#6 francese | Sandro Botticelli, Primavera

Uffizi | Fabbriche di Storie

SANDRO BOTTICELLI |

Primavera |

Uffizi, Sala 10-14 |

Lingua originale (Francese) | La narrazione e la voce sono di Kuassi Sessou |

Leggi la scheda completa dell'opera su uffizi.it

Sandro Botticelli | Spring | Room 10-14

This garden is like paradise. An earthly paradise where everything had meaning, before the arrival of man.

I tried to imagine this meadow empty. The variety of flowers is immense. Everything is perfect, unspoiled. Every detail contributes to the whole. In my eyes, all this takes on an extraordinary affinity with African spirituality: at its center is Nature as a divinity that may be found in the trees, the river, the sun, the wind. That same wind that here, in the Spring by Botticelli, puffs out the clothes, fertilizes the plants, a breath of life that permeates everything. The Spring is a masterpiece of profane art, yet I find it has a strong religious dimension.

I start to move across the meadow. The slender trunks of the orange trees slowly become more imposing as I enter, creating darkness around me, taking me back to my childhood: it’s four in the morning, my uncle is holding the hand of my brother, who needs care; he starts to speak in a language I don’t know, because the ritual needs words other than everyday language. Not everyone enters the sacred woods. That wood is a place that needs utmost silence and respect, because it’s where one goes to meet the gods, to speak with plants.

This wood, too, is a sacred space, ready to welcome divine presences. A gust of wind and Zephyr bursts onto the scene. With his breath of life, he fertilizes the nymph Cloris, who is transformed into Flora. Venus, the goddess of love and fertility, appears in the center. Above her, Cupid is ready to fire off his arrow. The wave-like movement continues with the Three Graces and ends with Mercury, chasing off the clouds that threaten the end of spring.

Although the mythological characters are easy to identify, the meaning of their meeting has given rise to countless interpretations. Many are linked to the Medici, who commissioned the Spring. Some scholars see it as a political celebration of Florence flourishing under their rule. On a philosophical level, the painting shows the journey to perfection of the soul, also alluding to the Medici, patrons of the neo-platonic Academy: Zephyr is the sensual power of love; thanks to the mediation of Venus, it is transformed into a higher form, the love that is given, represented by the Three Graces; finally, Mercury aims for supreme perfection, that of the heavens.

My gaze returns to the meadow, to the feet of these three ethereal girls dancing. It is such a perfect dance as to seem completed. Yet this is the point of the painting that invites me to enter. I would enter in small steps, like I did as a child. Suddenly, you find yourself inside the circle. You start doing what the others do, and become part of that circle. The dance, held once a year, followed a precise ritual: to implore gods, chase out sickness and bring health, but also to explain the roundness of the earth, the central position of human beings. Different gestures and contexts, but is it so distant from the man lord of all things celebrated in 15th century-Florence?

It is not possible to remain in the sacred woods, the woods of Venus, but whatever is learned there can be taken with you. And it is a shame for those who did not know how to walk through it.