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La Primavera
artist
He studied under Fra Filippo Lippi and had a technique which focused on line, and his forms were
lightly shaded
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-painted between 1477 and 1482
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-The precise meaning of the painting is unknown, but it was probably created for the marriage of
Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco (a cousin of the powerful Lorenzo the Magnificent Medici) in May, 1482
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Venus, in the middle, represents the
“Humanitas” (kindness), which protects men
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The Humanitas promotes the ideal of a positive man, confident in his abilities,
and sensitive to the needs of others
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She is represented as a glamorous woman and she is not exactly at the centre with her head tilted
to the right
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the tree limbs behind him form an arch which shapes Venus and puts her in an important position
in the painting that is the centre
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He has a staff on his
left which is said to escort the winter clouds
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As to the right of Mercury, there are the Three Graces
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The pearls on their heads symbolise the purity of which the morality they have
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Also, the cupid is actually targeting its arrow at the Three Graces to emphasise on the idea of
marriage
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They get married and Chloris then transforms into the Spring goddess by Zephyrus, where she is
seen scattering flowers on the ground
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The oranges in the grove growing are to show the hope from Botticelli for the
marriage to have lots of children and we can realise there aren’t any oranges near Zephyrs
because of his actions
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Why Chloris is
alone is because it’s meant to show just like in the 15th century, women weren’t allowed to choose
who they wanted to marry
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The whole painting has an allegorical meaning
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The
setting of the painting is in an orange grove that links to the Medici having an orange tree as their
family symbol
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Neoplatonism was a philosophical and aesthetic movement trying
to blend the thought of Greek philosopher Plato with the noblest concepts of Christianity
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We can therefore imagine that behind the philosophical interpretation of the painting, Botticelli and
his client thought of an apology for the Medici and their sophisticated, far-sighted and deep love for
culture and art
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Her proprietorship is confirmed by the myrtle tree, behind her, which is one of her
symbols
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This one element alone has been the subject of
decades of specialist cataloguing and research
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According to rumour, she was the mistress of
Giuliano de' Medici, who himself is supposed to have been the model for Mercury
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Neo-Platonic Love
According to one expert, La Primavera may be an illustration of Neo-platonic love
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The winged messenger is himself
looking out beyond the canvas at the painting Pallas and the Centaur (c
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If so, it must have been hung at a higher level than Primavera, as Mercury's gaze is directed
towards the top corner of the garden
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)
Primavera is one of the first known paintings from the post-classical period which portrays Gods
and Goddesses life-size and virtually naked
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Colour
The natural colours of the faces aren’t used as the colours are quite pale and porcelain-like
because of the mythological effect from this painting
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The colours of the trees are very dark almost like
silhouettes but when we look closer, it has light brown leading to darker browns
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The flowers shows the variety of colours Botticelli uses which signifies that he wanted the painting
to look realistic by painting a 190 different flowers
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There isn’t a wide sense of the depth in the painting because the

La Primavera
background of the trees don’t look like it is very three-dimensional
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Light and tone
There seems to be a light source depicted on the left of the painting because the shadows on the
figures are all of the right side of them
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Tempera is a mixture of the paint and egg which is then thinned with water
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His good technique in
painting are painting the flesh tones where semi-transparent ochres, whites, cinnabars and red
lakes are put on top one another with brush strokes
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The outlines of the figures are quite
naturalistic as Botticelli wanted to create the realism of peace for the marriage
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Botticelli probably created this because he wanted to show
that the marriage can achieve the fertility
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