Botticelli's Transformation

The lives of eccentric artists are often wrought with poverty and misunderstanding.  Appreciation comes to them after their deaths, when the rest of the world has caught up with their vision.  For Sandro Botticelli (1445-1510), it seems that his career began in fame, but through his own lifestyle spiraled downward into destitution.

Birth of Venus, (1486), photo courtesy of Wikipedia CC

Primavera, (1482), photo courtesy of Wikipedia CC

            Throughout his early career, Botticelli was most often commissioned by the Medici family.  He worked on many projects in the home of Lorenzo di Medici, most notably his Birth of Venus (1486), Primavera (1482) and Pallas and the Centaur (1482).  These paintings exemplify a whimsical painter, less concerned with the Christian ethereal than the mythical.  A student of Fra Filippo Lippi, the influence from his master is apparent in much of his painting, though it is less realistic than that of Lippi.  Botticelli’s figures often portray a style somewhat similar to Lippi, with exquisite detail in facial expression and structure, as well as small details such as strands of hair.  

            

Christ Crowned with Thorns, (1500),
photo courtesy of Wikipedia CC

According to Giorgio Vasari’s biography of the painter, Botticelli squandered all of his money, so that in his later life he had acquired no savings.  During the 1490s, Botticelli became greatly influenced by the friar Savonarola and his infamous “Bonfire of the Vanities”.  Though it is not recoreded that Botticelli actually took part in this destruction of books and paintings, he did alter his style and subject matter so significantly that is became vastly difficult for him to find work.  For the remainder of his life, Savonarola’s influence affected Botticelli so that he “abandon[ed] painting; unable to make enough to live on, [so that] he fell into the direst of straights.” 

            Although his later life left him impoverished and indisposed, Vasari describes Sandro Botticelli as a painter who “ deserved high praise for all his paintings, because he put all of his energy into his works and did them with loving care.” 

References: Giorgio Vasari's The Lives of Artists