Sandro Botticelli (Florence 1445-1510)

• The Ancient Myth : La Primavera (1477-8)

• A Humanist Venus, at the center of the composition, is the allegory of Goodness, Love as Culture and Civilization

• Zephir on the right, blows, giving Clori, the Nymph, the gift of creating flowers

• She is transformed in Flora, La Primavera, queen of flowers

• On the left Mercury (Greek Hermes), recognized by his symbolic wand and his winged sandals

• The three female figures are the Graces, who follow Venus. In Greek mythology, Spring was dedicated to them

• Above flies Cupid, god of Love, shooting an arrow to one of the Graces

• The setting is an idealized Nature, where flowers and fruits are present at the same time

• The composition is based on a central view of which Venus is the focal point

• The groupings are at each side of her figure• The curving of the branches forms a green niche around the

goddess• The lines of the composition depart from her figure,

presented as the world’s most powerful force: Love, Beauty and Virtue, fundamental Humanist values

• Botticelli uses a masterly flow of lines. Lines, which envelops and veil the human body, are the instrument of the artist’s expression

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The Portrait

• Benozzo Gozzoli (1420-97)

• Il corteo dei Magi• Most refined example of political propaganda

• The young Lorenzo is the protagonist

• Lorenzo looks directly into the viewer’s eye

• In the Renaissance perceptive code this is typical of the portrait: it expresses the “ego” the will power and the strong personality

Leonardo da Vinci (Vinci 1452 - Cioux1519)

• Artist and scientist, tended both to the understanding of reality and to the fantastic transformation of scientific observations

• Passionate explorer of Nature, he studied the way light affects the environment, the human figure and the landscape

• THE AEREAL PERSPECTIVE

• The Renaissance artist preferred to locate his figure within an architectural space. Leonardo discovers the Atmospheric Effect

• It is an impalpable element, made of light, air, color, humidity that is evident in the natural, open space

• Leonardo locates his figures in an open landscape or in front of open windows

• Realizes the illusion of depth through the interplay of light and shade, and through a gradual chiaroscuro present at all planes of the composition

La Vergine delle Rocce• Realized for Ludovico il Moro (Milan)

• The figures of Jesus, Mary and little Saint John are located in an unusual space: a grotto

• Aim of Leonardo was to represent a pristine natural environment of which the human figure would be an integral part

• The architecture is formed by the rocks, stalactites and stalagmites, while on the ground a selection of carefully painted plants (that Leonardo had included in his botanical studies)

• The composition forms an ideal pyramid with its peak above the Madonna’s head

• The chiaroscuro informs the entire composition: the Sfumato

• It consists of a plastic relief of the bodies that he obtains, delicately, by eliminating the hard contours, and by diffusing the form in the atmosphere

• The ideal of beauty for Leonardo is not the vivid light that sculpts the forms, but the softness of shade, the diffusing effect that caresses and veils them

• The message does not have a religious content

• He does not tell a religious story to educate

• He expresses his artistic vision of the world, in which, man, nature, sacred and mundane are one

• In the natural environment plants and Nature emerge from the shadows, feebly illuminated by a soft light

• The rocks dissolve in the background in the pure lightness of the air

• The rocky space is irregular, an antithesis to the clear and regular spaces of the Quattrocento paintings