MWW Artwork of the Day (4/4/16)
Sandro Botticelli (Florentine, c. 1445-1510)
La Primavera, “Allegory of Spring” (1485-87)
Oil on panel, 315 x 205 cm.
Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence

This masterpiece – painted for the villa of Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco de’ Medici at Castello – marks the artistic prestige of Botticelli, reflecting with philosophical and literary themes the cultural background of humanistic circle of Lorenzo dei Medici. The painting is an allegory of Spring, with mytological figures identified as (right to left): Zephyr running after the nymph Clori, who transforms herself into Flora, goddess of Fecundity; in the center is Venus, goddess of Love and here represented as queen of her realm, with Cupid straining a dart to the three Graces, while Mercury raises the caduceo to the clouds. Many flowers in the grass symbolize wedding: the picture could be indeed commissioned by Lorenzo the Magnificent as the wedding present offered to his cousin Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco dei Medici, who married in 1482 Semiramide Appiani.

Botticelli succeeded Masaccio as the foremost painter working in the Florentine tradition. The sharply contoured, slender forms and rippling sinuous lines that are his trademark were influenced by the precise draftsmanship of the Pollaiuolo brothers; but his sophisticated understanding of perspective, anatomy, and the Humanist debate of the Medici court never overshadowed the sheer poetry of his vision. Nothing is more gracious, in lyrical beauty, than Botticelli’s mythological paintings “Primavera” and The “Birth of Venus,” where the pagan story is taken with reverent seriousness and Venus is the Virgin Mary in another form.  In this allegory of life, beauty, and knowledge united by love, Botticelli catches the freshness of an early spring morning, with the pale light shining through the tall, straight trees, already laden with their golden fruit: oranges, or the mythical Golden Apples of the Hesperides?

More than sixty Botticelli paintings are included in the MWW gallery/album:
* From Giotto to Bitticelli II: The 15th c. Italian Masters
For his many fine portraits, see this gallery:
* Renaissance People I: A Portrait Gallery (1450-1525)