by Throughout the Renaissance, drawings became an integral part of the enormous paintings and frescoes that have long been associated with that period. Among other things, they were a way for artists to get a sense of how to organize the space of a composition, and they also helped artists perfect the incredibly realistic poses that have become synonymous with masterpieces from the likes of Leonardo Da Vinci. Vinci, Tiziano Vecellio. (better known as Titian) and Tintoretto. Drawings were even used in legally binding contracts to provide a reference point for the work being agreed upon.
Related: A Botticelli painting valued at 50 years old and valued at 100 million euros is recovered in Naples
When it came to drawings, Sandro Botticelli was in a class of his own, and one expert even touted him as “the greatest linear design artist Europe has ever had.” Botticelli’s line became the basis of the dance aesthetic that permeates his production and can be seen in masterpieces such as The Birth of Venus and The Spring. According to Italian Renaissance expert Furio Rinaldi, “Botticelli’s use of drawing gets to the central meaning of the word choreography… With his drawings, Botticelli writes the composition, draws the dance.”
For the Legion of Honor museum in San Francisco, Rinaldi has curated an exciting new exhibition focused on Botticelli’s drawings. Featuring 27 of the artist’s drawings, including 5 recently attributed, and more than 60 total works from dozens of lenders, it offers Bay Area audiences a unique opportunity to view one of the largest displays of the artist’s work ever attempted. Italian teacher.
“It was an incredible effort that took more than three years to organize,” Rinaldi said during an interview in his Legion of Honor office. “In my opinion, there is something really incredible about the fact that Botticelli is in San Francisco, so far from where he worked. For many it will probably be the only opportunity to see so many works by this great artist.”
As with many painters of the era, Botticelli relied on drawings throughout his creative process to help refine and shape the forms that would eventually come together in a painting. What Botticelli Drawings attempts to show is how integral these sketches were to the unique qualities that made Botticelli stand out from his contemporaries, and that have made his artwork resonate for over 500 years and be referenced in everything from The Simpsons even Lady Gaga’s cover. 2013 album Artpop. “We really leaned on his mind and the graphic articulations of his ideas,” Rinaldi said. “They are so essential to the aesthetic that makes Botticelli so attractive, because the linearity of these sketches is actually a reflection of his painting technique.”
The works exhibited in the Legion of Honor are quite masterful. Here audiences will see depictions of the human form that look so realistic they might as well jump off the page. As this exhibition demonstrates, these forms often appear to be in motion: whether jumping back in fright in the middle of a fight, running to announce the incarnation of Jesus Christ, or raising aloft a decapitated head, the subjects of Botticelli’s drawing appear to be in motion. dancing, moving. with a fluidity and agile presence that makes these figures quite different from others. “I really tried to go beyond that, to the core of this attraction and magnetism,” Rinaldi said. “Many contemporary artists and dancers are inspired by Botticelli. And I felt that the common thread was the line, the perfect linearity of Botticelli’s composition.”
With Botticelli’s drawings centered in this exhibition, each of the galleries in the show also includes a finished painting to offer a point of synthesis to the public. The works shown here include such important pieces as The Virgin and Child with the Young Saint John the Baptist and The Adoration of the Magi, including paintings that have rarely, if ever, traveled to the United States. These paintings help the public get a sense of how Botticelli’s drawings were part of the creative process that ultimately resulted in a work on canvas. “Each room has a pivotal painting,” Rinaldi said, “a significant work to help the public anchor and recompose the ideas and figures they see scattered throughout the drawings.”
Organizing an exhibition of Botticelli’s drawings was a major challenge that took more than three years to complete. This was partly due to the fact that, although Botticelli is recognized as an innovator and master of drawing, only a scant two dozen of them have survived to modern times. “Very, very few drawings have survived that can be attributed to Botticelli,” Rinaldi said. “If you think about Leonardo da Vinci, we have almost thousands of his drawings. For other artists, there may be hundreds. For Botticelli, according to my calculations, we do not have more than 30 sheets.” Because Botticelli died in poverty, his drawing studio was not preserved or maintained as were those of many of his contemporaries, but was sold after his death. “If you think about Leonardo da Vinci or Michelangelo, there’s a slightly different situation where they all have their students continuing their workshop and preserving and using the drawings as a kind of visual heritage of the artist’s ideas.”
One thing that stands out about Botticelli Drawings is the very elegant and minimalist presentation of the works. The galleries of the Legion of Honor have been scaled down in a way that gives the show a very polished and contemporary feel, almost as if it’s borrowing the very clean and bright aesthetic of the Apple Store. “I wanted to put the audience in the best possible position to appreciate this work, so they will see a very sparse scene,” Rinaldi said. «Everything is very clean and very modern. Even if the exhibition is firmly based on art historical research, I am trying to remove Botticelli from the mythologies of art history.” The result of Rinaldi’s aesthetic generates an interesting and certainly original sensation.
Ultimately, Botticelli Drawings manages to present the artist in a different way, one that resonates and allows us to look at his work as if for the first time. It is an important exhibition: a good opportunity to see pieces that rarely travel anywhere, much less to the United States, and to get a deep look at the intimacy of the creative process of an artist who comes from a world very different from the that we live. “Renaissance Florence is so far away in time and place that people don’t even know what it means anymore,” Rinaldi said. “I think it’s time to turn the page and look at these artists with today’s eyes.”
