A r t G a l l e r y
Young Italian artists in Australia
Botticelli
Alessandro di Mariano di Vanni Filipepi, known as Sandro Botticelli was an Italian painter of the Early Renaissance. Botticelli's posthumous reputation suffered until the late 19th century; since then his work has been seen to represent the linear grace of Early Renaissance paintings. Among his best known works are The Birth of Venus and Primavera.
Primavera or also known as Allegory of Spring.
Most critics agree that the painting, depicting a group of mythological figures in a garden, is allegorical for the lush growth of Spring. The painting itself carries no title and was first called La Primavera by the art historian Giorgio Vasari who saw it at Villa Castello, just outside Florence in 1550.
Not much is known about the history of the painting, though it seems to have been commissioned by one of the Medici family.
The Birth of Venus was painted by Botticelli in 1486 who was commissioned to paint the work by the Medici family of Florence. It depicts the goddess Venus, having emerged from the sea as an adult woman, arriving at the sea-shore. The painting is on display at the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, Italy.
The Madonna of the Book is a small painting currently preserved in the Poldi Pezzoli Museum in Milan. The painting is executed in tempera on panel. It dates from between 1480 and 1483.
The Madonna of the Book is a soft and elegant work, in which Mary and the Child are seated by a window in the corner of a room. She holds a Book of Hours, prayer books for laymen common in the thirteenth to sixteenth centuries. The infant is gazing at his mother whilst she is absorbed in reading the book. The hands of both mother and son are positioned similarly, with the right hands open as in a gesture of blessing, and left hands closed.
