_Sandro Botticelli_ (Florentine: 1447-1510). _See 1034._
A beautiful and characteristic work.[129] "At first glance you may
think the picture a mere piece of affectation. Well--yes, Botticelli
is affected in the way that all men of his century necessarily were.
Much euphuism, much studied grace of manner, much formal assertion
of scholarship, mingling with his force of imagination. And he likes
twisting the fingers of hands about"--just as he likes also dancing
motion and waved drapery (see 1034) (_Mornings in Florence_, iii. 59).
The picture is characteristic also of two faculties which Botticelli
acquired from his early training as a goldsmith: first, his use of gold
as a means of enriching the light (as here in the Madonna's hair);
and, secondly, the "incomparable invention and delicacy" with which he
treated all accessory details and ornaments (as here in the scarves and
dresses). But chiefly is the picture characteristic of his "sentiment
of ineffable melancholy, of which it is hard to penetrate the sense,
and impossible to escape the spell." It may help one in understanding
the spirit of such pictures to remember that in Botticelli there met
in perfect poise the tenderness of Christian feeling with the grace
of the classical Renaissance. He was "a Greek reanimate. The first
Greeks were distinguished from the barbarians by their simple humanity;
the second Greeks--these Florentine Greeks reanimate--are human more
strongly, more deeply, leaping from the Byzantine death at the call of
Christ, 'Loose him, and let him go.' And there is upon them at once
the joy of resurrection and the solemnity of the grave"[130] (_Ariadne
Florentina_, § 161; and _Fors Clavigera_, 1872, xxii.).