シャドーイング練習: The Birth of Venus by Botticelli: Great Art Explained: - 動画で英語スピーキングを学ぶ

Sandro Botticelli's poetic sense of beauty  captivated the Florentine court, but it was his subject matter which distinguished him from other  artists. He was one of the first Western artists since classical times, to depict non-religious  scenes. The idea that art could be for pleasure and not just to serve God, was new and radical.  When Botticelli revealed his latest painting in Florence in 1485, he also revealed a dramatic  shift in western art. Botticelli's inclusion of a near-life-sized female nude was unprecedented in  Western art. This wasn't Eve being expelled from the Garden of Eden, shamed by her nudity. It wasn't  the naked hordes sent to Hell in Dante's Inferno.

In fact this wasn't nudity as a symbol  of shame at all - or even sin - or wickedness.

This was a celebration of the naked  human form, this was a celebration of sex.

Renaissance translates as "Rebirth" and although  dates are debatable, we can start in Florence around the 14th century, when a renewed interest in  ancient Greco-Roman culture led to an intellectual and artistic rebirth. A rise in Humanist philosophy,  and radical changes in ideas about religion, politics and science. Ideas that would turn  art on its head. New ways of thinking spread throughout Europe inspired by ancient cultures,  that focused less on religion and more on the possible achievements of mankind. It was regarded  as the beginning of the "individual", the end of the middle ages, and the start of modernity. In this  period artists relied entirely on wealthy patrons.

Luckily for us the Medici banking  family were the wealthiest of them all.

Botticelli's patron was Lorenzo de' Medici, who  dominated Florence's political and cultural life.

He was a cultured, intelligent man, who spoke  Latin and Greek. He was also a Humanist.

Renaissance Humanism was not anti-Christian or  atheistic, it was a revival of moral philosophy.

A move to purify and renew Christianity, Rather  than the "collective", emphasis was placed on free-will the value of individual  human beings and their capacities.

Without this new way of thinking, it is doubtful  we would have had artists like Botticelli, Michelangelo and da Vinci. Humanism would  radicalise art, artists and subject matter.

Botticelli would bridge the gap between Medieval  Gothic art and the emerging Humanism. We can see the different styles in these two images. The  first is late Gothic, the period that preceded the Renaissance. It is heavily stylised and flat,  flesh tones are pallid, expressions are vacant and it is unemotional. The second, a work that inspired  the young Botticelli, shows three-dimensionality, the figures are more human, more fleshy. Mary  is a mother not just a saint and Jesus is a realistic child. It is an image we can relate to  and empathise with. It wasn't just style though, Religious art had dominated the medieval period  and the Renaissance gave artists like Botticelli freedom to explore new subject matters...  albeit within a Christian framework.

Narrator: "The island where Aphrodite the Greek goddess  of love was born out of sea spray on this  very beach" The story of the goddess of love and  beauty starts with a castration. The god Saturn castrated his father Uranus and  then threw his genitals into the sea.

Out of the seafoam an unbelievable  beauty emerges fully formed - Venus.

The first thing to say is that the painting  does not represent venus's "actual birth" but rather the next part of the story, when  Venus arrives on the island of Cyprus on a shell.

If we take the characters one by one, the  male figure on the far left is Zephyr, the warm spring winds. He is blowing Venus ashore.  Zephyr is locked in an embrace with his wife Chloris, who herself is blowing gentle breaths.  Roses fall around them - each with a golden heart.

According to legend rose's first grew at Venus's  birth. We have seen both these characters before - in the earlier mythological Venus painting by  Botticelli, "Primavera", Zephyr raped Chloris and married her, and then turned her into Flora, the  goddess of flowers. A woman welcomes Venus with a red cloth covered in daisies. She is likely to be one  of the "Horae" or personifications of the seasons, summer in this case, as her dress is decorated  with cornflowers and primroses, and at her feet are anemones. All summer flowers. Hora wears a rose  girdle and has a necklace of myrtle, a plant sacred to the goddess Venus, an aphrodisiac, and a symbol  of love. Then there is Venus herself, also known as Aphrodite to the ancient Greeks. Botticelli  has painted her twice before, for "Primavera" and "Venus and Mars". This time she is naked: The  first full female nude of a non-biblical character.

Botticelli was probably inspired by an ancient  marble statue in the Medici's collection, now known as the "Medici Venus", the first ever female  nude sculpture in classical art. Her modest pose is known as "Venus Pudica", a stance where a nude  female uses her right hand to cover her breast, while her left hand tries to hide her pubic  area. It is a pose that makes voyeurs of us all.

The word "Pudica" in latin not only means "genitalia",  but also translates as "Shame". We just don't see this coy sexually suggestive pose with male  statues, either in antiquity or during the Renaissance. Naked men were associated with active  heroism, but women were passive sexual objects.

In many ways the statue was a blueprint for a pose  that would have a cultural and artistic impact felt across western art for the subsequent two and  a half thousand years. The influence of sculpture statue-like pose, but she has alabaster skin. She  is unreal, an idealised figure not bound by natural laws. Botticelli painted a dark line around the  contours of her body making it easier to see her pale body against the equally pale background, and  emphasizing the marble-like quality of her flesh.

Venus's figure is elongated in the Gothic style,  she appears graceful but she is not quite central and her weight isn't evenly distributed. The shell  would tip over if she placed her full weight on the edge like she does, but this is not the real world.  It has been said that Venus has what is called "The Gothic sway", a pre-Renaissance variation on the  Contrapposto pose, which places the weight of the body on the forward stationary leg, creating an  elegant curved pose often seen in Madonna figures, a theme we will come back to. The wind deities  are in an impossible convoluted embrace and like all the characters, appear weightless with  very little depth. They are all in the foreground, all on the same pictorial plane, which creates an  intense theatricality, and none of the figures cast shadows. This is not a mistake, but heightened  realism. If we compare this earlier painting by Botticelli to The Birth of Venus, we see true  realism - depth, shadowing and action taking place on different pictorial planes. As far as the  devoutly Christian Botticelli was concerned his religious paintings were "actual reality",  history even, and he painted them as such.

Whereas with his mythological works, he is letting  the viewer know "stylistically" that what they are looking at is a product of imagination. What  we are seeing here, is movement and energy not seen before. Venus, pushed by the wind  is about to step off her shell onto the shore. Her hair is blowing in the wind, the  Hora rushes forward with a billowing cloak, roses fly through the air, the orange trees  rustle and drapery flaps around the bodies.

It is a movement and energy found on ancient  Roman reliefs. Then there is the background.

In contrast with all the flowers that  surround the four characters, the little bays we see along the shore are pretty barren.  The suggestion is that once Venus steps ashore, the land will blossom. Botticelli is not interested  in replicating nature, but rather in creating a dreamscape. The contrast between the green of  the sea and the paleness of venus is wonderful.

The waves are mere gestures - a flick of the  wrist. The flowering orange grove references the sacred garden of Hesperides in Greek myth.  The detailing is exquisite, every blossom is tipped with real gold, which is used throughout  the painting for highlights. Botticelli trained as a goldsmith before he took up painting and his  strong outlines and ornamented decorative elements reflect that. There is a peculiar detail in  the painting which is these bulrushes. Out of place as they don't grow in salt water. It  is almost certainly a subtle phallic reference to the discarded member of Uranus that created  Venus. An in-joke for those clever Florentines.

When botticelli painted The Birth of Venus,  approximately 10 percent of western paintings were non-religious, and of that 10 percent  the vast majority were portraits. Mythological paintings were a whole new art form, so it makes  sense that a devout Christian like Botticelli would incorporate familiar references. Botticelli  knew the philosopher and priest Marcilio Ficino whose mission was to combine ancient philosophy  with Christianity. His idea of a "Celestial Venus" as opposed to the pagan goddess, had her as a stand-in for  charity and love. I don't think it is a disguised Christian allegory, but in art history terms there  are familiar references that are worth examining.

If we look at this standard composition of  the baptism of Christ, you can see what i mean Ghiberti's work had a semi-naked figure in the  middle, two flying angels on the left, and John the baptist with an outstretched hand. In this  baptism we see the same almost nude, motionless figure in the centre, a pair on the left hand side  and once again John the Baptist echoing the Hora.

Then we can look at this painting of the Virgin  Mary, Botticelli painted a couple of years later.

It has a comparable composition, the two women are  strikingly similar, and it would appear that he used the same model. Mary, like Venus, is dominated  by the scallop shell. In christian symbolism it represents "Baptism" and "Resurrection". In pagan  symbolism the shell is a representation of fertility or female sexual organs. It is entirely  possible that Botticelli was depicting Venus as an emblem of sacred or divine love. A familiar  Renaissance trope. Part of Botticelli's genius was to take a pagan story, a nude female, and make  them acceptable to contemporary Christian thinking.

In this period paintings were generally done on  wooden panels, but this is on canvas. Suggesting the painting was almost certainly made for a country  villa, rather than a townhouse. Canvas was cheaper, easier to transport and was considered less formal.  It was originally painted on two separate canvases which were then stitched together. Botticelli used  the egg tempera technique for The Birth of Venus, a primary method of painting until after  1500 when it was superseded by oil painting First you break an egg yolk into a container,  then you add some water to make it easier to use, you dilute your pigment with water, and add it to  the egg yolk. Different quantities for different applications. For the body of Venus, Botticelli  used a very thin layer of tempura, giving more luminosity and a pronounced radiant appearance.  Tempura was perfect for Botticelli's paintings, which are known for their elegant qualities of  line and shape. Rather than shading wet-on-wet which you cannot do with tempura, you can see how  the golden colour of Venus's hair is achieved by light and dark rhythmic lines, to suggest texture.  He also added pure gold highlights. Here you can see he used delicate cross hatching rather than  the blending you would get with oil painting.

Tempura is a difficult technique, but centuries  later artists still use it. So why? Because it has a graphic quality and a luminosity you don't get  in oil, and unlike oil paint it will not yellow or fade. The egg dries to form a solid protective coat, so colour remains clear bright and pure over time.

We don't know for sure who commissioned the  birth of venus but it was probably the de-facto ruler of Florence, Lorenzo de' Medici  and destined for the Medici villa Castello.

Primavera was commissioned by Lorenzo as a  wedding gift for his cousin, also called Lorenzo, and in 1550 the art historian Giorgio Vasari  saw both paintings at the villa, so it's a strong possibility, The Birth of Venus was commissioned as  a companion piece to Primavera - a wedding gift.

The paintings show two very different aspects of Venus  but both are in line with Renaissance thinking.

The aforementioned philosopher and theologian  Marcilio Ficino described Venus's "Dual nature", as both the celestial goddess that inspired  intellectual love, and the earthly goddess that celebrated the power of procreation. And I think "procreation" is the key to this painting.

Noble families like the Medici didn't marry  for love, they married for power, accelerated by important arranged marriages. The function of  women was their ability to procreate, and the new bride's arrival into the Medici bed chamber is  paralleled by the arrival of Venus on Cyprus, who will bring life to a barren island. So in a  way the birth of venus is an image celebrating "Sex", but not in an erotic or sensual way. I've always  been struck by how venus is strangely "asexual" and her nudity is clinical. And maybe that's  because she represents sex as a necessary function.

Sex for procreation, the ultimate  goal in a dynastic marriage.

On february the 7th, 1497 a huge bonfire was lit  in the centre of Florence. Books on poetry and classical texts were burned ,along with paintings,  sculptures, mirrors and musical instruments.

Anything considered frivolous was burned. Florence  had fallen under the spell of the extraordinary Dominican friar Geronimo Savonarola, whose "fire  and brimstone" sermons mesmerised thousands in the city. After a 60-year reign, the powerful Medici  family had been driven out of Florence by a mere priest. One who was determined to rid  the city of the Medici's "sinful" influence.

One of Savonarola's most enthusiastic  followers was Botticelli, who according to some, willingly threw some of his  own paintings into the bonfire.

We are fortunate that his greatest mythological  works survived, only because they were held at the Villa de Castello - beyond the reach of both  Savonarola's followers and Botticelli himself.

After Savonarola's death, Botticelli was  increasingly seen as old-fashioned and irrelevant.

Commissions dried up, and it was the beginning  of a sad decline into obscurity. He was at the height of his powers when he painted The Birth of  Venus, but by the time of his death in 1510, he was all but forgotten. The Medici's had moved on to a  new generation of artists. With The Birth of Venus, Botticelli really did produce a work of art that  was revolutionary, a work that changed the course of art history, and one that still looks intensely  modern to 21st century eyes. In fact The Birth of vVnus is as influential now as it was five  centuries ago. It is one of the most recognisable images in the world. The ancient Gods may have  given birth to Venus - but Botticelli gave her life.