1. Botticelli, Sandro,The Birth of
Venus (detail), c. 1485, Tempera
on canvas, Galleria degli Uffizi,
Florence

2. The Botticelli Renaissance

3. Botticelli, Sandro,The Birth of
Venus (detail), c. 1485, Tempera
on canvas, Galleria degli Uffizi,
Florence

4. Botticelli, Sandro,The Birth of
Venus (detail), c. 1485, Tempera
on canvas, Galleria degli Uffizi,
Florence

5. Botticelli, Sandro,The Birth of Venus, c. 1485,
Tempera on canvas, Galleria degli Uffizi,
Florence

6. Botticelli, Sandro,
Primavera (detail), c. 1482,
Tempera on panel,
Galleria degli Uffizi,
Florence

7. Botticelli, Sandro,
Primavera (detail), c. 1482,
Tempera on panel,
Galleria degli Uffizi,
Florence

8. Botticelli, Sandro, Primavera, c.
1482, Tempera on panel, Galleria
degli Uffizi, Florence

9. Botticelli, Sandro, Venus and
Mars (detail), c. 1483, Tempera
on wood, National Gallery,
London

10. Botticelli, Sandro, Venus and
Mars (detail), c. 1483, Tempera
on wood, National Gallery,
London

11. Botticelli, Sandro,
Venus and Mars, c.
1483, Tempera on
wood, National Gallery,
London

12. The Botticelli Renaissance
Gemäldegalerie, Staatliche Museen,
Berlin

13. Botticelli,
more than almost any other
Old Master, inspired and continues to
inspire modern and contemporary art….

14. This study in profile was discovered in the
Palazzo Medici in Florence. The subject was
taken to be Simonetta Vespucci (1453-1476),
a beauty well known in the city at the time.
With the identity of the person established,
the picture became very famous. Fashion
and advertising have ensured a lasting
comeback for this Botticelli Girl. As a direct
result of it the painter has become an
integral part of an omnipresent pop culture.
Botticelli, Sandro,
Portrait of a Young
Woman, 1475,
Staatliche Museen,
Berlin

15. A young woman touches her naked
breast, from which a jet of milk spurts
representing Charity or Abundance.
Lack of clarity on the meaning behind
the painting to this day leaves viewers at
a loss and has inspired modern artists
such as Cindy Sherman.
Sandro Botticelli:
Allegoric Portrait,
1480. Human Bios
GmbH

16. In her History Portraits series the artist Cindy
Sherman displays her interest in Old Masters
as constructs of reality. Here she re-creates
these constructs in large-format photographs,
working with a playful relish peppered with
grotesque insights into her own methods.
Cindy Sherman: History
Portraits. Untitled #225,
1990, Metro Pictures

17. This picture of the Madonna flanked by the
two Saint Johns was commissioned by the
Bardi family for an altar in Santo Spirito
Church in Florence. From there it was
transferred in 1829, as a purchased work, to
the new Berlin Gemäldegalerie (Old Master
Paintings).
Sandro Botticelli:
Bardi-Altar, 1484,
Staatliche Museen zu
Berlin

18. Maurice Denis: The child
with the blue pants, 1897,
ADAGP – RMN-Grand
Palais (Musée d'Orsay
In the background of this painting by the
symbolist painter Maurice Denis a
reproduction can be seen of Botticelli’s
"Madonna and Child with the young John
the Baptist" from the Louvre. Denis uses
this reference consciously to add an
intensely religious connotation to this
portrait of his wife and daughter.

19. Depicted here is Giuliano de’ Medici (1453-1478),
who was killed by conspirators in April 1478. The
work was instrumental in establishing Botticelli
as a pro-Medici artist. This view of Botticelli
continues to dominate interpretations of works
by him that had no link to the Medicis.
Sandro Botticelli: Guiliano de'
Medici, 1478, Staatliche
Museen zu Berlin

20. Botticelli also gave significant impetus to the
pictorial genre “Portrait”, which was still a young
genre in the 15th century. This chest portrait of a
young man in a fur-trimmed waistcoat and red cap
is counted among his literally appealing works,
and, in 1921 for example, swept the art historian
Berenson away into veritable storms of
enthusiasm.
Botticelli, Sandro, Portrait of a
Young Man, 1482-83, National
Gallery of Art, Washington

21. A young lady, simply but elegantly attired,
is seated at a café table, one arm over the
back of the chair and hands folded in her
lap. In a brown study, she looks past the
viewer, as if waiting for something.
Antonio Donghi (1897-1963), an exponent
of Magic Realism, uses aspects of
posture and composition often
encountered in the work of Botticelli and
his contemporaries – the slightly
deflected torso in the middle ground, the
full-frontal pose, the use of large areas of
colour and the inclusion of part of a
framed interior in the background.
Antonio Donghi: Woman at the
café, 1932, 2015 Archivio
Fotografico - Fondazione Musei
Civici di Venezia

22. This video piece by New York artist Michael Joaquin Grey (b. 1961) is entitled "Between Simonetta" and was produced in 2011. It explores the theme of feminine beauty,
central to an appreciation of Botticelli. A famous female study by Botticelli, the work known as Simonetta, is subjected to a process of continuous transmutation until it is so
different from the original that the profile diverges from the idealistic form and takes on aspects of caricature.
Michael Joaquin Grey:
Between Simonetta,
2011, Michael Joaquin
Grey

23. The poet and painter Rossetti developed the
depiction of a sensitive female type, heavily
influenced by Botticelli’s Madonnas and
portraiture. He himself owned an important
work by the Renaissance master – "Portrait of a
Lady known as Smeralda Bandinelli" (today in
the Victoria & Albert Museum, London).
Dante Gabriel Rossetti:
The Daydream, 1880,
Victoria and Albert
Museum, London

24. In developing his own ideas, the surrealist René
Magritte (1898-1967) used a number of
Botticelli’s works, here the goddess Flora from
Botticelli’s "Allegory of Spring" (Uffizi,
Florence). Flora is superimposed on a male
figure, who is looking at a springtime wood.
Dante Gabriel Rossetti:
The Daydream, 1880,
Victoria and Albert
Museum, London

25. Like Botticelli’s Venus, the foam-born
goddess of love depicted by French salon
painter William Bouguereau also appears
in classical contrapposto on a seashell. But
in contrast to the 15th century model, she
is not covering her genitals, but lifting her
arms to arrange her long hair and thus
reveals her body for viewing.
William Bouguereau:
Birth of Venus, 1879.
Musée d'Orsay, Paris.

26. This Botticelli Venus harks back to the famous
Birth of Venus at the Uffizi in Florence. Even
before Botticelli’s death the "Birth of Venus" had
achieved such prominent status that the principal
character was taken out of the group and
rendered on its own as a separate picture. Many
Florentine palazzi in the Renaissance featured
similar Venus images. Botticelli’s figure was to
become one of the most celebrated motifs in the
history of art.
Sandro Botticelli:
Venus, 1490,
Staatliche Museen
zu Berlin

27. Edgar Degas: Drawing after
Botticelli's "Birth of Venus",
1859, K. Feilchenfeldt
Degas sketched Botticelli’s Venus
during visits to the Uffizi Gallery with his
artist friend Gustav Moreau in 1858 and
1859. . It is a little-known fact that
Degas, who was later to be seen as an
Impressionist painter, was fascinated
early on in his career by the quality of
Botticelli’s linearity.

28. Yin Xin: Venus, after Botticelli, 2008 © Yin Xin
The Chinese Yin Xin (b. 1959) addresses the traditions of Western art. He references famous old-master paintings, producing his own Asian-tinted interpretations. Protagonists
and settings appear strangely familiar, yet foreign, as in this painting based on Botticelli’s famous Venus.
Yin Xin: Venus, after
Botticelli, 2008 © Yin
Xin

29. Gustave Moreau: Copy
after Botticelli's "Birth
of Venus", 1859,
Réunion des musées
nationaux
"The Birth of Venus" is not merely Botticelli’s best-known work; it is also an iconic work in the history of European art. All the more surprising, then, that the painting,
which went on show to the general public for the first time in 1815, did not begin its gradual rise in popularity until the mid 19th century. Visiting the Uffizi with Degas,
Gustave Moreau was so struck by the work that he produced a number of drawings, both of the painting as a whole and of individual figures, including this coloured
sketch.

30. In her digital print, Japanese artist Tomoko Nagao (b. 1976, resident in Milan) has transposed Botticelli’s Birth of Venus into a world of material things endlessly
promoted by the advertising industry and added an alienation aspect through references to computer games. In her picture, Venus emerges not from a seashell, as
Botticelli has her doing, but from a portable gaming console surrounded by consumer brands such as EasyJet and Barila.
Tomoko Nagao: Botticelli -
The Birth of Venus with
Baci, Esselunga, Barilla,
PSP and EasyJet, 2012 ,
Tomoko Nagao

31. Andy Warhol (1928-1987) was instrumental in establishing Botticelli’s status and posthumous fame as a universally renowned Renaissance painter. Warhol employed the Venus
figure – albeit only her head, as a fragment - in gaudy pop-art paintings and silkscreen prints. The pop versions appear flat and somewhat decorative, but this echoes aspects of
Botticelli’s own work, since the master also used clearly outlined fields of brilliant colour. And it is precisely this use of the outline that accounts for the decorative effect in
Botticelli’s work.
Andy Warhol: Details of
Renaissance Paintings
(Sandro Botticelli, Birth
of Venus, 1482), 1984
Collection of The Andy
Warhol Museum,
Pittsburgh

32. David Lachapelle, Rape
of Africa, detail, 2009,
Chromogenic print

33. David Lachapelle, Rape
of Africa, detail, 2009,
Chromogenic print

34. The Rape of Africa, Venus is the black model Naomi Campbell and Mars is the white model Caleb Lane. As Africa, Venus is not triumphant but resigned, calloused in her stillness.
Unlike Botticelli's Venus, Naomi Campbell is only half dressed, with her legs and right breast revealed and what remains of her torn dress transparent. Far from seeming depleted
or vanquished, to borrow from Wiggins, Caleb Lane as Mars rests casually and carefree, with one finger placed pointedly on the tip of an upright golden bone. Surrounding Mars,
three black boys, impossible to read as anything but child soldiers, play with weapons and armor
David Lachapelle, Rape
of Africa, 2009,
Chromogenic print

35. David LaChapelle, Rebirth
of Venus, 2009, David
LaChapelle Studio
The US photographer and director David
LaChapelle (b. 1963) often borrows motifs
from an earlier age for his vibrantly coloured
photographs, a number of which draw on
works by Botticelli. This 2009 piece, the
"Rebirth of Venus", illustrates how
Botticelli’s famous picture in the Uffizi has
acquired the status of pop art.

36. cast The Botticelli Renaissance
images and text credit www.
Music wav.
created olga.e.
thanks for watching
David LaChapelle,
Rebirth of Venus,
detail, 2009, David
LaChapelle Studio

37. end