Sandro Botticelli’s Primavera is in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, Italy (as is his Birth of Venus!). He is believed to have painted it in the mid 1480s.
Like Birth of Venus, Primavera (which translates to “spring”) is a large tempera painting representing characters from Greek mythology. The two are discussed together often, though, unlike Birth of Venus, Primavera doesn’t have a clearly outlined narrative. That’s ok though because it’s still one of the most well-known and written about paintings in art history, starting with the OG Georgio Vasari, and is generally accepted as representing spring generally (as the title says).
Vasari interlude
Quick sidebar to talk about Vasari -
Vasari (1511-1574), often called the *very first* art historian, wrote The Lives of the Artists, arguably the first art history book. Published in 1550, it discusses individual artists’ achievements as part of a “cycle” in art history. In this cycle, art achieves high points, declines to a low, and improves again, closer and closer to perfect. Conveniently, things were looking pretty good during his lifetime! He argues that specific artists are the ones driving the cycle, rather than looking at the changes as reflective of social/historical context. Art was completely separate from the conditions in which it was made - rather, art’s value was in its aesthetics.
Kind of funnily, Vasari wasn’t very exact with dates, etc. and put random anecdotes and gossip about the artists in their biographies. Interspersed with acknowledgement of their mammoth contributions to the canon is just Renaissance gossip about these artists!
Back to Botticelli
Let’s get back to the painting! It’s often looked at next to Birth of Venus, with some crossover in who’s in the painting.
Who’s who in Primavera
Let’s go over who these figure are, right to left: Zephyrus and Chloris, Flora, Venus with a Cupid above her, the Three Graces, and Mercury.
For basic understanding of the myth, Zephyrus is the God of Wind and Chloris is a nymph who he captured and transformed into Flora, the goddess of Spring. You can see her starting to literally transform into Flora in the painting, with flowers coming out of her mouth. She’s moving from the dark, barren far right of the painting closer to Venus, abundance, fertility, all the good spring-themed things.
Flora looks right at the viewer (the gaze!!!). She is spring, spring is she.
Venus and Cupid are slightly off center, but you can see her framed perfectly by the orange trees and Cupid above. Like Flora, she is looking back at the viewer. This look also makes them more clearly the center and the embodiment of what the painting is showing.
The Three Graces, who often accompany Venus, represent beauty/grace/the ideal. They are arranged together towards the center left of the painting. Interesting to look at their eyelines - two of them seem to be looking towards Mercury and the third at her sister.
Mercury at the far left is waving some clouds away, guarding the garden. He’s looking away from the rest of the figures, standing in a contrapposto position (that angled stance, like Venus in Birth of Venus).
Reading from right to left and in the lens of a Roman calendar, the painting is showing the progression of spring, from cold March wind with Zephyrus, through April spring led by Venus, to May, with Mercury shooing away the last of the cold clouds.
Those two Graces, along with Mercury, looking towards the left, might be looking towards the summer. There is movement and direction in the figures. They are sort of facing left, pushing left, walking left, looking left.
Primavera is so influential on art history. There are so many angles through which to study it, but hopefully this is a nice little overview :)
More
Read about Birth of Venus from my previous post!