"Spring" by Sandro Botticelli(1478, Uffizi Gallery, Florence) - one of the most famous works Italian Renaissance. The painting was commissioned by the Duke Lorenzo Medici on the occasion of the wedding (according to another version - the birthday) of his nephew. All the characters depicted on it are mythological characters. In the center is the goddess Venus, to her left are the three Graces (Beauty, Chastity and Pleasure) and their leader Mercury. On the right is the god of the warm spring wind Zephyr, overtaking the nymph Chloris, and the goddess of flowers Flora. What is their relationship? What connects them? And why did Botticelli need all these heroes to talk about spring - a symbol of new life, love?
“This is the dialectic of love embodied in movement”
Marina Khaikina, art critic:“The picture was created according to the laws not of drama, but of musical and rhythmic ones. And therefore it is very difficult to tell what is happening here, to build a plot. But let's try. On the right side of the picture we see two events at once: Zephyr’s abduction of the nymph Chloris and her subsequent transformation into the goddess Flora, who symbolizes spring. However, the central position in the picture is not occupied by Flora, but by another heroine - Venus. She is not just the goddess of love and beauty. Neoplatonists, with whose ideas Botticelli was well acquainted, endowed Venus with the highest virtues - intelligence, nobility, grace, and identified her with Humanity, which was synonymous with culture and education. The movement of Venus is barely noticeable, but it is directed from earthly love, personified by Flora, to heavenly love, which, apparently, is symbolized by Mercury. His posture and gesture indicate that he is a conductor to the Mind that reigns in celestial spheres. His hand next to the fruit hanging on the tree is a motif traditionally associated with the Tree of Knowledge. It is very likely that Botticelli illustrated here the Neoplatonic dialectic of love - the path from earthly love to divine love. Love, in which there is not only the joy and fullness of life, but also the sadness of knowledge and the stamp of suffering - we cannot help but see it on the face of Venus. In Botticelli’s painting, this dialectic of love is embodied in the musical, magical rhythm of movement, dance, now fading, now accelerating, but endlessly beautiful.”
"Hymn to living human desire"
Andrey Rossokhin, psychoanalyst:“There are only two men in the picture, their images are fundamentally different. Zephyr (on the right) is a dark and scary, demonic tempter. Mercury (left) is narcissistically beautiful. But it is Zephyr, alive and active, who touches the woman and looks at her (none of the characters in the picture have direct eye contact). But Mercury has turned away from everyone and contemplates the sky. According to myth, at this moment he disperses the clouds. It’s as if he wants to get rid of what moves the clouds - the wind. But the Wind is precisely Zephyr seducing Chloris. Mercury is trying to free space from the movement of wind and life, from the sexual attraction of a man to a woman.
Next to him are three Graces, but there is no physical connection between him and the girls: grace Pleasure stands with his back to Mercury. Chastity's gaze is turned to Mercury, but there is no contact between them either. In a word, in this entire group there is no hint of the awakening of Spring or sexuality. But it is this group that Venus blesses. She here is not the goddess of love, but christian symbol Mothers, Madonna. There is nothing feminine-sexual about her, she is the Goddess of spiritual love and therefore favors the leftist group, devoid of sensuality.
And here’s what we see on the right: Zephyr takes Chloris by force, and the nymph girl turns into a woman, Flora. And what happens next? Flora no longer looks at Zephyr (unlike Chloris), she is not interested in a man, she is interested in flowers and children. Chloris was a mortal girl, and the goddess Flora gained divine immortality. It turns out that The idea of the picture is this: you can be immortal and omnipotent only by giving up sexuality.
On a rational level, the symbolism of the painting encourages us to feel the greatness and divinity of motherhood, the narcissistic confidence of Mercury, the self-sufficiency of our inner Graces. Botticelli calls to curb your “wild” desires, attractions that are associated with Zephyr, to abandon them and thus gain immortality. However, unconsciously he writes the opposite, and the very atmosphere of the picture speaks about this. We live together with Zephyr and Chlorida their passionate love affair, literally feeling with my skin that only something like this sexual attraction is able to open the vicious circle of Graces and release pleasure from the narcissistic trap. To be alive, mortal, feeling, to experience different experiences (fear and pleasure), even at the cost of renouncing Divine immortality - in my opinion, this is the main hidden meaning Botticelli's messages. A hymn not to the Divine, rational, symbolic and chaste, but to a living human desire that conquers narcissism and the fear of one’s own mortality.”
Sandro Botticelli. Spring. 1478 Uffizi Gallery, Florence
Few people have known about Botticelli’s “Spring” for... 450 years!
At first it was kept by the descendants of the Medici. Then I got to the Uffizi Gallery. But... You won’t believe it - it lay in storage for 100 years!
And only at the beginning of the 20th century it was put on public display thanks to the fact that it was seen by a famous art critic. This was the beginning of fame.
Now it is one of the main masterpieces of the Uffizi Gallery. And one of the most famous paintings.
But “reading” it is not so easy. It seems to be about spring. But there are a lot of characters here.
Why are there so many of them? Why didn't Botticelli depict one girl as Spring?
Let's try to figure it out.
Sandro Botticelli. Spring (with transcript). 1478 Uffizi Gallery, Florence To make it easier to read the picture, mentally divide it into three parts:
The right side consists of three heroes, which personify the first spring month - MARCH.
The god of the west wind, Zephyr, begins to blow at the very beginning of spring. This is where the reading of the picture begins.
Of all the heroes, he is the most unattractive in appearance. Blueish skin tone. My cheeks are about to burst from tension.
But this is understandable. This wind was unpleasant for the ancient Greeks. It often brought rain and even storms.
As with people, he did not stand on ceremony with divine creatures. He fell in love with the nymph Chloris, and she had no chance of escaping from Zephyr.
2. CHLORIDE
Zephyr forced this gentle creature in charge of flowers to become his wife. And in order to somehow compensate for her moral worries, he made a real Goddess out of the nymph. So Chloris turned into Flora.
Flora (nee Chloris) did not regret marriage. Even though Zephyr took her as his wife against her will. Apparently the girl was mercantile. After all, she has become much more powerful. Now she was responsible not only for flowers, but in general for all vegetation on Earth.
Francesco Melzi. Flora. 1510-1515 The following five heroes make up the APRIL group. These are Venus, Cupid and the Three Graces.
The goddess Venus is responsible not only for love, but also for fertility and prosperity. So she's here for a reason. And the ancient Romans celebrated a holiday in her honor just in April.
Son of Venus and her constant companion. Everyone knows that this obnoxious boy is especially active in the spring. And he shoots his arrows left and right. Of course, without even seeing who he was going to hit. Love is blind... because Cupid is blindfolded.
And Cupid will most likely end up in one of the Graces. Who has already looked at young man left.
Sandro Botticelli. Spring (fragment). 1478 Uffizi Gallery, Florence Botticelli is not original here, depicting three sisters holding each other's hands. They represent the beginning of life, beautiful and tender due to their youth. And they also often accompany Venus, helping to spread her covenants to all people.
"MAY" is represented by only one figure. But what a one!
7. MERCURY
Mercury, the God of trade, disperses the clouds with his staff. Well, good help for Vesna. To which he is related through his mother, the galaxy Maya.
It was in her honor that the ancient Romans gave the month the name “May”. And sacrifices were made to Maya herself on May 1st. The fact is that she was responsible for the fertility of the earth. And without this there is no way in the coming summer.
Why then did Botticelli portray her son, and not Maya herself? By the way, she was lovely - the eldest and most beautiful of the 10 galaxies of sisters.
Sandro Botticelli. Mercury (fragment of the painting “Spring”). 1478 Uffizi Gallery, Florence I can't answer for sure. But I like the version that Botticelli really wanted to depict men at the beginning and end of this spring series.
After all, Spring is the birth of life. And without men in this process there is no way (at least in the time of the artist). It was not for nothing that he depicted all women as pregnant. Establishing fertility in the spring is the main thing.
Sandro Botticelli. Detail of the painting “Spring”. 1478 In general, Botticelli’s “Spring” is saturated with symbols of fertility. Above the heads of the heroes is an orange tree. Which blooms and bears fruit at the same time. Not only in the picture. It really can do that.
Sandro Botticelli. Detail of the painting “Spring”. 1478 Uffizi Gallery, Florence And what a carpet of five hundred real-life flowers is worth! It's just some kind of flower encyclopedia. All that remains is to sign the names in Latin.
The heyday of Sandro Botticelli's (1445-1510) painting came at a time when he became close to the circle of humanists - poets, writers, philosophers, artists - at the Medici court. Lorenzo the Magnificent, ruler of Florence, wrote poetry and patronized the arts. This painting with complex philosophical and poetic content was commissioned for the villa of his cousin Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco Medici.
Sandro Botticelli. Spring. 1482. Uffizi Gallery, Florence
The idea of the cycle and direction is by Andrey Zaitsev.
HISTORY OF THE CREATION OF THE PICTURE
Sandro Botticelli's painting "Spring" was a wedding gift from Lorenzo de' Medici to his second cousin Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco de' Medici. He was going to marry Semiramis, a girl from the noble Appiani family. “Spring” was supposed to hang above the inlaid sofa-chest - lettuccio. Researchers believe that the painting was commissioned by Lorenzo the Magnificent Botticelli as wedding gift nephew.
Such gifts were common at that time.In this case, Botticelli knew where the painting would hang, and that it would be located at a height of two meters from the floor.
G. Vasari . Portrait of Lorenzo de' Medici. Florence,
Uffizi Gallery. 1533-1534.
The picture is actually not only about spring and love, it is a kind of illustration for the instructions compiled for Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco by the famous Florentine philosopher Marsilio Ficino. In it, he calls on the obstinate young man to fix his gaze on Humanitas (“humanity”, “humanity”) as the highest virtue.
SOURCE
Botticelli’s first source was a fragment from Lucretius’ poem “On the Nature of Things”:
Here comes Spring, and Venus is coming, and Venus is winged
And the azure sky shines with spilled light. |
ANALYSIS OF THE PICTURE.
The painting depicts a clearing in an orange orchard (“The fruitful garden blooms in the fields”). It is all dotted with flowers (“the earth-artist spreads a lush carpet of flowers”).
Botanists have counted more than 500 flowers (“there is no limit to their number”), belonging to more than 170 species. Moreover, they were reproduced from photographic precision, such as German iris in the lower right corner. Despite the name “Spring,” among them there are many that bloom in summer, and even in winter (“Eternally I bask in spring”).
1. Venus. The goddess of love stands in the middle of an orange grove (the orange is a symbol of chastity), in an arch of myrtle and laurel, holding right hand in a blessing gesture. She's wearing a veil married woman
. “She,” writes Ficino, “is a nymph of the greatest beauty, born from heaven and more beloved than others by the Most High God. Her soul and mind are Love and Mercy, her eyes are Dignity and Generosity, her hands are Generosity and Splendor, her feet are Comeliness and Modesty.
The whole is Moderation and Honesty, Pleasantness and Greatness. O wondrous beauty! How beautiful to behold. My good Lorenzo, a nymph so noble is completely at your mercy. If you marry her and call her yours, she will make your years sweet, and you yourself the father of excellent children.”
2. Three graces.
To the left of Venus there is a group of three Haritas who dance holding hands. According to Hesiod, this is Aglaya (“Shining”), Euphrosyne (“Good-thinking”) and Talia (“Blooming”). Middle Charita (possibly Euphrosyne) looks at Mercury. Harith's poses resemble those of her daughters Jethro from Botticelli's fresco "Scenes from the Life of Moses" in Sistine Chapel
.
These are the satellites of Venus. Ficino calls them Feeling, Intellect and Will. “And since,” he writes, “it [feeling] is not a mental act, then one of the graces is drawn with its face turned towards us, as if moving forward and not intending to go back;
the other two, since they relate to the intellect and will, which have the function of reflection, are depicted with a face turned back, like that of one who is returning.”
3. Mercury.The messenger of the gods is depicted wearing winged sandals. He was the son of the nymph Maya, in whose honor Latin the month of May was named, in which the wedding of Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco took place.
With the help of a caduceus (a rod entwined with snakes), he disperses the clouds so that nothing overshadows the spring mood of the garden of Venus. It is believed that Botticelli portrayed Lorenzo de' Medici, who commissioned the painting, as Mercury. .
4. Zephyr and the nymph Chloride.This is an illustration for an excerpt from Ovid’s poem “Fasti” - the west wind Zephyr chases Chloris and takes possession of her: “One day in the spring I caught the eye of Zephyr; I left, “He flew after me: he was stronger than me...” Nevertheless, Zephyr justified the violence, making me his wife, “And I never complain about my marriage.”
After Chloris's marriage (periwinkle curls out of her mouth - a symbol true love) turned into the goddess of Spring and flowers, which Botticelli depicts right there, thereby using the technique of simultaneity - the simultaneous depiction of successive events.
5. Spring.It includes the following lines from “Fast”: “Spring is best time: / All the trees are green, the whole earth is green. / A fruitful garden blooms in the fields, given to me as a dowry... / My husband decorated my garden with a beautiful flower headdress, / So he said to me: “Forever be the goddess of flowers!” / But I could never count all the colors on the flowers scattered everywhere: there is no number of them.”
In Botticelli's painting, Spring scatters roses, as was customary at rich Florentine weddings. Her dress is embroidered with red and blue cornflowers - symbols of friendliness and good nature. You can also see strawberries in the wreath on Spring’s neck - a symbol of tenderness, chamomile - a symbol of fidelity and buttercup - a symbol of wealth.
6. Cupid.Companion of the goddess of love. He is blindfolded (love is blind) and aims a fiery arrow at one of the graces. Perhaps Botticelli portrayed himself in the image of Cupid.
INTERPRETATIONS
I focused on the historical interpretation, but there are many others.
Historical versions are based on the assumption that Botticelli depicted his contemporaries in the painting. The simplest option is that the painting is a pre-wedding instruction to the bride; Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco is depicted in Mercury, and Semiramis Appiani is depicted as the middle Charita looking at him.
Others believe that Mercury is Lorenzo the Magnificent himself, and among the other characters they find his mistresses. Still others view the painting as an allegory of the heyday of Florence under the leadership of Lorenzo the Magnificent after the liquidation of the consequences Pazzi conspiracy . It is argued that the trees in the garden are mala medica, the necklaces on the Harites are Medici flowers, elements of the Medici coat of arms are found in the painting
HISTORY OF THE PICTURE
The painting hung for a long period of time in the Medici mansion in Florence. In 1815 she ended up in Uffizi Gallery. For a long time it was not exhibited, and only since 1919, when the art critic Giovanni Tucci drew attention to it, has it become the pearl of the main exhibition.
She returned to the Uffizi in 1919, so for about 400 years few people saw her, and only at the beginning of the 20th century did fame and glory come to her. In 1982, the painting underwent restoration. Now it is one of the main masterpieces of the Uffizi.
Sources.
“Partner” No. 7 (190) 2013
Sandro Botticelli: "Spring"
The story of one painting
Joseph Zvitkis (Mülheim an der Ruhr)
A. N. Benois in his “History of Painting” wrote: “... among all the artists of FlorenceXV century, the most impressionable, the most poetic is, of course, Sandro Botticelli.” An excellent confirmation of these words is the painting “Spring”, in Italian (“Primavera”), created in 1477 - 78, but which became widely known only in XXcentury.
This picture was created during the heyday of the artist’s work, at a time when Florence was a city of knightly tournaments, masquerades, festive processions, and artists and poets sang the beauty of life, the beauty of people.
At one of the tournaments the main character was supposed to be younger brother ruler Florence Lorenzo Magnificent - Giuliano. " A beautiful lady"Giuliano had Simonetta Vespucci, with whom he was hopelessly in love. For this tournament, Botticelli painted a standard for Giuliano Medici, on which he depicted Simonetta as Pallas Athena.
After this tournament, the artist Alessandro di Mariano Filipepi, who went down in art history as Sandro Botticelli (Botticelli is a nickname meaning barrel), became a close associate of the Medici, and Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco Medici, cousin of the Medici the Magnificent, became his regular customer. By order of di Pierfrancesco Medici for the Villa Castello, Botticelli painted a number of paintings, including “Spring” - a masterpiece of world art. True, it is possible that the customer of “Primavera” was Lorenzo the Magnificent himself.
In 1482, the powerful ruler of Florence decided to use his relative Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco in his political games and for this purpose he decided to marry him to the young girl Semiramis, who came from a powerful Florentine family, whom the Medici wanted to see as their ally. The young people were married without even asking how they felt about each other.
In those days, ordering a painting for a wedding was common. And, apparently, Botticelli, having received the order, knew where the painting would hang, and that it would be located at a height of two meters from the floor above the large sofa, called volatile, as if making up its upper part, while the back of this sofa was located below. Perhaps that is why the painting is so wide - 314 cm with a height of 203 cm. The large size of the painting is impressive, especially since it was made not on canvas, but on a wooden board, eight centimeters thick.
Initially, the Primavera, together with the Birth of Venus, was in the house of Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco, as evidenced by inventories carried out in 1498, 1503 and 1516. But in 1537 they were transported to the villa in Castello, where they were seen and described by Vasari in 1550, reporting that “... both were executed with grace and expressiveness.” The paintings were in the possession of the Medici family almost until the extinction of this family in 1743. In 1815, “Spring” came to the Uffizi and was there in storage (!) until 1853, when it was transferred to the Academy of Painting for study by young artists. And only at the beginning of the 20th century, in 1919, “Spring” returned to the Uffizi and was put on public display. From that time on, her worldwide fame began to grow.
The poetic basis for the creation of “Spring” was verses from the poem “Tournament” by the court poet Poliziano, in which Giuliano Medici and his beloved Simonetta Vespucci were glorified. Botticelli also used texts from ancient works - a fragment from Lucretius’ poem “On the Nature of Things”, and Venus, Flora, Mercury and Zephyr appeared in the picture. Botticelli took the next four characters from Ovid's poem "Fasti" - Chloris (or Chloris) and Charita (or Grace). In the image of Mercury, the artist depicted Giuliano Medici, and in the image of Venus - Simonetta Vespucci, with whom, perhaps, he himself was in love. The artist, who lived next door to the Vespucci family, believed that Simonnetta embodied the ideal of beauty. Therefore, in huge quantities female images, created by Botticelli, the features of Simonetta are visible.
Having completed work on “Spring,” Sandro Botticelli was forced to leave for Rome, where he was called by Pope Sixtus IV to paint the walls of the new papal chapel, now known as the Sistine Chapel.
In 1482, after returning to Florence, the artist, for unknown reasons, spent a long time finalizing “Primavera,” remembering with sadness the people close to him. The beautiful Simonetta was no longer alive - she died suddenly at the age of only 23 years. Giuliano, with whom the artist had a friendship, was villainously murdered exactly two years after Simonetta’s death. Apparently, these events could not help but affect the mood of the painting itself, into which the artist introduced a note of sadness. But Simonetta's beauty was imprinted in Botticelli's memory and served him when painting the Graces and other female images of the painting.
Interesting principle art organization allegorical painting “Spring”. Compositionally, the work resembles a ballet and rests on some musical rhythm, for example, 3+1+3+1, if we consider the Primavera from right to left. In a fantastic, almost garden of paradise figures or their groups are placed independently of each other. And all the characters are placed in the space between the front of the stage and the backdrop of an orange orchard with trees laden with flowers and ripe fruit. The garden is written without the effect of depth, although the sky is visible behind the tree trunks. It’s as if Botticelli specifically excluded the category of space from the picture and, perhaps, time too. With ease, barely touching the ground, the self-absorbed figures appear in the picture in some kind of bizarre and magical dream. There is no interaction between all the characters - this is a performance where there are traces of inexplicable sadness on the faces of the actors. But at the same time, the rhythm of the lines is striking, the shapes are exquisite, the colors are delicate. All this creates a dreamy, melancholy, bewitching atmosphere.
“Primavera” is a picture about spring and love, but not only. This is a kind of illustration of the instruction compiled for Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco by the Florentine philosopher Marsilio Ficino, a friend of Lorenzo the Magnificent and the head of the so-called Platonic Academy.
Against the backdrop of a fantastic garden, in a fairy-tale meadow, as if walking along a flower carpet, where hundreds of species of Tuscan flowers are presented (scientists have counted 500 species, and they are executed with photographic precision), individual parts of a large mythological performance appear. Here in the upper right corner you can see a bluish-green figure in a flowing cloak. From the swollen cheeks of the man, from the bent tree trunks bending in the wind, we can assume that this is the spring wind Zephyr (the god of the west wind). Inflamed with passion for the nymph Chloris, he forcibly takes her as his wife. She tries to run away, while Chloris “exhales” flowers along with her breath, and touches the third figure in the group with her hands, as if asking her for protection. Regretting the violence committed, Zephyr transforms the nymph into the goddess of flowers and plants, Flora. Flora is the already transformed Chloris in her new appearance. Botticelli depicted Flora as a girl in a long dress embroidered with flowers, with a wreath on her golden hair, a garland around her neck and a belt of wild flowers. The goddess moves forward, scattering roses in front of her. All three figures symbolize the first month of spring, which began with the first breath of Zephyr.
In the center of the picture, Botticelli places the goddess of gardens and love, Venus, whose image, according to the iconography accepted at that time, is more reminiscent of the Madonna. The trees bow their branches, forming a sphere in which the Madonna-Venus stands. In addition, the myrtle above her head forms something like a halo. Even higher, above Venus, is depicted putto (or Cupid), her blindfolded son, aiming an arrow at one of the graces. Venus (or, rather, Madonna) is presented in a white dress with a lush scarlet cape, she holds it with her left hand, with the other hand she conducts a choir of graces or blesses them to perform some kind of dance. At the same time, the goddess’s head is tilted, her face is a little sad, she reigns in her Garden of Eden.
The Three Graces: Beauty, Chastity and Love - move easily in dance, as if soaring. Botticelli depicted these beautiful girls in clothes that seem to be woven from light. Their intertwined hands and their round dance symbolize the chain of blessings that pass from hand to hand.
Venus and her companions of grace are symbols of the second month of spring - April. On the left edge of the picture we see Mercury with his attributes: a helmet, winged sandals and a caduceus - the rod of Hermes, with which he disperses the clouds so that the rain does not interfere with the dance of the graces; Mercury often accompanied them, being in the retinue of Venus. And since Mercury, the patron of the arts, was born Maya, then the spring month of May is dedicated to him. And May was considered not only the end of spring, but also the beginning of summer. Maybe that’s why Sandro depicted Mercury with his back turned to the other spring deities. All the characters in the picture are realistic and at the same time unusually poetic. In Primavera, Botticelli achieved the unity of the real and the poetic. This is a hymn to both nature and humanity.
Why did Botticelli call his work “Primavera” - “Spring”?
In the grandiose performance that Sandro presented to us, Flora should still be considered the main character. She alone faces the viewer, moving towards the front of the stage, the goddess looks inquisitively at us.
Here we should quote I. Dolgopolov, who did not hide his delight at the painting: “Look closely at the face of Spring. You will be amazed by the mermaid's slyness, the almost coldness of the transparent gaze of the young goddess... In the magical friendliness of Spring is the charm of nature, which rises every year from the darkness and cold of winter towards the hot sun. Something invitingly attractive is hidden in the proud openness of this blond girl... Everything that happens in the picture is just her surroundings... Despite the absolute conventionality of the plot, space, and perspective of “Spring,” it is still based on a living sense of being.”
There is an opinion that “Primavera is a reflection of the bitterness of loss. Sandro was a monogamous man, never married and bequeathed to be buried in the Ognissanti church, near the woman he loved. After all, Simonetta was buried in this church, in the Vespucci family chapel.
The magical grace, beauty, richness of colors and brilliant performance inherent in “Spring” led to it being sold for “quotes”: calendars, women’s headscarves, T-shirts, mugs, souvenirs. Thus, Botticelli became an idol popular culture. Poems are dedicated to “Primavera” and reproductions are published in huge quantities. The popularity of "Spring" is such that for many years it has been business card Uffizi Museum.
It so happened that while rearranging articles in the community, I accidentally deleted the story about Botticelli’s painting Spring. This is one of my favorite works. I decided to write a more detailed article and discuss it with you. It wouldn't hurt us to look again at the parade of beautiful women.
Having looked at the original of this painting in Florence, I was surprised by its small size. It seemed to me that this was a large canvas. In fact, the picture was painted on a board. 203×314 cm
Sandro Botticelli. Spring. 1482. Uffizi Gallery, Florence
HISTORY OF THE CREATION OF THE PICTURE
Sandro Botticelli's painting "Spring" was a wedding gift from Lorenzo de' Medici to his second cousin Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco de' Medici. He was going to marry Semiramis, a girl from the noble Appiani family. “Spring” was supposed to hang above the inlaid sofa-chest - lettuccio. researchers believe that the painting was commissioned by Lorenzo the Magnificent Botticelli as a wedding gift for his nephew.
Such gifts were common at that time.In this case, Botticelli knew where the painting would hang, and that it would be located at a height of two meters from the floor.
G. Vasari . Portrait of Lorenzo de' Medici. Florence, Uffizi Gallery. 1533-1534.
The picture is actually not only about spring and love, it is a kind of illustration for the instructions compiled for Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco by the famous Florentine philosopher Marsilio Ficino. In it, he calls on the obstinate young man to fix his gaze on Humanitas (“humanity”, “humanity”) as the highest virtue.
SOURCE
Botticelli’s first source was a fragment from Lucretius’ poem “On the Nature of Things”:
Here comes Spring, and Venus is coming, and Venus is wingedThe 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.
ANALYSIS OF THE PICTURE.
The painting depicts a clearing in an orange orchard (“The fruitful garden blooms in the fields”). It is all dotted with flowers (“the earth-artist spreads a lush carpet of flowers”).
Botanists have counted more than 500 flowers (“there is no limit to their number”), belonging to more than 170 species. Moreover, they are reproduced with photographic accuracy, such as the German iris in the lower right corner. Despite the name “Spring,” among them there are many that bloom in summer, and even in winter (“Eternally I bask in spring”).
1. Venus. The goddess of love stands in the middle of an orange grove (the orange is a symbol of chastity), in an arch of myrtle and laurel, holding her right hand in a blessing gesture. She is wearing a married woman's veil
. “She,” writes Ficino, “is a nymph of the greatest beauty, born from heaven and more beloved than others by the Most High God. Her soul and mind are Love and Mercy, her eyes are Dignity and Generosity, her hands are Generosity and Splendor, her feet are Comeliness and Modesty.
The whole is Moderation and Honesty, Pleasantness and Greatness. O wondrous beauty! How beautiful to behold. My good Lorenzo, a nymph so noble is completely at your mercy. If you marry her and call her yours, she will make your years sweet, and you yourself the father of excellent children.”
2. Three graces.
To the left of Venus there is a group of three Haritas who dance holding hands. According to Hesiod, this is Aglaya (“Shining”), Euphrosyne (“Good-thinking”) and Talia (“Blooming”). Middle Charita (possibly Euphrosyne) looks at Mercury. Harith's poses resemble those of her daughters Jethro from Botticelli's fresco "Scenes from the Life of Moses" in Sistine Chapel
.
These are the satellites of Venus. Ficino calls them Feeling, Intellect and Will. “And since,” he writes, “it [feeling] is not a mental act, then one of the graces is drawn with its face turned towards us, as if moving forward and not intending to go back;
the other two, since they relate to the intellect and will, which have the function of reflection, are depicted with a face turned back, like that of one who is returning.”
3. Mercury.The messenger of the gods is depicted wearing winged sandals. He was the son of the nymph Maia, after whom the month of May, in which the wedding of Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco took place, is named in Latin.
With the help of a caduceus (a rod entwined with snakes), he disperses the clouds so that nothing overshadows the spring mood of the garden of Venus. It is believed that Botticelli portrayed Lorenzo de' Medici, who commissioned the painting, as Mercury. .
4. Zephyr and the nymph Chloride.This is an illustration for an excerpt from Ovid’s poem “Fasti” - the west wind Zephyr chases Chloris and takes possession of her: “One day in the spring I caught the eye of Zephyr; I left, “He flew after me: he was stronger than me...” Nevertheless, Zephyr justified the violence, making me his wife, “And I never complain about my marriage.”
After her marriage, Chloris (a periwinkle curls from her mouth - a symbol of true love) turned into the goddess of Spring and flowers, which Botticelli depicts right there, thereby using the technique of simultaneity - the simultaneous depiction of successive events.
5. Spring.The following lines from “Fast” include: “Spring is the best time: / All the trees are green, the whole earth is green. / A fruitful garden blooms in the fields, given to me as a dowry... / My husband decorated my garden with a beautiful flower headdress, / So he said to me: “Forever be the goddess of flowers!” / But I could never count all the colors on the flowers scattered everywhere: there is no number of them.”
In Botticelli's painting, Spring scatters roses, as was customary at rich Florentine weddings. Her dress is embroidered with red and blue cornflowers - symbols of friendliness and good nature. You can also see strawberries in the wreath on Spring’s neck - a symbol of tenderness, chamomile - a symbol of fidelity and buttercup - a symbol of wealth.
6. Cupid.Companion of the goddess of love. He is blindfolded (love is blind) and aims a fiery arrow at one of the graces. Perhaps Botticelli portrayed himself in the image of Cupid.
INTERPRETATIONS
I focused on the historical interpretation, but there are many others.
Historical versions are based on the assumption that Botticelli depicted his contemporaries in the painting. The simplest option is that the painting is a pre-wedding instruction to the bride; Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco is depicted in Mercury, and Semiramis Appiani is depicted as the middle Charita looking at him.
Others believe that Mercury is Lorenzo the Magnificent himself, and among the other characters they find his mistresses. Still others view the painting as an allegory of the heyday of Florence under the leadership of Lorenzo the Magnificent after the liquidation of the consequences Pazzi conspiracy . It is argued that the trees in the garden are mala medica, the necklaces on the Harites are Medici flowers, elements of the Medici coat of arms are found in the painting
HISTORY OF THE PICTURE
The painting hung for a long period of time in the Medici mansion in Florence. In 1815, she ended up in the Uffizi Gallery. It was not exhibited for a long time, and only in 1919, when the art critic Giovanni Tucci drew attention to it, did it become the pearl of the main exhibition.
She returned to the Uffizi in 1919, so for about 400 years few people saw her, and only at the beginning of the 20th century did fame and glory come to her. In 1982, the painting underwent restoration. Now it is one of the main masterpieces of the Uffizi.
Sources.
Open Internet sites.
