Moreover, much about the same time as Firenzuola was writing,
Botticelli's blonde, angular, retrousse women were breaking every one of that beauty- master's canons, perfect in beauty none the less; and lovers then, and perhaps particularly now, have found the perfect beauty in faces to which Messer Firenzuola would have denied the name of face at all, by virtue of a quality which indeed he has tabulated, but which is far too elusive and undefinable, too spiritual for him truly to have understood,--a quality which nowadays we are tardily recognising as the first and last of all beauty, either of nature or art,--the supreme, truly divine, because materialistically unaccountable, quality of Charm!
There she bought a photograph of
Botticelli's "Birth of Venus." Venus, being a pity, spoilt the picture, otherwise so charming, and Miss Bartlett had persuaded her to do without it.
Watts, Burne-Jones, and Botticelli); and he wrote not without distinction verses of a pessimistic character.
He stands by the dozen before the Botticellis in Florence, and he sits on all the benches of the Sistine Chapel in Rome.
He only says 'want.' 'Want Europe,' if he's Napoleon; 'want wives,' if he's Bluebeard; 'want
Botticelli,' if he's Pierpont Morgan.
He talked easily of
Botticelli, and spoke of Fra Angelico with a faint condescension.
The museum's conservation team has been using the latest light imaging equipment to find out more about
Botticelli's Descent of the Holy Ghost which was painted between 1500 and 1510.
Botticelli - called Sandro (1446-1510) - ranks as one of the most outstanding painters of the Italian Renaissance, a movement
The supermodel appeared from a massive oyster shell - in a tribute to
Botticelli's masterpievce The Birth of Venus - as the Games got under way in Turin.
The French artist Orlan is known for performances during which her body is surgically altered; in nine such performances, features from Greek goddesses painted by
Botticelli, Gerard, Moreau, and an anonymous School of Fontainebleau artist as well as from DaVinci's Mona Lisa were implanted into Orlan's face.
There is also a website ( www.purpleguide.com ( with a constantly updated All Things Italian section featuring current information on art exhibitions, music festivals and the latest
Botticelli show.
Turner's The fountain of indolence (left) and Lucian Freud's Hotel bedroom (right) are the two paintings rumoured to be most likely to be prised from the museum, but the potential ramifications for other works by
Botticelli and Gainsborough, among others, are significant.
Botticelli - Italian painter of mythological and religious paintings (1444-1510)