Botticelli Art Courses - BOOK

Whilst the critical consensus on some artists appears to be as luminous and constant as the Pole star, that of others swings between the highs of good fortune and the lows of obscurity. The figure of Sandro Botticelli is, from this point of view, exemplary. He was greatly admired in his time: in fact he was amongst the group of painters called to Rome to carry out the first work on the Sistine Chapel.
But with the death of Lorenzo il Magnifico began the decline of Botticelli.
Only in 1908, thanks also to the great Anglo-Florentine scholar and collector Herbert Horne, the rebirth of interest in his work started again, which had crept back in during the previous decades. This gave momentum to that process of critical re-evaluation which allows us today to place the artist in his rightful position. Accordingly, Primavera, The Birth of Venus and Pallas and the Centaur, works dating from his most dazzling period, are now regarded – in terms of their absolute beauty – as masterpieces of the human spirit.