30 Millennia of Erotic Art. Victoria Charles

of some pieces. Classical subjects and forms inform his work. He is best known for small bronzes such as this one of the archer Apollo, a god of the Greek pantheon. Like some of the bronze statues that survive from Antiquity, Antico’s bronze are often accented with other metals, such as silver in the eyes or gilding on details. Here, Apollo’s cloak, sandals, and his golden hair are gilded, providing a decorative contrast to the duller bronze of the body. Antico took advantage of the technology of his chosen medium and sometimes cast not only the original figurine, but also copies. There are three known versions of this piece.

      163. Antico (Pier Jacopo Alari-Bonacolsi), Apollo Belvedere, 1497–1498.

      High Renaissance. Partially gilded bronze, height: 41.3 cm. Skulpturensammlung Liebieghaus, Frankfurt am Main.

      164. Anonymous, Marsyas or Ignudo della Paura, late 15th century.

      Renaissance. Bronze, height: 32 cm. Musée de la Renaissance, Château d’Écouen, Paris.

      165. Antonio Pollaiuolo (Antonio di Jacopo Benci), Hercules and Antaeus, Early Renaissance, c. 1470.

      Bronze, height: 46 cm. Museo Nazionale del Bargello, Florence.

      166. Andrea del Verrocchio, David, c. 1475. Early Renaissance. Bronze, height: 126 cm.

      Museo Nazionale del Bargello, Florence.

      167. Michelangelo (Michelangelo Buonarroti), David, 1501–1504.

      High Renaissance. Marble, height: 410 cm. Gallerie dell’Accademia, Florence.

      Michelangelo returned to Florence after his stay in Rome, recalled by friends who had managed to obtain for him the commission of the most gigantic statue that Italy had seen since the fall of the Roman Empire – a marble of David. Created between 1501 and 1504, the statue stood in front of the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence until 1873, and is exhibited today at the Accademia in Florence. Originally, in 1468, the Florentine clergy gave Bartolomeo di Pietro the responsibility of rough-hewing a monumental figure of David. As his work did not find unanimous support, Michelangelo was asked on 16 August, 1501, to complete this enormous task. Michelangelo made use of the studies he had carried out for the Dioscuris of Monte Cavallo. His David is, however, absolutely independent of Greek marbles. When starting the work, the young master made one of the worst mistakes: he forgot that only adult forms are well suited for replication, especially for a monolith of this size. As a model, he used a young, not fully developed man, which may be what gives the statue a void impression that clashes with its colossal dimensions. The pose is very simple; in consideration of the dimensions of the block, a lively or violent attitude would have affected the balance of the work. It may also be that the monolith did not leave enough room for projection. In any case, it was a tour de force to have created from this inordinately long rectangle a figure as noble and lively as David. The figure stands on the right leg in a position known as contrapposto, with the left leg advanced, the right hand resting on the thigh and the left arm raised to the shoulder. With a bold look, but thoughtful expression, the hero waits for his opponent, while calculating calmly, like a true Florentine, the chances of the fight. The effect of this early masterpiece was overwhelming. Florence had never seen such a burst of enthusiasm and even today its success is undeniable.

      168. Michelangelo (Michelangelo Buonarroti), Bacchus, 1496–1497.

      High Renaissance. Marble, height: 203 cm. Museo Nazionale del Bargello, Florence.

      169. Anonymous, Dispute of the Three Ladies, late 15th or early 16th century.

      Renaissance. Parchment, 26.7 × 17.7 cm. Private collection.

      170. Albrecht Dürer, Four Naked Women (The Four Witches), 1497.

      Engraving, 19 × 13.1 cm. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

      171. Workshop of Sandro Botticelli, Venus Pudica, 1480–1490.

      High Renaissance. Oil on canvas, 158 × 68.5 cm. Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Gemäldegalerie, Berlin.

SANDRO BOTTICELLI (ALESSANDRO DI MARIANO FILIPEPI)

(FLORENCE, 1445–1510)

      He was the son of a citizen in comfortable circumstances, and had been, in Vasari’s words, “instructed in all such things as children are usually taught before they choose a calling.” However, he refused to give his attention to reading, writing and accounts, continues Vasari, so that his father, despairing of his ever becoming a scholar, apprenticed him to the goldsmith Botticello: whence came the name by which the world remembers him. However, Sandro, a stubborn-featured youth with large, quietly searching eyes and a shock of yellow hair – he has left a portrait of himself on the right-hand side of his picture of the Adoration of the Magi – would also become a painter, and to that end was placed with the Carmelite monk Fra Filippo Lippi. But he was a realist, as the artists of his day had become, satisfied with the joy and skill of painting, and with the study of the beauty and character of the human subject instead of religious themes. Botticelli made rapid progress, loved his master, and later on extended his love to his master’s son, Filippino Lippi, and taught him to paint, but the master’s realism scarcely touched Lippi, for Botticelli was a dreamer and a poet.

      Botticelli is a painter not of facts, but of ideas, and his pictures are not so much a representation of certain objects as a pattern of forms. Nor is his colouring rich and lifelike; it is subordinate to form, and often rather a tinting than actual colour. In fact, he was interested in the abstract possibilities of his art rather than in the concrete. For example, his compositions, as previously mentioned, are a pattern of forms; his figures do not actually occupy well-defined places in a well-defined area of space; they do not attract us by their suggestion of bulk, but as shapes of form, suggesting rather a flat pattern of decoration. Accordingly, the lines which enclose the figures are chosen with the primary intention of being decorative.

      It has been said that Botticelli, “though one of the worst anatomists, was one of the greatest draughtsmen of the Renaissance.” As an example of false anatomy we may notice the impossible way in which the Madonna’s head is attached to the neck, and other instances of faulty articulation and incorrect form of limbs may be found in Botticelli’s pictures. Yet he is recognised as one of the greatest draughtsmen: he gave to ‘line’ not only intrinsic beauty, but also significance. In mathematical language, he resolved the movement of the figure into its factors, its simplest forms of expression, and then combined these various forms into a pattern which, by its rhythmical and harmonious lines, produces an effect upon our imagination, corresponding to the sentiments of grave and tender poetry that filled the artist himself.

      This power of making every line count in both significance and beauty distinguishes the great master – draughtsmen from the vast majority of artists who used line mainly as a necessary means of representing concrete objects.

      172. Gregor Erhart, Vanitas, c. 1500.