Botticelli E-Book

Henry Bryan Binns

• Herausgeber: Henry Bryan Binns
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2015

Beschreibung

From Florence, in the second half of the fifteenth century, men looked into a new dawn. When the Turk took Constantinople in 1443, the "glory that was Greece" was carried to her by fleeing scholars, and she became for one brilliant generation the home of that Platonic worship of beauty and philosophy which had been so long an exile from the hearts of men. I say Platonic, because it was especially to Plato, the mystic, that she turned, possessed still by something of the mystical intensity of her own great poet, himself an exile. When, in 1444, Pope Eugenius left her to return to Rome, Florence was ready to welcome this new wanderer, the spirit of the ancient world. And the almost childish wonder with which she received that august guest is evident in all the marvellous work of the years that followed, in none more than in that of Sandro Botticelli.

Leseprobe

Henry Bryan Binns

Botticelli

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Table of contents

PLATE I.—THE BIRTH OF VENUS. From thetempera on canvas in the Uffizi. (Frontispiece)

PLATE I.—THE BIRTH OF VENUS.

PLATE II.—SPRING. (From the tempera on wood in the Florence Academy)

PLATE II.—SPRING.

PLATE III.—PORTRAIT OF A MAN. (From the panel in the Florence Academy)

PLATE III.—PORTRAIT OF A MAN.

PLATE IV.—THE MADONNA OF THE MAGNIFICAT, KNOWN ALSO AS THE CORONATION OF THE VIRGIN. (From the tondo in the Uffizi)

PLATE IV.—THE MADONNA OF THE MAGNIFICAT, KNOWN ALSO AS THE CORONATION OF THE VIRGIN.

PLATE V.—THE MADONNA OF THE POMEGRANATE. (From the tondo in the Uffizi)

PLATE V.—THE MADONNA OF THE POMEGRANATE.

PLATE VI.—THE ANNUNCIATION. (From the panel in the Uffizi)

PLATE VI.—THE ANNUNCIATION.

PLATE VII.—THE VIRGIN AND CHILD WITH ST. JOHN AND AN ANGEL. (From the panel in the National Gallery)

PLATE VII.—THE VIRGIN AND CHILD WITH ST. JOHN AND AN ANGEL.

PLATE VIII.—THE VIRGIN AND CHILD BY AN OPEN WINDOW. (From the panel in the National Gallery)

PLATE VIII.—THE VIRGIN AND CHILD BY AN OPEN WINDOW.

PLATE I.—THE BIRTH OF VENUS. From thetempera on canvas in the Uffizi. (Frontispiece)

This picture is generally regarded as the supreme achievement of Botticelli's genius. It was probably painted about 1485, after his return from Rome. The canvas measures 5 ft 8 in. by 9 ft 1 in., so that the figures are nearly life size. No reproduction can do justice to the exquisite delicacy of expression in the original. Something of the same quality will be found in the "Mars and Venus" in the National Gallery, which was probably painted about the same time. The two figures on the left are usually described as Zephyrus and Zephyritis, representing the south and south-west winds: that on the right may be one of the Hours of Homer's Hymn, or possibly the Spring.