A history of Italian painting

by Frank Jewett Mather

Fig. 129. Botticelli. Fortitude.—Uffizi.

The passage beautifully illustrates the odd blend of purest insight and casual chatter in Ruskin’s criticism. Forget that the sword is a mace—Ruskin is never right in such trifles. Fortitude sits merely because her sister Virtues do so in the imposed decorative scheme. The nervous action of the hands is chiefly an elegance. Yet the whole characterization expresses with singular felicity the alert and thoughtful charm of this Fortitude amid the stolid effigies of Antonio and Piero Pollaiuolo. Ruskin, as often, is most wrong where it least matters. We have more prosaic business with the Fortitude—to note the pouting snub-nosed type, and the elaborate ornaments, which are Fra Filippo’s, the solidly drawn but ill-shapen foot, which is Pollaiuolo’s, and the sensitiveness, which is Botticelli’s own.

A still more complete assimilation of Pollaiuolo’s energetic mode is revealed in the admirable little Judith, Figure [130], which must have been painted towards 1475. The faces are still Fra Filippo’s, and he could have invented the eager doglike obsequiousness of the maid. But the springy action and the fine, lean ankles and feet, the bony, expressive wrists and hands, the minutely featured landscape, are completely in Pollaiuolo’s vein. Botticelli’s specific invention is the sublimation of the theme—Judith’s sense of walking in a dream after the unspeakable ordeal of the night. And the flutter of the robes in the clean morning wind has a stylistic grace that amounts to Sandro’s signature.

As he came into his thirty-fifth year, 1478, Botticelli painted two pictures so different that without conclusive evidence we should hardly believe them the work of a single mind and hand. The Adoration of the Kings, Figure [131], with the sturdy Medici portraits, sums up all Botticelli’s realistic achievement, shows him the greatest and most typical Florentine master of the moment, and proves that his way was easy to such triumphs of popularity as Ghirlandaio was soon to enjoy uncontested. The other picture, The Allegory of Spring, evinces a strange and to many repellant originality, indulges dreams not of this earth, appeals to experiences inaccessible save to the æsthetically elect. It was an earnest of neglect and unpopularity, the opening of a solitary road that no artist would travel save under inner imperious impulsion.

The Adoration of the Kings is composed after the fashion of Fra Filippo and rendered with all the improvements of Pollaiuolo. The group of the Mother, Child and Joseph is set high and well back, the minutely drawn ruin, with its grace of wall-flowers, and the peacock on the ruined edge of the masonry are again pure Fra Filippo, as are the juvenile charm of Our Lady and the alertness of the Bambino. In Fra Filippo’s best style, too, are the flanking groups of portraits which swing back towards the central motive, leaving the centre free. Here are great personnages set forth with dignity and force. Masaccio also has counted for much in these portraits, and Antonio Pollaiuolo for more. The Mage kneeling by the Child is Piero de’ Medici, the one in front with his back turned is Cosimo. The beautiful young king addressing him is probably Giuliano, lately slain by the Pazzi conspirators. Lorenzo is unmistakable at the left with his proud military pose, his hands resting on a great sword. At the right, robed in yellow, is the fine manly figure of Botticelli himself. There are many other portraits of the most authoritative accent, but we have no means of identifying them.

Fig. 131. Botticelli. Adoration of the Magi.—Uffizi.

Artistically this magnificent little picture suffers from two centres of interest. It is an ambiguity, however, that would have troubled no contemporary Florentine. He was willing to take the sacred group for granted and to gaze delightedly at the figures of his rulers and benefactors. In technical expression the picture is established through light, shade, and color, its linear quality counting for rather little in the effect. It is a logical and attractive combination of all the realistic experiments of fifty years past, no single feature being over-emphasized. It is prose of a most convincing and eloquent cadence.

Fig. 132. Botticelli. Primavera—Allegory of Spring.—Uffizi.