the end of the century marked the beginning of the gradual decline of Botticelli's career as an artist. It seems barely imaginable today that his life as an artist did not end with his death, but with his retirement. ... It was not uncommon for artist in the Renaissance to give up the production of art once they had reached old age...This applies, for instance, to Piero della Francesca, to Leon...
Botticelli had a achieved a certain prominence as a painter of altarpieces by the late 1480s. Because works of this kind were generally displayed in public places, they had a much wider impact than, for example, the mythology painting which are so much more famous today, but which, at that time, hung in private apartments.
In the chapel of S. Spirito I paid Botticelli seventy-five florins and fifteen soldi in gold according to his calculation: two florins for ultramarine, thirty-eight florins for gold and the preparation of the wood panel, and thirty-five florins for his brushes. Bardi makes a clear distinction here between the costs of the actual materials, the precious ultramarines and gold, and the fee for Bot...
This enclosed space contrasts with the more open composition of the other fresco. Again, This is a reference to a gender-specific division of roles, for men were expected to go out into the world, while women were expected to remain within the environs of the home and garden. ... The god of war is unclothed, his nakedness covered only by a well-placed piece of white drapery. The juxtaposition o...
On the right of the middle ground in the picture, the combined heraldic device of the two families is not hung on an intact tree, but on a tree that has been capped...this is by no means a negative symbol. ... in the literature of Botticelli's day, as auguring well for fresh shoots and new growth. Generally speaking, the idea of renewal and birth was linked to the cutting and pruning of old tre...
Indeed, several laws had been passed since the fourteenth century limiting the number of wedding guests to about ten men and ten women from the immediate family circle of the newly-weds.
He describes the garden in bloom as a metaphor of the fertility expected of a bride entering marriage. ... in those days, the bride often had little say, if any, in the choice of husband, so that her marriage could indeed have been perceived as an act of force.
At the lower left, on the stone frame, we notice a dried twig on which a turtle dove has perched. The turtle dove looks to the left, Giuliano to the right. The background, too, has a stone frame, but this time with a pair of shutters, one of which is open. Just as the window is half-open, so too are Giuliano's eyes half-open, and only one of them is fully visible. These two motifs have their or...
Botticelli used a certain facial type similar to his own, both for anonymous figures and for identifiable portraits. ... who even had a saying 'ogni pittore dipinge se', meaning 'every painter paints himself'.
...almost all the portraits reliably attributed to Botticelli, share clear stylistic traits. One particularly striking factor is the strong shading of the flesh tones, often resulting in clearly highlighted cheekbones and a firm, energetically jutting chin. ... Other typical features of his male faces are the distinctive nostrils, the broad and long nose, the full and sweeping line of the lips ...
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