|
|
 |
Birth of Venus and La Primavera Conjoined |
by David Bowman
|
|
|
A new interpretation of Botticelli's mythological paintings
 |
| Sandro Botticelli, La Primavera, 1477-78 |
Two of the most famous paintings by Sandro Botticelli are doubtlessly the Birth of Venus (1485-86) and La Primavera (1477-78, also known as the Allegory of Spring, as named by Vasari) from his opus of mythological paintings. Lorenzo de' Medici probably commissioned the paintings and gave them to his young second cousin Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco for the decoration of his new Villa di Castello as a celebration of his marriage with Semiramide Appiani.
 |
| Sandor Botticelli, The Birth of Venus |
The suggestion for these paintings allegedly came from Lorenzo the Magnificent influenced by Angelo Poliziano's poems and especially by Marsilio Ficino's philosophical ideas, which represented the central nervous system of the Medicean circle of artists. Marsilio Ficino was not merely a keen revivalist of Neoplatonism and the translator of Corpus Hermeticum, but he was also interested in magical practices "not indeed of the superstitious, but of the natural [magic]"(1).
There is disapproval among scholars which literary source more precisely provides the iconographical background for the two mentioned Botticelli's mythological paintings. Among most often cited classical sources are Hesiod's Theogony, Homeric Hymns, Horace's Odes, Lucretius' De rerum natura, Ovid's Fasti, Seneca's De Beneficis, and unfortunately rarely Apuleius' Golden Ass. Among Botticelli's possible contemporary sources Alberti's Della Pittura, Lorenzo de' Medici's poems, and Poliziano's poems Rusticus and Stanze(2) are also considered.
Twin Venuses
La Primavera (1477-78) is often regarded as representing the garden of Hesperides that hosts nine mythological figures. On the far right is Zephyr–the Greek god of the west winds and the herald of coming spring–entering the garden holding Hamadryad, one of the eight nymphs presiding over particular types of trees. Next to her is the nymph Chloris, the same as Roman Flora who is also associated with spring as the goddess of fertility. In the center of the composition is Venus, the ancient goddess of spring somehow a twin to Flora and above her hovers her son Cupid, the primordial god of lust, love and intercourse. He points his arrow toward the Three Graces, the goddesses of joy, charm, and beauty. They are accompanied by Mercury who is curiously turned away from everybody.
The Birth of Venus (1485-86) depicts four mythological figures: two wind deities Zephyr and Chloris, Venus, and Hora who conveys the idea of time and seasons. A nude Venus is standing on a scallop shell and is blown ashore by the winds where she is received by Horad holding a scarlet garment.
Both paintings were hung on the opposite walls of Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco's bedroom and since both paintings are focused on the goddess Venus it has been suggested that they are correlated in illustration of Ficino's concept of the Twin Venuses:
Here again we come upon the twin Venuses: one clearly the ability of the soul to know divinity; the other, the ability of the soul to propagate lower forms.–from Ficino's Commentary on Plato's Symposium
Central to Ficino's philosophical Weltanschauung was love as a universal cohesive force that binds the different:
Therefore, let there be two Venuses in the soul, the one heavenly, the other earthly. Let them both have a love, the Heavenly for the reflection upon divine beauty, the earthly for generating divine beauty in earthly.–from Ficino's Commentary on Plato's Symposium
According to Ficino's views, it is reckoned that Botticelli represented the soul disguised in Heavenly Venus (Venus Coelestis) by the Birth of Venus while Earthly Venus (Venus Vulgaris) pertains to La Primavera.
Conjunction
Although Ficino's Twin Venuses concept seems a reasonable explanation of this relation another option is also intriguing. If both paintings are placed next to each other–beginning with the Birth of Venus–an interesting narration unfolds, the two paintings almost perfectly merge into a single landscape and the figures generate a procession that appears intentional. The Birth of Venus and La Primavera conjoined could illustrate a linear narrative assembled from the horizontal disposition of evolving powers.
 |
|
| Sandro Botticelli's the Birth of Venus and La Primavera conjoined |
|
The assemblage of both paintings in a sequence is primarily justified by the group of persons that seems to be repeating on both paintings. A closer look at the total twelve figures (without Cupid who is a signifier on a different 'level') surprisingly reveals that there are three groups of the same four figures 'metamorphosing' along the timeline.
The Birth of Venus illustrates the first group of four figures, three female and one male, and the same pattern is repeated twice on La Primavera. The first group of La Primavera begins with male Mercury accompanied by the Three Graces. Following the symbolic timeline on La Primavera comes again a group of four persons again consisting of three female and one male figure: Venus, Flora, and the nymph held by Zephyr just as in the case of the first group from the Birth of Venus. If the beginning and the end are stitched together a cycle of progressing figures is thus obtained. But what could this cyclical progression symbolize?
Venus is an old metaphor for the soul and since the nymphs are its idiom the answer seems simple. Botticelli marvelously illustrated the life of a soul with its specific stages beginning with incarnation represented by the Birth of Venus, following different life stages on La Primavera and concluding the cycle with the return of the soul to the heavenly realms where she originally came from.
The first nymph from the Birth of Venus represents the soul on the way to incarnation from the spiritual realms; Venus riding the shell represents the very act of incarnation, while awaiting Hora symbolizes gaining of the material body symbolized by the red gown she holds. Simply put, the Birth of Venus allegorically illustrates the mystery of our birth.
The proposed rationalization explains why Mercury is looking away from the happening depicted by La Primavera and is looking towards the Birth of Venus. If the Birth of Venus represents completely spiritual domains of the incarnating soul, then Mercury as the first figure on La Primavera is occupying his typical office of a mediator between gods and mortals, between spiritual and terrestrial realms. In the terrestrial world of La Primavera next come the Three Graces, who "in mythology represent all that is complementary to human life; they depict all that exists in a superlative way: the most precious and beautiful in nature and in the life of an individual–poetry, music, art, virtue and knowledge."(3) Thus is completed the second group of the same four revolving figures representing the experience of life.
The last group begins with the fulfillment of the incarnation. This stage of the soul is represented by Venus who is assuming the pose of a pregnant woman. Next to her is her twin goddess Flora who symbolizes the materialization of the development. In the end Zephyr is taking the soul illustrated again as a half-naked nymph that completed her journey back to the spiritual realm where she originated from.
In other words, the narration told by both paintings arranged in a sequence is a marvelous metaphor of a life cycle experienced by the soul, beginning with birth, experiencing life and ending consumed in death. The three groups of figures of the conjoined composition thus represent a birth-life-death sequence, which is comparable to Neoplatonic dialectics emanatio–rapto–remeatio (emanation–rapture/conversion–re-ascent).
Zephyr from the Birth of Venus comes as the first figure in the row of twelve, but also as the last one on La Primavera. He is bringing the soul into incarnation and he is also taking her back to the ethereal realms where she came from. Ficino's support for the idea of soul's immortality is echoed in the title of his most prominent work, Theologia Platonica de immortalitate animae (Platonic Theology of the Immortality of the Soul).
Sellaio's Example
|
|
|
|
Sallaio: Cupid and Psyche |
|
|
|
Another reference in favor of the compound reading of Botticelli's masterpieces is perhaps found also in the painting of his friend Jacopo del Sellaio (1441-1493). The two paintings (Fitzwilliam Museum) from a wooden marriage chest painted by Jacopo del Sellaio are describing the myth of Cupid and Venus, and serve as an interesting reference to Botticelli's collage. Vasari describes both Sellaio and Botticelli as fellow pupils in the workshop of Fra Filippo Lippi, which makes a comparison particularly interesting. If we are to believe in the established dating of the artworks, then Sellaio executed the paintings some decade before Botticelli, even though he is usually considered as heavily influenced by Botticelli's work. Jacopo del Sellaio painted at least fifteen(4) distinct episodes of the myth on two panels at the different sides of a marriage chest. The difference between the compositions of two painters is obvious: Sellaio is primarily describing the story as told by the classics whereas Botticelli is more mystical, more valuable are the subtle levels of an intuitive apprehension of the story than an appropriate description of narration. However, more interesting is a purely formal comparison, which enhances some previously drawn conclusions about the nature of Botticelli's inspiration considering the compound image of the Birth of Venus and La Primavera.
Notes:
1–Liber de Arte Chemica, ascribed to Marsilio Ficino
2–Liana De Girolami Cheney, Botticelli's Neoplatonic Images
3–Liana De Girolami Cheney, Botticelli's Neoplatonic Images
4–Fitzwilliam Museum
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
To post comment to this article you have to Sign in. |
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 "Birth of Venus and La Primavera Conjoined")
 "Birth of Venus and La Primavera Conjoined")
 "Birth of Venus and La Primavera Conjoined")
