Original subtitles

Welcome back.

The subject of the next two lectures is Sandro Botticelli,

who has for more than a century been one of the most popular artists of the Quattrocento.

Yet he died poor and out of fashion, and his modern fame surpasses that of his own day.

Botticelli was born in Florence, where he spent his life.

He was an assistant to Fra Filippo Lippi, from whom he may derive his melodic draftsmanship

and the lyrical color that speaks directly to the senses.

Training aside, he was obviously innately and immensely talented.

His gift for sensual painting, notwithstanding, he is a complex artist, puzzling,

because the meaning of his work is sometimes abstruse, philosophical and intellectual.

Sandro Botticelli's art is linked inextricably to the culture and the culture wars of the last quarter of the Quattrocento.

That is a very modern ring, doesn't it? Culture wars.

Well, it was very true at the end of the 15th century,

and he was very much at the center of these disturbances.

He is equally a part of the humanist culture that rejoiced in the revival of intellectual speculation

and the subjects and forms of antiquity and the religious culture

that was about to be violently shaken by reactionary, politically volatile attitudes.

The two lectures that we can devote to Botticelli will trace this evolution.

I should say that the chronology of much of his work is very uncertain,

and the dates given here should not be taken as firm assertions.

For those interested in such things, if you have the patience for trying to trace the exact dates of an artist's work,

Botticelli is one of those who will frustrate you greatly.

In this first lecture, I want to show you one of his famous paintings of the Madonna,

which is a subject for which he was much admired and his paintings much imitated.

Then I'll show you a small dramatic subject, a narrative painting,

and then a larger church altarpiece, of which he painted many,

and then a fresco.

And we're going to give particular attention

to his two famous mythological and allegorical paintings,

very famous indeed,

The Birth of Venus and the Primavera, or Spring.

And finally, we'll take a look at a languorous, sensual painting of Venus and Mars.

I'll begin with the Madonna of the Eucharist, which you see.

A painting of the early 1470s,

now in the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston.

He painted many Madonnas,

sometimes in the circular or tondo shape.

But they were much imitated,

and they were much forged.

And it's in that debased currency

that they're so well known as types,

that to see a great example of a Botticelli, Madonna, and Child

can be a revelation.

And this is a great example.

The beauty of the Madonna,

the Child,

and the Angel,

who as far as I can tell is wingless,

but indisputably angelic,

is a beauty exquisitely balanced

between the sensuous and the spiritual.

The composition is more complex in its harmony

than any of his imitators could grasp.

Look at the background for a moment

that you see through a window-like opening

in this rudimentary architecture.

The architecture doesn't look like any particular building.

It's an enclosure in which this takes place.

It sets the sacred space off in the foreground

and allows us to immediately encounter

the Madonna and Child and Angel in this space.

The way they're cropped brings them closer to us.

The way the frame crops them.

They're so close to us.

And then through that opening in the architecture behind,

you see a river valley,

a rather, what looks like a rather seer river valley,

rather brown with its hills

and with, one supposes, the Arno moving in the distance.

The Eucharist of the title,

which of course is the wine and bread

representing the blood and body of Christ,

is represented in the painting

by the plate of grapes

from which twelve ears or spikes of wheat project,

project in a tiara-like fashion.

Though I have to say that I wonder

if they also aren't meant to suggest

the crown of thorns

that was placed on Christ's head

at the crucifixion,

which would therefore be an additional reference

to the passion of Christ.

It is an unusual presentation of the Eucharist,

this great bunch of grapes on the plate

with the ears of wheat,

but a very striking one indeed.

There is extraordinary delicacy in it.

Look for a moment at the left hand of the Madonna

as it supports the Christ child.

Long, elongated, suave, and expressive,

very supportive at the same time.

Look at the shape which is created

as one comes down her arm

through the legs of the Christ child,

up the arm of the angel.

The eyes of the angel moving to the Christ child,

the Madonna's eyes also cast down.

The verticality is very closely contained,

very clearly defined here.

The color is simply remarkable.

It's the delicacy of it,

the slight shifts in the pinks and the blues here,

or in the almost indescribable colors

of what at first appears white in the angel's costume,

but then branches off into slight lavenders

and lavender grays picking up, as it were,

from the purples of the grapes.

It is a painting of immense beauty.

The very small painting that you see now

is the discovery of Holofernes,

painted about 1472 or 73.

This little panel is again part of the story

of Judith and Holofernes,

the Old Testament story

in which the heroine Judith

brings salvation to her people

by decapitating the Assyrian general.

She goes to his tent.

He thinks that he will seduce her,

and she gets him properly inebriated,

cuts off his head,

and returns with it to her camp,

to her people,

taking that head as proof of the deed.

Now, this is a different subject,

because normally in the treatment of this story,

there are three scenes that are popular,

the decapitation itself,

the discovery,

and Judith returning with the head,

but the discovery is certainly

the least common of them.

By the way, this painting has a pendant.

That is to say,

he painted another painting

the same size to go with it,

and it's Judith returning with the head.

So you have here the discovery of the body

by the other members of Holofernes' army,

and their horrified discovery of it,

and then we had with it

a little painting showing,

another little painting

showing Judith returning with the head.

We looked, in fact,

at Donatello's late sculpture

of Judith beheading Holofernes,

that stood for long in front of the Palazzo Vecchio.

But this discovery of the headless Holofernes

by his aides is probably the least common

of the moments in the story represented in art.

And the prominence of the bloody neck,

which is placed right in the foreground here,

it's unmissable.

The prominence of that

underlines the symbolic parallel

that Christian theologians drew

between this subject

and the New Testament sacrifice of Christ.

Judith, like other Old Testament heroines,

was regarded as a parallel to

or an anticipation of the Virgin Mary,

whose bearing of the Christ child

made salvation possible.

Look at it for a moment as a beautiful object,

which it certainly is.

The reds in this,

and not only the red of the bloody stump of the neck,

are wonderful.

The reds of the costumes

and the patterns which he sets up

by those reds within the composition,

some circular patterns here

in the reds of these costumes.

The red which sweeps down below

the body of Holofernes on the right-hand side,

the diagonal red arm of the soldier

who leans over him

and who has found the sword.

He was beheaded with his own sword

and he has picked up the sword

and so we see that here as well.

The presentation of this in a tent,

as it was,

and pulled back

also makes it look like

a little dramatic shena

as though a stage had been opened,

the curtains had been pulled back

on the stage

for our edification.

The large painting,

the large altarpiece

that I want to show you

is an extraordinary painting

of the Adoration of the Magi,

which was painted about 1475.

It's in the Uffizi today,

but it was painted for an altar

just inside the doors

of Santa Maria Novella.

This is a favorite church of ours,

isn't it?

Remember Masaccio's Trinity

and Guerlain Dio's frescoes

in the main chancel

of the altar,

of the high altar there.

This too is splendid in its color.

There are any number of ways

to enjoy the color in this,

but look first just at the range of it

and then realize how he constructs

out of color.

For instance,

the sort of gray,

again,

a kind of lilac gray,

much like the angel

and the Madonna of the Eucharist here

plays with this blue here

and relates to the blue of the Madonna,

so you get a nice triangulation

of those colors.

The reds,

the bright red of the figure

standing to the left

and the red of the Madonna's shirt

plays against the oranges on this side.

This diagonal,

which moves up

right to the Madonna,

is a very strong color-directed diagonal.

And then this central core,

which I think is really quite remarkable.

It's a column of color

from the red or red-orange cloak

in the middle

straight up to the blue

and red of the Madonna,

a pyramidal structure

of the entire group,

a strong central core.

It's a large painting

with a lot of figures

and he has organized it

with great intelligence

and great care.

Now, note that behind the stable,

to the left,

are a row of ruined arches.

It is Roman architecture,

Roman architecture which is crumbling,

Roman architecture which is crumbling

in perfect perspective,

I might add,

in perspective,

set up in perfect perspective

in the space.

The symbol of this crumbling architecture

is the symbol of the decay

of the old order

before Christianity.

And indeed,

if you look at the stable itself,

the fragmentary masonry wall

on the right-hand side of this

has the same significance.

It too can be seen

as part of a Roman ruin

that has been used

to reconstruct,

to construct a new space,

a new order

in this painting.

And perched on it,

by the way,

over here,

a peacock.

Do you recall

that we saw a peacock

on the stable

of the Adoration of the Magi

by Fra Angelico

and Fra Filippo Lippi?

Here again,

with its symbol of,

its significance

as a symbol of eternal life

because its flesh

was said not to decay.

And within those stones as well,

you have new vegetation sprouting.

So the symbolic quality of this

is very thoroughgoing.

The altar piece,

though not commissioned

by the Medici,

must have been commissioned

by somebody

who had reason to,

as it were,

get the Medici's approval

because it seems

to have a strong connection

with the family.

If you recall

Gazzoli's fresco

of the procession

of the Magi

in the Medici chapel,

I mentioned

that the family,

the Medici family,

belonged to the confraternity

or company

of the Magi.

And there they were

dressed,

some of them dressed

as the Magi.

That would follow here

as well

because among

the many portraits

that seem to be here,

some are more certain

than others,

the eldest king

who kneels

in the center

right at the foot

of the holy family

is almost certainly

a posthumous portrait

of Cosimo de' Medici,

dead only for five years.

The elegant young man

standing at the left,

looking quite pleased

with himself,

I must say,

is probably Lorenzo,

whom we know

as Lorenzo the Magnificent.

And the black-haired man

on the right-hand side,

here,

looking down,

black and orange cloak,

black hair,

and looking down

is almost certainly

his brother,

Giuliano de' Medici.

On the far right,

looking at us,

is the presumed

self-portrait

of Botticelli,

whose face combines

sensuality and intelligence.

And finally,

I call your attention

back to the center,

back to the hands

of the old king,

covered with a veil

as he gently holds

the feet of the child.

Now,

this convention

is seen very often,

the convention

of the veil

covering the hands

of the magus,

the king

who touches

the feet of the child.

In the presence

of the sacred child,

the magi cover their hands.

And this occurs

also in the mass,

of course,

in the Catholic mass.

When the priest

holds the chalice

by its foot,

I might add,

he holds it

with covered hands.

And here,

the child himself

is being held

by the feet,

or his feet

are being held

by the covered hands

of the king.

You see,

as we've seen

in other works

of Christian art so far,

we have the mystery

of the mass

enacted here,

Christi,

the body of Christ,

again,

present in the host,

the transubstantiation,

this mystery

which cannot be

explained rationally,

but which can certainly

be embodied

in such works

of art as this.

This,

by the way,

is in a chapel

immediately inside,

if I didn't say so,

immediately inside

the facade

of Santa Maria Novella.

And when they

had processions

carrying the sacrament,

they often went

right past,

out the door,

past this very

sacramental altar.

Botticelli was

an accomplished

fresco painter,

and in 1480,

he painted this image

of Saint Augustine

on a pillar

in the church,

the choir

of the church

of the Ognisanti,

the All Saints Church

in Florence.

Later,

it was detached

and repositioned

in the nave.

And, you know,

I probably should say

one word about

the moving of frescoes

because I've told you

before that both

of those frescoes

of equestrian monuments

by Castagno and Uccello

were moved

from their original location

inside the facade

of the Duomo

to the north aisle,

to the side wall.

Well,

it involves

cutting into the wall.

You have to take out

a lot of the wall

because that's where

the color is in the wall.

You have to then

face it with something

so that you can

pull it out of the wall,

separate it from it,

then reattach the back,

then move it

to where you're going

and put it back

on another space.

It can't be easy

and yet they've been

doing it for centuries.

In the,

after the Second World War,

we discovered

more about that

because those frescoes

of which we saw

one in Pisa

at the Campo Santo,

the triumph of death,

that was detached

to save it

along with other things.

And when they did,

they discovered

something quite extraordinary.

On the wall underneath,

the original layer of plaster

before the painted plaster

went on

was the drawing

for those done

in full size

in red paint.

They're called Sinopia

for that reason,

meaning it means

a red pigment.

Full size design.

We always wondered

where the drawings were.

They were under the painting.

You painted,

and of course,

as you painted,

the drawing

disappeared underneath it.

The aside,

aside,

let us return

to the person

of St. Augustine,

one of the great fathers

of the Roman Church.

When we say

the father of the Church,

we mean

a theological writer

whose work supported

the authority

of the Church.

Botticelli places

Augustine in his study,

among his books,

and in a state

of concentration

that is

equal parts

intellectual absorption

and spiritual inspiration.

Primavera,

one of the famous paintings

of the Renaissance,

painted somewhere

probably between

1478 and 82,

a large painting,

nearly three meters wide,

10 feet wide.

It is on panel.

This was painted

for a secondary branch

of the Medici family

who commissioned

two of his most famous

paintings

for their villa

at Castello

near Florence.

The earliest was,

the earlier of the two

was the Primavera.

This painting,

whose dreamlike

lyrical beauty

is obvious enough,

has mythological

allegorical meanings

which nobody agrees about,

endlessly probed,

in discussions

and in writings about it.

Venus is shown

fully clothed

and similar to

Botticelli's Madonnas,

she stands at the center,

a mistress of ceremonies.

The ground is covered

with spring flowers.

Behind her

is an orange grove.

Orange is sometimes

referred to

the Tree of Knowledge

in Eden.

The way,

they don't grow

in the Arno Valley,

the way that the foliage

behind Venus

suggests a halo,

do you see what I mean

right here?

The foliage makes

a circular fan-like affair,

suggesting a halo,

also suggests that Venus

here is equated

with Mary,

with the Virgin Mary.

She may simultaneously

stand for a concept,

the concept of humanitas,

humanitas,

culture,

or civilization

is the sense

of that word.

This interpretation

of Venus

is found in a letter

by the humanist writer

Marsilio Ficino,

whose portrait I showed you

in a Ghirlandaio fresco,

a letter to the young

Lorenzo de' Medici.

So he spells it out

in a way.

Neoplatonic thought

allowed for such

unexpected couplings

or mergings of ideas

and persons

from religion,

mythology,

and philosophy.

The painting seems

to read from right

to left.

At the far right,

Zephyr,

the god of the west wind,

the west wind of springtime,

blows in,

pursuing the nymph,

Chloris.

As he clasps her,

something remarkable

occurs.

Flowers emerge

from her mouth.

It seems that she's

about to collide

with this female figure,

who is Flora,

goddess of spring.

But what is really

happening is that

she's metamorphosing

into Flora spring.

If you look closely,

and you must look closely,

at the right hand

of Chloris,

you will see that

one of her fingers

is actually underneath

one of the flowers

that decorate

the gown of Flora.

She is becoming

that figure.

It's only a detail,

but it's startling

because you realize

that that explains

Flora's lack of reaction

to this near collision.

Spring has arrived

in this ideal glade

of divine love,

and the presence

of Venus, Mary,

has tamed or civilized

the world of nature

and erotic love

represented by the figures

on the right.

To the left of Venus

are the Three Graces

and Mercury.

The Three Graces

were always interpreted

by Renaissance humanists

as the daughters of Venus.

They're also representative

of culture,

of the arts.

Mercury holds

his caduceus,

his magic wand,

high while looking up.

He is probably dispelling

a tiny patch of clouds,

which you can see

right up here.

A little unusual

bunch of clouds came in

and he's dispelling them,

scraping them away

because Mercury

is the symbol

of reason or knowledge.

He is clearing

the atmosphere.

He is clearing

the intellect.

Thus,

he's another symbol

of civilization.

But the caduceus,

by the way,

as it still is,

was then a symbol

of medicine,

of doctors,

and we remember

that Medici means doctors.

Doubtless,

this explanation,

which is not the only one

that has been suggested,

is too much

for modern taste.

But to Renaissance humanists

and their aristocratic friends,

such interpretations

were intellectual musings

that delighted them.

And given the amount

of classical

and theological knowledge

they assumed,

that the paintings assumed,

it instructed them as well.

That it also made them

feel superior,

I have no doubt at all.

There is,

has been another suggestion

about this,

that it may have been

a painting

to celebrate a marriage.

And if so,

this would have been

in the bridal chamber,

this painting.

And it would have had

a meaning

having to do

with procreation.

If you,

one part,

one thing that would

support that,

for instance,

if you look closely

at the mouth

of Zephyr,

there are tiny rays

of breath,

if you will,

that come from Zephyr,

and they go right

to the mouth

of Chlorus.

She is inspirited.

She is inspirited.

You might say

she is impregnated

in a kind of

magical,

mystical way.

And the result

of that impregnation

is florification,

the flowering

of flora.

That's one way

of further supporting

a different meaning,

a different possible

interpretation

to this painting,

to this remarkable painting.

Now, fortunately,

this could be very bad

in bad hands.

A bad artist

could do terrible things

with such a complex story.

But fortunately,

a great artist

was at hand

to visualize

this elaborate subject

and its lyrical beauty

is enough to cure

the headache

which its complex meaning

might cause you.

This painting

is one of the most famous

in Renaissance history,

The Birth of Venus.

Painted for the same family,

perhaps just a little bit later,

about nine feet wide,

and it was done

for the same patrons

and probably hung,

and I believe this,

in the same room

and on the opposite wall

as a kind of counterpoint.

And the reason

I agree with that suggestion

is that the light falls

in the two paintings

from opposite sides,

in one case from the right,

the painting

that we're looking at,

in the case of the Primavera

from the left,

so it would have been here.

On this wall,

The Birth of Venus

with the light falling

from the right,

and the wind moves

from different directions,

so it would both be blowing

in the same direction

as it were within the room.

Well, this painting,

aside from that possibility,

this painting is as simple and direct as the Primavera is convoluted and ambiguous.

This iconic painting derives its subject from ancient literature, extraordinarily,

for there was no extant image from antiquity to suggest it.

This painting is the first Renaissance treatment of this theme,

and he had a particular reason for choosing it.

He had no extant image of this subject. It had never been painted.

Botticelli, therefore, borrowed the Roman Venus, the sculpture which was in the Medici collection,

for the pose of the principal figure, though hardly for the dimensionality,

because his Venus, Botticelli's, is fairly light, kind of weightless in a sense.

Nonetheless, the pose comes from there, and he ingeniously borrowed the composition from another source.

What was he to do, after all?

Well, he must have thought of the water that is behind her, and immediately he thought of baptism.

And so, the composition that he borrows is that which was usually used for the baptism of Christ.

With Christ in the middle, the Baptist, where the angel, or the nymph on the right, she's not an angel,

and on the left, the angels who usually await or watch the baptism of Christ, become the winds.

So, the winds, the angels become winds, Christ becomes Venus, Baptist becomes nymph,

and it's a perfectly usable composition for a brand new subject as she arrives on this seashell, arriving at shore.

The floral dress, by the way, that that nymph on the right wears, links her to flora in the other painting,

in the Primavera, in my eyes.

There is unquestionably more to say about this painting,

but I would emphasize that it has a certain flatness.

There is a tapestry-like quality to it, and there is to some extent to the preceding painting,

because the trees press in so closely behind, and form an overall pattern.

Here, the overall pattern is one of sea and water,

and the figures all tend to align in the same frontal plane.

There is not a great effort at producing space in this painting.

He was, as I've stressed several times, he had, he, Botticelli, had a very sensual side.

And here, we have one of the most sultry paintings of the Renaissance, I think, without question.

Painted in the late 1470s, or possibly, according to some, in the 1480s,

the painting is now in London, in the National Gallery,

and it shows Venus and Mars, who are both reclining, one awake and one asleep.

Venus is awake, and Mars has fallen asleep.

It has a very bedroom look, I think you'll agree.

Some have supposed that this painting was commissioned by a particular family,

the Vespucci family, because Vespe means wasps,

and wasps are found in this painting on the right-hand side, up in this area.

Wasps are there, that's a possibility, and it would allude to a famous platonic romance,

that is to say, a romance which was strictly a friendship,

and involved lots of letter writing and poetry reading, and so forth, but nothing physical.

And that was between Simonetta Vespucci and Giuliano de' Medici,

whom we saw in The Adoration of the Magi, saw his portrait in The Adoration of the Magi.

That romance, a famous one of its day, and these platonic romances were well documented,

was ended by her death in 1476, and he was murdered two years later, which would have ended it.

If it were them, if it were related to them,

then that would probably date the painting as immediately after one of them died,

or perhaps after his death.

On the other hand, it was probably painted as a bedroom decoration,

perhaps on a chest, or on the bed, or on the wainscoting.

The wide, low format was dictated by that use.

When you find this kind of wide, low format,

you can almost always start looking for a setting in an architectural sense,

or a furniture sense.

Such a specific location would argue for a consummated union.

It's a bedroom.

And of an unidentified couple, therefore, we have to leave the Vespucci out of it.

And the painting has often been assigned a later date for that reason.

In point of fact, we don't know.

The subject is both sexual and neoplatonic in nature.

The sexual aspect is obvious.

There's enough phallic symmetry, symbolism and so forth here to keep Freud happy.

It's very seductively painted.

It is neoplatonic because violent action, that is to say, Mars and his lance,

has been vanquished by our nobler nature.

Again, Venus would be seen as humanitas, culture, civilization.

Neoplatonism was, as we've seen, popular among the educated elite

and among many of the artists they patronized.

We will see later that it had a particular impact upon the young Michelangelo.

The Florentine philosopher, whom I mentioned before,

Marsilio Ficino, invoked astrology in writing about Venus and Mars.

Mars is outstanding among the planets because he makes men stronger.

But Venus masters him.

Or in words popular among many young people of the Vietnam era,

make love, not war.

In the next lecture, we will follow the art of Botticelli

through the extraordinary, turbulent decades that followed

and witness the amazing transformation of his painting.

Thank you.