(piano playing)
Dr. Steven Zucker: We're looking at one of the great
Sandro Botticelli's and also one of
the most enigmatic, The Primavera.
Dr. Beth Harris: Which means spring.
In the center we see Venus in her sacred grove
looking directly out at us.
Dr. Zucker: The figures in the foreground
are parted to allow Venus an unobstructed view of us
and for us to look back at her and perhaps
even to enter into the space.
Dr. Harris: The trees around her part to show us the sky,
so there's almost a sense of a halo around her.
Dr. Zucker: It's true, there's a half circle.
Actually, I read that as almost architectural,
almost as an apps and it reminds us
that usually what we would find in a space like this
from the Renaissance would be the Virgin Mary
in an ecclesiastic environment, but here
we have a natural or mythic environment
and we have Venus.
Dr. Harris: Right. I mean, here we are.
We're in the Renaissance. One definition of the Renaissance
is that it's a rebirth of ancient Greek and Roman culture
and here we have an artist who's embracing
a pagan subject, the subject of Venus.
And also other elements from
ancient Greek and Roman Mythology. Yeah.
Dr. Zucker: Lots of ancient Greek and Roman figures.
Dr. Harris: We have the three graces on the left.
Dr. Zucker: So, let's talk about who they are
for just a sec.
This is a subject that was very popular in Roman statuary
and it was an opportunity that allowed for a sculptor
to show the human body from three sides simultaneously,
so that is you multiply the figure
and you just turn them slightly each time
so that you really see a figure in the round.
Dr. Harris: And then on the far left, we have the God Mars,
who's the God of war.
He's put away his weapon.
Dr. Zucker: He's at peace in her garden.
Dr. Harris: Who wouldn't be at peace in her garden?
Look at it. It's fabulous and we're not sure
exactly what he's doing.
He's got a stick in his hand.
He may be pushing away the clouds that appear
to be coming in from the left.
Dr. Zucker: Only a sunny day in paradise.
Dr. Harris: Absolutely.
And then on the right, we have three more figures,
Zephyr, a God of the wind, who is ...
Dr. Zucker: He is ... That's the blue figure.
Dr. Harris: That's the blue figure
who is abducting the figure of Chloris
who, you can see, has a branch with leaves
coming out of her mouth that collides with the figure
next to her who is the figure of Flora.
So, they may be one in the same person.
Dr. Zucker: In other words,
the actual abduction of Chloris might actually
result in Flora and what Flora is doing here,
is she's reaching into her satchel,
which is full of blossoms, which she seems to be strewing
or sewing on this, sort of, carpet of foliage below.
This is, after all, Primavera. This is spring.
Dr. Harris: Spring.
Dr. Zucker: Yeah.
Dr. Harris: So, there's a sense of the fertility of nature.
Dr. Zucker: There's one other figure,
which is Venus' son just above her, blindfolded.
This is, of course, Cupid, who's about
to unleash his arrow on one of the unwitting graces
and, of course, he doesn't know who he's going to hit,
but we can sort of figure it out.
Dr. Harris: Typical of Botticelli, we have figures
who are elongated, weightless, who stand in
rather impossible positions.
Things that we don't normally expect
from Renaissance art.
Dr. Zucker: So, this really is at odds
with many of the traditions that we learn about
when it comes to the 15th century.
This is not a painting that's about linear perspective.
There's a little bit of atmospheric perspective
that can be seen in the traces of landscape
between the trees, but beyond that
this is a very frontal painting.
It's very much a freeze and it very much
is referencing what we think might be
a literary set of ideas.
Art historians really don't know what this painting
is about and we've been looking for texts
that it might refer to.
Dr. Harris: And, in a way, it doesn't really matter
to the throngs of people who come to see it
and to me because it's incredibly beautiful
and it may be that because it has no specific meaning,
it's easier for us in the 21st century to enjoy it.
Dr. Zucker: There are lots of passages here
that are just, I think, glorious.
If you look at the daffiness quality
of the drape that protect the graces, for instance,
and the tassels there.
They're just beautiful.
I'm especially taken where the hands
of the graces come together in those three places,
creating a kind of wonderful complexity
and beauty and just a kind of visual invention
that is playful and an expression of a kind of
complex notion of beauty.
One of the ways in which this painting is understood
is it's possibly as a sort of neo-platonic treatise
or a kind of meditation on different kinds of beauty.
Dr. Harris: Venus herself is astoundingly beautiful.
She tilts her head to one side and holds up her drapery
and motions with her hand and looks directly at us.
And in a way it's impossible not to want to join her
in the garden.
(piano playing)