to light robes, enlivened by the finest pattern of cornflowers and daisies. The optimism of the humanistic myth organically combined here with the light melancholy characteristic of Botticelli’s art. But after the creation of these paintings, the contradictions that gradually deepened in the culture and fine arts of the Renaissance also affected the artist. The first signs of this become noticeable in his work in the early 1480s.

For the painting, the artist chose the pose of “chaste Venus,” shyly covering her captivating nakedness. The prototype of the goddess with the face of the Madonna was again Simonetta Vespucci.

As noted in the post This painting by Botticelli inspired many poets when creating their works. Poems were given in the tagged post Novels by Matveeva And Fields Valerie. I'll give you another poem here. Sarah Bernhardt "Birth of Venus"

It hit. Grumbled. It's gone.
A multi-row of whirlwinds rose up from the bottom.
Ascended from the milky white foam
born Venus... Immediately it became quiet,

clinging to her divine feet.
The salty tongue caresses the nakedness...
Marshmallows are heading to the shores
her boat. On earth in love

meets the nymph. There are flowers in the air
spinning and flying quietly into the water...
Her face is full of dreams -
oh, the sensuality of Nature's insight.

Love goddess: gold hair,
the face of a teenager, the body without flaws -
a premonition of passions... A silent question -
does she care about these mortals?

Sandro Botticelli, (Italian Sandro Botticelli, real name Alessandro di Mariano Filipepi Alessandro di Mariano Filipepi; 1445 - May 17, 1510) - Italian painter of the Tuscan school.

Biography of Sandro Botticelli

Sandro Botticelli is an Italian painter of the Tuscan school.

Representative of the Early Renaissance. He was close to the Medici court and the humanist circles of Florence. Works on religious and mythological themes (“Spring”, circa 1477-1478; “Birth of Venus”, circa 1483-1484) are marked by inspired poetry, play of linear rhythms, and subtle coloring. Under the influence of the social upheavals of the 1490s, Botticelli’s art becomes intensely dramatic (“Slander”, after 1495). Drawings for Dante’s “Divine Comedy”, poignant, graceful portraits (“Giuliano de’ Medici”).

Alessandro di Mariano Filipepi was born in 1445 in Florence, the son of tanner Mariano di Vanni Filipepi and his wife Smeralda. After the death of his father, the head of the family became his elder brother, a wealthy stock exchange businessman, nicknamed Botticelli (“Barrel”), either because of his round figure, or because of his intemperance towards wine. This nickname spread to other brothers. (Giovanni, Antonio and Simone) The Filipepi brothers received elementary education in the Dominican monastery of Santa Maria Novella, for which Botticelli later carried out work. At first, the future artist, together with his middle brother Antonio, was sent to study jewelry making. The art of goldsmithing, a respected profession in the mid-15th century, taught him a lot.

Definition contour lines and the skillful use of gold, acquired by him as a jeweler, will forever remain in the artist’s work.

Antonio became a good jeweler, and Alessandro, having completed his training course, became interested in painting and decided to devote himself to it. The Filipepi family was respected in the city, which later provided him with impressive connections. The Vespucci family lived next door. One of them, Amerigo Vespucci (1454-1512), a famous trader and explorer, after whom America is named. In 1461-62, on the advice of George Antonio Vespucci, he was sent to the workshop of the famous artist Filippo Lippi, in Prato, a city 20 km from Florence.

In 1467-68, after the death of Lippi, Botticelli returned to Florence, having learned a lot from his teacher. In Florence, the young artist, studying with Andreo de Verrocchio, where Leonardo da Vinci was studying at the same time, became famous. The first independent work an artist who worked in his father's house from 1469.

In 1469, Sandro was introduced by George Antonio Vespucci to the influential politician and statesman Tommaso Soderini. From this meeting, drastic changes took place in the artist’s life.

In 1470 he received, with the support of Soderini, the first official order; Soderini brings Botticelli together with his nephews Lorenzo and Giuliano Medici. From that time on, his work, and this was his heyday, was associated with the name of the Medici. In 1472-75. he paints two small works depicting the story of Judith, apparently intended for cabinet doors. Three years after “Force of the Spirit,” Botticelli creates St. Sebastian, who was very solemnly installed in the church of Santa Maria Maggiori, in Florence. Beautiful Madonnas appear, radiating enlightened meekness. But he received his greatest fame when, around 1475, he performed the “Adoration of the Magi” for the monastery of Santa Maria Novella, where he depicted members of the Medici family surrounded by Mary. Florence during the reign of the Medici was a city of knightly tournaments, masquerades, and festive processions. On January 28, 1475, one of these tournaments took place in the city. It took place in Piazza Santa Corce, and its main character was to be the younger brother of Lorenzo the Magnificent, Giuliano. His “beautiful lady” was Simonetta Vespucci, with whom Giuliano was hopelessly in love and, apparently, he was not alone. The beauty was subsequently depicted by Botticelli as Pallas Athena on Giuliano's standard. After this tournament, Botticelli took a strong position among the inner circle of the Medici and his place in the official life of the city.

Lorenzo Pierfrancesco Medici, cousin of the Magnificent, becomes his regular customer. Soon after the tournament, even before the artist left for Rome, he ordered him several works. Even in his early youth, Botticelli acquired experience in painting portraits, this characteristic test of the artist's skill. Having become famous throughout Italy, starting in the late 1470s, Botticelli received increasingly lucrative orders from clients outside Florence. In 1481, Pope Sixtus IV invited the painters Sandro Botticelli, Domenico Ghirlandaio, Pietro Perugino and Cosimo Rosselli to Rome to decorate the walls of the papal chapel, called the Sistine Chapel, with frescoes. The wall painting was completed over a surprisingly short period of only eleven months, from July 1481 to May 1482. Botticelli completed three scenes. After returning from Rome, he painted a number of paintings on mythological themes. The artist finishes the painting “Spring”, begun before his departure. During this time in Florence there occurred important events, which influenced the mood inherent in this work. Initially, the theme for writing "Spring" was drawn from Poliziano's poem "The Tournament" in which Giuliano de' Medici and his lover Simonetta Vespucci were glorified. However, during the time that elapsed from the beginning of the work to its completion, the beautiful Simonetta died suddenly, and Giuliano himself, with whom the artist had a friendship, was villainously murdered.

This affected the mood of the picture, introducing into it a note of sadness and understanding of the transience of life.

"The Birth of Venus" was written several years later than "Spring". It is unknown who from the Medici family was its customer. Around the same time, Botticelli wrote episodes from "The History of Nastagio degli Onesti" (Boccaccio's Decameron), "Pallas and the Centaur" and "Venus and Mars". In the last years of his reign, Lorenzo the Magnificent, 1490, called the famous preacher Fra Girolamo Savonarola to Florence. Apparently, by doing this, the Magnificent wanted to strengthen his authority in the city.

But the preacher, a militant champion of the observance of church dogmas, entered into sharp conflict with the secular power of Florence. He managed to gain many supporters in the city. Many talented, religious people of art fell under his influence, and Botticelli could not resist. Joy and worship of Beauty disappeared from his work forever. If the previous Madonnas appeared in the solemn majesty of the Queen of Heaven, now she is a pale woman with eyes full of tears, who has experienced and experienced a lot. The artist began to gravitate more toward religious subjects; even among official orders, he was primarily attracted to paintings on biblical themes. This period of creativity is marked by the painting “The Coronation of the Virgin Mary,” commissioned for the chapel of the jewelers’ workshop. His last great work on a secular theme was “Slander,” but in it, despite all the talent of execution, it lacks the luxuriously decorated, decorative style inherent in Botticelli. In 1493, Florence was shocked by the death of Lorenzo the Magnificent.

Savonarola's fiery speeches were heard throughout the city. In the city, which was the cradle of humanistic thought in Italy, a reassessment of values ​​took place. In 1494, the heir of the Magnificent, Piero, and other Medici were expelled from the city. During this period, Botticelli continued to be greatly influenced by Savonarola. All this affected his work, which experienced a deep crisis. Melancholy and sadness emanate from the two “Lamentations of Christ.” Savonarola’s sermons about the end of the world, the Day of Judgment and God’s punishment led to the fact that on February 7, 1497, thousands of people made a bonfire in the central square of the Signoria, where they burned the most valuable works of art seized from rich houses: furniture, clothes, books, paintings, decorations. Among them, who succumbed to psychosis, were artists. (Lorenzo de Credi, Botticelli's former companion, destroyed several of his sketches of nude figures.)

Botticelli was in the square and, some biographers of those years write that, having succumbed general mood, burned several sketches (the paintings were with the customers), but there is no exact evidence. With the support of Pope Alexander VI, Savonarola was accused of heresy and sentenced to death.

The public execution had a great effect on Botticelli. He writes “Mystical Birth,” where he shows his attitude to what is happening.

The last of the paintings are dedicated to two heroines of Ancient Rome - Lucretia and Virginia. Both girls, in order to save their honor, accepted death, which pushed the people to remove the rulers. The paintings symbolize the expulsion of the Medici family and the restoration of Florence as a republic. According to his biographer, Giorgio Vasari, the painter was tormented by illness and infirmity at the end of his life.

He became "so stooped that he had to walk with the help of two sticks." Botticelli was not married and had no children.

He died alone, at the age of 65, and was buried near the monastery of Santa Maria Novella.

Works of the Italian painter

His art, intended for educated connoisseurs, imbued with motifs of Neoplatonic philosophy, was not appreciated for a long time.

For about three centuries, Botticelli was almost forgotten, until in the middle XIX century interest in his work did not revive, which does not fade to this day.

Writers turn of XIX-XX centuries (R. Sizeran, P. Muratov) created a romantic-tragic image of the artist, which has since firmly established itself in the minds. But documents from the late 15th – early 16th centuries do not confirm such an interpretation of his personality and do not always confirm the data in the biography of Sandro Botticelli written by Vasari.

The first work undoubtedly belonging to Botticelli, “Allegory of Power” (Florence, Uffizi), dates back to 1470. It was part of the series “Seven Virtues” (the others were performed by Piero Pollaiuolo) for the hall of the Commercial Court. Botticelli's student soon became the later famous Filippino Lippi, son of Fra Filippo, who died in 1469. On January 20, 1474, on the occasion of the feast of St. Sebastian's painting "Saint Sebastian" by Sandro Botticelli was exhibited in the Church of Santa Maria Maggiore in Florence.

Allegory of Power by Saint Sebastian

In the same year, Sandro Botticelli was invited to Pisa to work on the Camposanto frescoes. For an unknown reason, he did not complete them, but in the Pisa Cathedral he painted the fresco “The Assumption of Our Lady,” which died in 1583. In the 1470s, Botticelli became close to the Medici family and the “Medice circle” - poets and Neoplatonist philosophers (Marsilio Ficino, Pico della Mirandola , Angelo Poliziano). On January 28, 1475, Lorenzo the Magnificent's brother Giuliano took part in a tournament in one of the Florentine squares with a standard painted by Botticelli (not preserved). After the failed Pazzi plot to overthrow the Medici (April 26, 1478), Botticelli, commissioned by Lorenzo the Magnificent, painted a fresco over the Porta della Dogana, which led to the Palazzo Vecchio. It depicted the hanged conspirators (this painting was destroyed on November 14, 1494 after Piero de' Medici fled from Florence).

To the number best works Sandro Botticelli of the 1470s refers to “The Adoration of the Magi,” where members of the Medici family and people close to them are shown in the images of eastern sages and their retinue. At the right edge of the picture, the artist depicted himself.

Between 1475 and 1480 Sandro Botticelli created one of the most beautiful and mysterious works - the painting "Spring".

It was intended for Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco Medici, with whom Botticelli had friendly relations. The plot of this painting, which combines motifs of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, has not yet been fully explained and is obviously inspired by both Neoplatonic cosmogony and events in the Medici family.

The early period of Botticelli’s work ends with the fresco “St. Augustine" (1480, Florence, Church of Ognisanti), commissioned by the Vespucci family. It is a pair of Domenico Ghirlandaio’s composition “St. Jerome" in the same temple. The spiritual passion of Augustine's image contrasts with the prosaism of Jerome, clearly demonstrating the differences between deep, emotional creativity Botticelli and the good craftsmanship of Ghirlandaio.

In 1481, together with other painters from Florence and Umbria (Perugino, Piero di Cosimo, Domenico Ghirlandaio), Sandro Botticelli was invited to Rome by Pope Sixtus IV to work in the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican. He returned to Florence in the spring of 1482, having managed to write three large compositions in the chapel: “The Healing of the Leper and the Temptation of Christ”, “The Youth of Moses” and “The Punishment of Korah, Dathan and Abiron”.

In the 1480s, Botticelli continued to work for the Medici and other noble Florentine families, producing paintings of both secular and religious subjects. Around 1483, together with Filippino Lippi, Perugino and Ghirlandaio, he worked in Volterra at the Villa Spedaletto, which belonged to Lorenzo the Magnificent. The famous painting by Sandro Botticelli “The Birth of Venus” (Florence, Uffizi), made for Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco, dates back to before 1487. Together with the previously created “Spring”, it became a kind of iconic image, the personification of both the art of Botticelli and the refined culture of the Medicean court.

The two best tondos (round paintings) by Botticelli date back to the 1480s - “Madonna Magnificat” and “Madonna with a Pomegranate” (both in Florence, Uffizi). The latter may have been intended for the audience hall in the Palazzo Vecchio.

Madonna Magnificat Madonna with Pomegranate

It is believed that from the late 1480s, Sandro Botticelli was strongly influenced by the sermons of the Dominican Girolamo Savonarola, who denounced the order of the contemporary Church and called for repentance.

Vasari writes that Botticelli was a follower of Savonarola’s “sect” and even gave up painting and “fell into the greatest ruin.” Indeed, the tragic mood and elements of mysticism in many of the master’s later works testify in favor of such an opinion. At the same time, the wife of Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco, in a letter dated November 25, 1495, reports that Botticelli was painting the Villa Medici in Trebbio with frescoes, and on July 2, 1497 from the same Lorenzo the artist receives a loan for the execution of decorative paintings at the Villa Castello (not preserved). In the same 1497, more than three hundred Savonarola supporters signed a petition to Pope Alexander VI asking him to lift the excommunication from the Dominican. The name Sandro Botticelli was not found among these signatures. In March 1498, Guidantonio Vespucci invited Botticelli and Piero di Cosimo to decorate his new house on Via Servi. Among the paintings that adorned it were “The History of the Roman Virginia” (Bergamo, Accademia Carrara) and “The History of the Roman Lucretia” (Boston, Gardner Museum). Savonarola was burned that same year on May 29, and there is only one direct evidence of Botticelli's serious interest in his person. Almost two years later, on November 2, 1499, Sandro Botticelli's brother Simone wrote in his diary: “Alessandro di Mariano Filipepi, my brother, one of best artists, which were in these times in our city, in my presence, sitting at home by the fire, about three o’clock in the morning, I told how on that day, in his bottega in the house, Sandro talked with Doffo Spini about the case of Frate Girolamo.” Spini was the chief judge in the trial against Savonarola.

The most significant late works of Botticelli include two “Entombments” (both after 1500; Munich, Alte Pinakothek; Milan, Poldi Pezzoli Museum) and the famous “Mystical Nativity” (1501, London, National Gallery) - the only one signed and dated work of the artist. In them, especially in “Nativity,” they see Botticelli’s appeal to the techniques of medieval Gothic art, primarily in the violation of perspective and scale relationships.

Entombment Mystical Christmas

However late works masters are not pastiche.

The use of forms and techniques alien to the Renaissance artistic method is explained by the desire to enhance emotional and spiritual expressiveness, for which the artist did not have enough specificity to convey real world. One of the most sensitive painters of the Quattrocento, Botticelli sensed the impending crisis of the humanistic culture of the Renaissance extremely early. In the 1520s, its onset will be marked by the emergence of the irrational and subjective art of mannerism.

One of the most interesting aspects of Sandro Botticelli's work is portraiture.

In this area, he established himself as a brilliant master already at the end of the 1460s (“Portrait of a Man with a Medal,” 1466-1477, Florence, Uffizi; “Portrait of Giuliano de’ Medici,” c. 1475, Berlin, State Collections). IN best portraits masters, the spirituality and sophistication of the characters’ appearances are combined with a kind of hermeticism, sometimes locking them in arrogant suffering (“Portrait of a Young Man”, New York, Metropolitan Museum).

One of the most magnificent draftsmen of the 15th century, Botticelli, according to Vasari, painted a lot and “exceptionally well.” His drawings were extremely highly valued by his contemporaries, and they were kept as samples in many workshops of Florentine artists. Very few of them have survived to this day, but a unique series of illustrations for Dante’s “Divine Comedy” allows us to judge the skill of Botticelli as a draftsman. Executed on parchment, these drawings were intended for Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco de' Medici. Sandro Botticelli turned to illustrating Dante twice. The first small group of drawings (not preserved) was apparently made by him in the late 1470s, and based on it Baccio Baldini made nineteen engravings for the 1481 edition of the Divine Comedy. Botticelli’s most famous illustration to Dante is the drawing “Map of Hell” ( La mappa dell inferno).

Botticelli began executing the pages of the Medici Codex after returning from Rome, using partly his first compositions. 92 sheets have survived (85 in the Cabinet of Engravings in Berlin, 7 in the Vatican Library). The drawings were made with silver and lead pins, and the artist then outlined their thin gray line with brown or black ink. Four sheets are painted with tempera. On many sheets the inking is not completed or not done at all. It is these illustrations that make it especially clear to feel the beauty of Botticelli’s light, precise, nervous line.

According to Vasari, Sandro Botticelli was “a very pleasant person and often liked to joke with his students and friends.”

“They also say,” he writes further, “that above all he loved those whom he knew were diligent in their art, and that he earned a lot, but everything went to ruin for him, since he managed poorly and was careless. In the end, he became decrepit and incapacitated and walked leaning on two sticks...” About Botticelli’s financial situation in the 1490s, that is, at the time when, according to Vasari, he had to give up painting and go broke under the influence of Savonarola’s sermons, partly allow us to judge documents from the State Archives of Florence. It follows from them that on April 19, 1494, Sandro Botticelli, together with his brother Simone, acquired a house with land and a vineyard outside the gates of San Frediano. The income from this property in 1498 was determined at 156 florins. True, since 1503 the master has been in debt for contributions to the Guild of St. Luke, but an entry dated October 18, 1505 reports that it was completely repaid. The fact that the elderly Botticelli continued to enjoy fame is also evidenced by a letter from Francesco dei Malatesti, agent of the ruler of Mantua, Isabella d’Este, who was looking for craftsmen to decorate her studiolo. On September 23, 1502, he informs her from Florence that Perugino is in Siena, Filippino Lippi is too burdened with orders, but there is also Botticelli, who “we praise me a lot.” The trip to Mantua did not take place for an unknown reason.

In 1503, Ugolino Verino, in his poem “De ilrustratione urbis Florentiae,” named Sandro Botticelli among the best painters, comparing him with the famous artists of antiquity - Zeuxis and Apelles.

On January 25, 1504, the master was part of a commission discussing the choice of location for the installation of Michelangelo’s David. The last four and a half years of Sandro Botticelli's life are not documented. They were that sad time of decrepitude and incapacity that Vasari wrote about.

Interesting facts: the origin of the nickname “Botticelli”

The artist's real name is Alessandro Filipepi (for Sandro's friends).

He was the youngest of four sons of Mariano Filipepi and his wife Zmeralda and was born in Florence in 1445. Mariano was a tanner by profession and lived with his family in the Santa Maria Novella quarter on Via Nuova, where he rented an apartment in a house owned by Rucellai. He had his own workshop not far from the Santa Trinita in Oltrarno bridge, the business brought in a very modest income, and old Filipepi dreamed of quickly finding a job for his sons and finally having the opportunity to leave the labor-intensive craft.

The first mention of Alessandro, as well as of other Florentine artists, we find in the so-called “portate al Catasto”, that is, the cadastre, where statements of income were made for taxation, which, in accordance with the decree of the Republic of 1427, the head of each Florentine state was obliged to make families.

So in 1458, Mariano Filipepi indicated that he had four sons Giovanni, Antonio, Simone and thirteen-year-old Sandro and added that Sandro “is learning to read, he is a sickly boy.” Filipepi's four brothers brought significant income and social status to the family. The Filipepi owned houses, land, vineyards and shops.

The origin of Sandro’s nickname, “Botticelli,” is still in doubt.

Perhaps the funny street nickname “Botticella”, meaning “Barrel”, was inherited by the slender and dexterous maestro Sandro from the fat man Giovanni, Sandro’s older brother, who looked after him paternally, who became a broker and served as a financial intermediary for the government.

Apparently, Giovanni, wanting to help his aging father, did a lot of upbringing youngest child. But perhaps the nickname arose in consonance with the jewelry craft of the second brother, Antonio. However, no matter how we interpret the above document, jewelry art played an important role in the formation young Botticelli, for it was precisely in this direction that the same brother Antonio directed him. Alessandro’s father, tired of his “extravagant mind,” gifted and capable of learning, but restless and still not having found the true vocations; perhaps Mariano wanted younger son followed in the footsteps of Antonio, who had worked as a goldsmith since at least 1457, which would mark the beginning of a small but reliable family enterprise.

According to Vasari, at that time there was such a close connection between jewelers and painters that entering the workshop of one meant gaining direct access to the craft of others, and Sandro, who was fairly skilled in drawing, an art necessary for accurate and confident “blackening,” soon became interested in painting and decided to devote himself to it, without forgetting the most valuable lessons of jewelry art, in particular clarity in drawing contour lines and skillful use of gold, which was later often used by the artist as an admixture to paints or in its pure form for the background.

A crater on Mercury is named after Botticelli.

Bibliography

• Botticelli, Sandro // encyclopedic Dictionary Brockhaus and Efron: In 86 volumes (82 volumes and 4 additional). - St. Petersburg, 1890-1907.
• Go to: 1 2 3 4 Giorgio Vasari. Biographies of the most famous painters, sculptors and architects. - M.: ALPHA-KNIGA, 2008.
• Titus Lucretius Car. About the nature of things. - M.: Fiction, 1983.
• Dolgopolov I.V. Masters and masterpieces. - M.: Fine Arts, 1986. - T. I.
• Benoit A. History of painting of all times and peoples. - M.: Neva, 2004. - T. 2.

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Sandro Botticelli is an outstanding representative of Florentine painting of the Quattrocento era. After his death, the master went into oblivion. This continued until mid-19th century, when the public regained interest in his work and biography. The name Sandro Botticelli is one of the first that comes to mind for both ordinary people and specialists when it comes to the art of the early Renaissance.

Childhood and youth

An interesting fact that not everyone knows: Botticelli is not real name artist. As a child, his name was Alessandro di Mariano di Vanni Filipepi. On March 1, 1445, the youngest son, Sandro, was born into the family of the Florentine tanner Mariano. In addition to him, his parents had three eldest sons: Giovanni and Simone, who devoted themselves to trade, and Antonio, who chose jewelry craft.

There is no consensus on the origin of the painter's surname. The first theory links Botticelli's nickname to trading activities the artist’s two older brothers (“botticelle” translates as barrel). Supporters of another theory also believe that Sandro got the nickname from his brother Giovanni, but for a different reason: he was a fat man. Other researchers claim that new surname passed to Botticelli from another brother, Antonio (“battigello” - “silversmith”).

In his youth, Sandro was a jeweler's apprentice for 2 years. But in 1462 (or in 1464 - the opinions of researchers differ) he entered the art workshop of Fra Filippo Lippi. When the latter left Florence in 1467, Andrea Verrocchio became the mentor of the future genius. By the way, he studied in Verrocchio’s workshop at the same time as Botticelli. Two years later, in 1469, Sandro began independent work.

Painting

The exact dates of painting of most of the artist’s paintings are not known. Experts have determined approximate dates based on stylistic analysis. The work that went down in history as the first and entirely by Botticelli is “Allegory of Power.” Written in 1470, it was intended for the hall of the Florentine Commercial Court. Now it is an exhibit of the Uffizi Gallery.

The artist's first independent works also include numerous images. The most famous is the Madonna of the Eucharist, painted around 1470. During the same period, Botticelli opened his own workshop. His son former mentor– Filippino Lippi – becomes Sandro’s student.

After 1470, the features of the master’s style became more and more apparent: a bright palette, rendering of skin tones using rich ocher shadows. Botticelli's achievement as a painter is the ability to vividly and succinctly reveal the drama of a plot, endowing images with expression, feelings and movement. This was clearly manifested already in the early (1470-1472) diptych about the Old Testament feat that beheaded the Assyrian invader Holofernes.

Botticelli's first depiction of a nude body is the painting “Saint Sebastian”. On the day of the holy martyr, January 20, 1474, she was solemnly presented to the inhabitants of the city. The vertical canvas was hung on a column of the Church of Santa Maria Maggiore.

In the mid-1470s Sandro is approached by portrait genre visual arts. During this period, the “Portrait of an Unknown Man with a Cosimo de’ Medici Medal” appeared. It is not known for certain who the young man depicted in the painting of 1474-1475 was. There is an assumption that this is a self-portrait. Some researchers believe that the artist’s model was Antonio’s brother, others believe that the painting depicts the author of the medal himself or a representative of the Medici family.

The painter became close to this powerful Florentine family and their entourage in the 70s. On January 28, 1475, Giuliano Medici, brother of the head of the Florentine Republic, participated in a tournament with a standard, the painting of which was worked by Botticelli. Around 1478, the artist painted a portrait of Giuliano himself.

On the famous canvas “The Adoration of the Magi” the Medici family is depicted almost in full force along with their retinue. Botticelli was also part of it, whose figure can be seen in the right corner.

On April 26, 1478, as a result of a failed conspiracy against the Medici, Giuliano was killed. Commissioned by the surviving Lorenzo, the artist painted a fresco above the gate leading to the Palazzo Vecchio. Botticelli's depiction of the hanged conspirators did not last even 20 years. After the expulsion of the less fortunate ruler Piero de' Medici from Florence, it was destroyed.

By the end of the 1470s, the painter became popular outside of Tuscany. Pope Sixtus IV wished to see Sandro in charge of painting the walls of the newly built chapel. In 1481, Botticelli arrived in Rome and, together with other artists, began work on frescoes. He painted three, including “The Temptation of Christ,” as well as 11 portraits of popes. In 30 years, the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel will be painted, and it will become famous throughout the world.

After returning from the Vatican, in the first half of the 1480s, Botticelli created his main masterpieces. They are inspired by ancient culture and the philosophy of humanists, followers of Neoplatonism, with whom the artist became close during that period. “Spring,” written in 1482, is the author’s most mysterious work, which still does not have a clear interpretation. It is believed that the artist created the painting inspired by the poem “On the Nature of Things” by Lucretius, namely the passage:

“Here comes Spring, and Venus is coming, and Venus is winged

The messenger is coming ahead, and, after Zephyr, in front of them

Flora the Mother walks and, scattering flowers along the path,

Fills everything with colors and a sweet smell...

The winds, goddess, run before you; with your approach

The clouds are leaving the heavens, the earth is a lush master

A flower carpet is spreading, the sea waves are smiling,

And the azure sky shines with spilled light"

This painting, like two other pearls of this period - the paintings “Pallas and the Centaur” and “The Birth of Venus”, was owned by Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco Medici, second cousin Duke of Florence. Characterizing these three works, researchers note the melodiousness and plasticity of the lines, the musicality of color, the sense of rhythm and harmony, expressed in subtle nuances.

In the late 1470s and early 1480s, Botticelli worked on illustrations for The Divine Comedy. Few of the series of pen drawings on parchment have survived, among them “The Abyss of Hell.” Among the works on a religious theme of this period, the Madonna and Child Enthroned (1484), the Annunciation of Cestello (1484-1490), the Madonna Magnificat tondo (1481-1485) and the Madonna with a Pomegranate (c. 1487) are distinguished. .

In the years 1490-1500, Botticelli was influenced by the teachings of the Dominican monk Girolamo Savonarola, who criticized the church orders of the time and the excesses of secular life. Imbued with calls for asceticism and repentance, Sandro began to use darker and more restrained shades.

Landscapes and interior elements disappeared from portrait backgrounds, as can be seen in the “Portrait of Dante” (c. 1495). Painted around 1490, “Judith Leaving the Tent of Holofernes” and “Lamentation of Christ” are typical works of the painter for that time.

Savonarola's accusation of heresy and execution in 1498, and even earlier, the death of Lorenzo de' Medici and the subsequent political unrest in Tuscany, shocked Botticelli. Mysticism and gloominess have increased in creativity. "Mystical Christmas" 1500 - main monument this period and the last meaningful work artist.

Personal life

ABOUT personal life Little is known about Botticelli. The artist did not have a wife or children. A number of researchers believe that Sandro was in love with Simonetta Vespucci, the first beauty of Florence and the lady of the heart of Giuliano Medici.

She served as a model for many of the artist’s paintings. Simonetta died in 1476 at the age of 23.

Death

In the last 4.5 years of his life, Botticelli did not write and lived in poverty. The great master of the Quattrocento era was buried in the cemetery of the Florentine church of Ognisanti on May 17, 1510.

Works

• OK. 1470 - "Allegory of Power"
• OK. 1470 - "Adoration of the Magi"
• c.1470 - “Madonna of the Eucharist”
• 1474 - “Saint Sebastian”
• 1474-1475 - “Portrait of an unknown person with a medal of Cosimo de’ Medici”
• OK. 1475 - “Portrait of Giuliano de’ Medici”
• 1481-1485 - “Madonna Magnificat”
• OK. 1482 - "Spring"
• 1482-1483 - “Pallas and Centaur”
• OK. 1485 - "Venus and Mars"
• OK. 1485 - "Birth of Venus"
• OK. 1487 - “Madonna of the Pomegranate”
• OK. 1490 - “Lamentation of Christ”
• OK. 1495 - "Slander"
• OK. 1495 - “Portrait of Dante”
• 1495-1500 - “Judith leaving the tent of Holofernes”
• 1500 - "Mystical Christmas"