Botticelli
Biography And Paintings Of Alessandro di Mariano di Vanni Filipepi, Florentine Painter of the Early Renaissance.
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Venus and Mars (1483) (detail)

Alessandro Botticelli (1445-1510)

One of the great artists of the early Renaissance, Alessandro di Mariano di Vanni Filipepi, more commonly known by his nickname Botticelli ("little barrels") was an Italian painter of the Florentine school during the golden age of the Early Renaissance and by 1480 was possibly the most influential painter in Florence. He suffered from ill health for much of his life, a condition attributed by doctors to the age of his parents and spent virtually all of his life working for the great families of Florence, particularly the Medici family. This stimulated Botticelli to paint his most famous works, Primavera (c.1482), Venus and Mars, and the Birth of Venus (c.1484), all in the Uffizi gallery Florence. All three contain complex and allegorical religous meanings.

Primavera (c.1482)

The Primavera (Uffizi Gallery of Florence) is a complex painting full of typical Renaissance iconography and form. Its interpretation requires a thorough grasp of classical mythology as well as Renaissance literature and syncretism.

Venus is standing in the centre of the picture, set slightly back from the other figures. Above her, Cupid is aiming one of his arrows of love at the Charites (Three Graces), who are dancing. The garden of Venus, the goddess of love, is guarded on the left by Mercury in a red cloak, who holds up his hand to touch the clouds. He is the guardian of the garden.

From the right, Zephyrus, the god of the winds, is pushing his way in, in pursuit of the nymph Chloris. Next to her walks Flora, the goddess of spring. Primavera also contains a complex political message and is a clear invitation to choose the values of Renaissance Humanism.

The Birth of Venus (Uffizi Gallery of Florence) portrays the goddess Venus who has emerged from the sea on a shell, blown towards shore by the Zephyrs, symbols of spiritual passions. She is met by one of the Horae, goddesses of the seasons, who hands her a flowered cloak. Like the Primavera, it has a variety of complex political, mythological and sexual meanings.

Sandro Botticelli's artworks, mostly completed in Italy during the fifteenth century, form part of the Early Renaissance period in the history of art. Botticelli's pictures were painting using tempera - a method in which colour-pigments are combined with an emulsion of water and egg yolks or whole eggs (sometimes glue or milk). Tempera was commonly used in Florentine art in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, both for panel painting and fresco, until it was replaced by oil painting. Tempera colours are bright and translucent, but because the paint dries very quickly there is little time for blending, so a tempera artist creates lighter or darker shades by adding lighter or darker dots or lines of color to an area of dried paint.

Botticelli painted most of his pictures on wooden panels, though some were executed on canvases, and completed many wall-paintings or frescoes.

Botticelli remained in Florence for most of his life, but between 1481 and 1482 he undertook a commission from Pope Sixtus IV (with Domenico Ghirlandaio, Perugino and Rosselli, three of the most famous artists of the day) to paint a series of frescoes in the Sistine Chapel in Rome. Botticelli's contribution was The Youth of Moses, the Punishment of the Sons of Corah, and the Temptation of Christ. In addition, Botticelli created many tempera frescoes for a number of Florentine churches.

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COLOURS USED IN PAINTING
For an idea of the pigments
used by Botticelli in his
colour painting, see:
Renaissance Colour Palette.

Sadly, with the emergence of the High Renaissance at the turn of the sixteenth century, Botticelli's style was overtaken by the work of Leonardo Da Vinci, Raphael, Michelangelo and Titian, and he died in obscurity in 1510 at the age of 65.

It wasn't until he was 'reinterpreted' by John Ruskin and the Pre-Raphaelites that he was returned to his position as one of the greatest Old Masters of the quattrocento (fifteenth century).

Much of his fine art painting can be seen in the Uffizi, Florence, although there are Botticellis in most of the best art museums in Europe and America.

• For a list of important dates in the historical development of visual arts, see: History of Art Timeline.
• For details of visual arts in Ireland, see: Irish Art Encyclopedia.

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