Know the Artist_ Sandro Botticelli

The 15th century marked a seismic shift in cultural values throughout Europe. The Middle Ages gave way to a new generation of enlightened thinkers and creators, who illuminated the path to progress by way of scientific advancement and artistic curiosity. The Italian city of Florence became the epicenter of this prosperous period known as the Renaissance, the spirit of which still emanates from the incomparable paintings of Sandro Botticelli. This is Several Circles. A striking young man meets our gaze with quiet confidence. His lustrous auburn hair curls above the shoulders of a deceptively humble coat. Indigo was a pricey pigment in the 1400s, which suggests the sitter's affluence. But his identity remains a mystery to us. It's merely speculated that he is a relative of the powerful Florentine statesman Lorenzo de Medici, aka Lorenzo the Magnificent, an arbiter of the Italian Renaissance and one of Sandro Botticelli's most loyal patrons. Whomever the subject is, he surely embodies the aesthetic ideal of his era, his youthfulness amplified by the elderly saint portrayed in his medallion. This is actually an original work of art in itself, believed to have been painted by the 14th century Italian artist Bartolomeo Bulgarini. The correlation or symbolism intended between the two figures has yet to be deciphered, but the distinctly medieval style of Bulgarini's inserted portrait is in stark contrast to Botticelli's, which possesses an almost proto-modernist sensibility. Entitled Young Man Holding a Roundel, this particular painting is the reason why you might have noticed Botticelli's name in the news lately. After centuries of private ownership, the painting will go to auction at Sotheby's in New York as the highlight of their annual master's week sale in January 2021. It's one of only about a dozen portraits attributed to the Italian Renaissance artist, its rarity and extraordinary condition constituting the highest estimated value Sotheby's has set for an old master painting yet. The tear-jerking $80 million price point rivals Vincent van Gogh's Portrait of Dr. Gachet, which sold for $82.5 million in 1990, and Portrait of Adela Blockbauer II by Gustav Klimt, which sold for $87.9 million in 2006. The hype around this portrait is consistent with how significant Botticelli is on the art history continuum, and yet we don't definitively know much about him. Most of what limited information we have is thanks to the 16th century Italian painter, architect, and historian Giorgio Vasari, whose expansive assemblage of biographies, entitled Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, documented an impressive number of Western artists from the 13th century on. Vasari's unprecedented archival undertaking was by far the noblest of his time, but subsequent research has indicated that it's best we take some of his factual accounts with just a pinch of salt. Born Alessandro di Mariano Filippeppi circa 1445 in Florence, Botticelli supposedly adopted his surname from the nickname Botticello, which means little barrel in Italian. Vasari writes that Botticelli was a bright but restless child, and so his father, who was a tanner, attempted to refine his son's wild spirit by apprenticing him to a goldsmith. But Botticelli's proclivity was for painting, so he left to train with the respected Florentine painter Fra Filippo Lippi sometime in the late 1450s. Aspects of Lippi's delicate style resound in Botticelli's paintings, from his emphasis on line to the way he illustrated human expression and filmy fabrics. Lippi eventually left Florence for the Umbrian city of Spoleto, where he died in 1469, the same year that Botticelli was given part of a commission to paint the virtues for the Piazza della Signoria. In Lippi's absence, Botticelli is thought to have honed his craft with Andrea del Verrocchio, whose celebrated sculptural practice likely influenced Botticelli's interest in contour, and Antonio del Pollaiuolo, whose focus on anatomy inspired a more muscular, naturalistic approach to figuration. The commission for the Piazza della Signoria was granted to Pollaiuolo's brother, Piero, who shared it with Botticelli in the way of Fortitude, which is now considered Botticelli's first notable work. Completed in 1470, Fortitude exemplifies the young artist's budding talent for imbuing his elegant subjects with a contemplative presence. It was after his completion of Fortitude that Botticelli's career took off. Circa 1470, when he would have been in his mid-twenties, he established a workshop from his family home. His studio produced prolifically for private patrons and important religious spaces alike, such as the Church of Ognisanti, which houses his magnificent fresco of Saint Augustine, and the Santa Maria Novella, for which he made his most famous iteration of the popular religious subject, Adoration of the Magi. Botticelli worked various members of the Medici family into this version, as well as a probable self-portrait. In addition to his many altarpieces and frescoes, Botticelli was regularly patronized for his exceptional iconography of the Virgin Mary. Compared to her rather crude portrayal throughout the Middle Ages, Botticelli's Madonnas are soulful and compassionate with an ethereal beauty. Botticelli's devotional works became so sought after that in 1481, he was invited to Rome by Pope Sixtus IV to decorate the recently restored Sistine Chapel at the Vatican. Today, most of us associate the Sistine Chapel with its ceiling, painted almost 30 years later by the great Michelangelo. But Botticelli's frescoes solidified his reputation as one of the most in-demand artists in Italy. Botticelli's approach to painting was a revelation. Though religious content accounted for a significant portion of his practice, he also became one of the first artists since the Classical Antiquity to revisit mythological, allegorical, and literary subject matters. He employed vanguard anatomical research to render a more accurate perspective of the human body, and then defied that perspective as he desired to make his subjects more pleasing to look at. His artistic innovation was greatly supported by the all-powerful Medici family, who transformed Florence into something of a renaissance HQ, a hub for philosophical debate and the exchange of new ideas. Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco di Medici, a cousin of Lorenzo the Magnificent, is believed to have been the lucky recipient of one of the most sumptuous masterpieces ever created for the occasion of his wedding. The painting is widely referred to as Primavera, meaning spring, a title that first appears in Vasari's writings. Botticelli's title, if there was one, has been lost to time. Painted between the late 1470s-early 80s, Primavera depicts nine figures in an idyllic scene. In the center is Venus, who sets the painting's rapturous tone for her association with love and beauty. Cupid hovers above her head, aiming his arrow at the three graces—beauty, charm, and creativity. Their silky garments practically billow and sway with their embrace. An ancient tale recounted by the Roman poet Ovid unfolds to Venus's left. Zephyrus, the god of the west wind, grabs hold of the flower-nymph Chloris and transforms her into Flora, goddess of spring. Flowers flow from Chloris's mouth and collect on Flora's exquisite gown. She scatters them around the meadow, their blooms denoting the fertility of the season. On the painting's opposite end is the messenger god Mercury, whose upward gesture to dissipate a cloud formation lifts our gaze to the enveloping grove of orange trees—perhaps a nod to the Medici family for their vague association with the orange, possibly because they imported them, or because the name Medici, which means doctors in Italian, had associations with the orange's medicinal properties. According to the Uffizi Gallery, which holds Primavera in their esteemed collection, at least 138 real plant species are accurately depicted in this presumed allegory of spring, presumed because Botticelli's source material—be it poetry, legend, and or a vivid imagination—remains unknown. Regardless, Primavera is staggering not only for its technical and visual magnificence, but because it was one of the first major Renaissance paintings to celebrate the divine resurrection of nature, rather than the divine resurrection of Christ. Members of the pagan pantheon make special appearances in several of Botticelli's most famous works. Venus and Mars, painted circa 1485, depicts the aftermath of Venus's dalliance with the god of war. He's not so formidable in this picture. Venus stares coolly at her lover, who's apparently powerless in this vulnerable state. And of course, few images are as iconic as the birth of Venus. Also thought to be a Medici commission, the birth of Venus is beloved far and wide for its disarming beauty. In this large-scale painting created sometime around 1485, Venus breaches the shoreline perched weightlessly on the edge of an oversized shell. The breeze guides her toward land, where a woman—possibly Flora for her familiar dress—reaches out to hand the goddess a robe so that she may preserve her modesty. Both alluring and demure, Venus possesses a Madonna-like impossibility. The birth of Venus marks the height of Botticelli's golden age, the decline of which coincided with the Medici family's exile from Florence upon French invasion in 1494. The zealous preacher Gerolamo Savonarola rose to power with a campaign against all earthly joys. In a strange turn of events, Botticelli is said to have become a devout follower of Savonarola's, and may have even burned some of his own work in the reformers' infamous Bonfire of the Vanities in 1497. This might explain why Botticelli curiously abandoned his monumental series of illustrations depicting each canto in Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy, after more than a decade spent toiling to complete this ambitious Medici commission. It would also explain why his late paintings are intensely moralistic. Creeping into his aesthetic is an early form of mannerism, a style that gained popularity in the decades after Botticelli's death, characterized by anxious lines, exaggerated anatomy, and an acid color palette. Having forfeited the buoyancy of his earlier practice, Botticelli lost favor to the Italian Renaissance holy trinity that was Michelangelo, Raphael, and Leonardo da Vinci. Vasari paints Botticelli's final years as impoverished and plagued by illness. The 15th century writer Angelo Poliziano additionally recounted Botticelli's regret that he never married. The artist died in 1510, his work eclipsed by that of his more popular contemporaries for centuries to come. That was until the mid-1800s, when a trio of Royal Academy students who called themselves the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood sought to resuscitate the romantic spirit of the early Renaissance, before Raphael. The Brotherhood's influence ensured that Botticelli's work was rescued from obscurity, and he's been venerated for his singular genius ever since. Thanks for watching Several Circles. Don't forget to subscribe for more videos about the lives and work of extraordinary artists from across history and the present day.