Happy Father's Day - Botticelli at the MFA

[Under construction ... I'm hoping to go back and revise]

Talk about instant gratification!  I saw a friend's post about this exhibit on my way north, and once I arrived, I talked my parents into going to see it!  That was really helpful, since it's only running through July 9.  (Thanks, Mom and Dad!!)

The MFA is not very modest about "Botticelli and the Search for the Divine":

The exhibition, the largest and most important display of Botticelli’s works in the United States, features 24 paintings from international lenders and the MFA’s own Virgin and Child with Saint John the Baptist (about 1500) as well as important loans from Harvard and the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum.

Ariella Budick, writing for the Financial Times, takes a much more dour and cynical view, namely that

the show observes [Botticelli's] decline with relentless optimism. As he moved towards God, his work grew lifeless — or, as a wall label would have it, ever more “lyrical”, “powerful” and “intimately personal”.

Orpheus and Cerberus - NOT BOTTICELLI

Oh, nothing - just a little throwaway sketch on the back of a commissioned painting

Filippo Lippi and workshop (Botticelli), Annunciation, ca. 1464Museo di Palazzo Pretorio Piazza del Commune

Gauzy fabric for swaddling cloths

Minerva and the Centaur (ca. 1482)
Tempera on canvas. Galleria degli Uffizi.

Cate McQuaid, writing for the Boston Globe, says: “Birth of Venus” and “Primavera” are not here; as state treasures, they never leave Italy. But there are other gems. “Minerva and the Centaur,” like those two, draws on classical mythology and depicts a scene not found in any one myth.

Minerva [...] stands unruffled and proud in a transparent robe embroidered with the Medici insignia, one hand clasping a battle axe[...]. The conquered [centaur] wears the miserable expression of a kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar.

The painting has everything we love about Botticelli: the extraordinary grace of his lines; a serene, alabaster beauty, here a symbol of virtue triumphing over baser instincts; a composition that leads the eye along elegant, curving paths.

Budick takes a different view, characterizing Minerva as "[l]anky and athletic almost to the point of deformity" with a "quasi-grotesque loveliness" that is "thrown into relief by the centaur's awkward misery.  Minerva gently strokes the half-beast’s curls, and his corrugated face twists into a mask of tragic regret. We don’t quite know what’s happening here: is Minerva subduing the beast or befriending him?"

I think the truth is partway between McQuaid's assessment and Budick's.  I would note, in answer to Budick's question, that Minerva is clearly not befriending the centaur -- friends just don't grab friends by the hair.

Virgin & Child w Young Saint John the Baptist (ca. 1505)
Tempera on canvas. Galleria Palatina, Palazzo Pitti, Florence.

Here, I loved the angle for the faces of Jesus and John; they seem almost to merge into one.

Virgin & Child w Saint John the Baptist (ca. 1500)
Tempera on panel. Sarah Greene Timmins Fund.

The horses' faces look almost cartoonish to me

Adoration of the Magi (ca. 1500). Tempera on panel. Galleria degli Uffizi

Jacopo de Sellaio, The Story of Psyche (ca. 1490)
This one seems to show action through time by depicting Psyche at multiple stages.

In the exhibit, Botticelli was accompanied by da Sellaio, the Lippis (father and son), and Pollaiuolo.

Of the Sellaio work (above), the MFA says: "Sellaio’s style is based on that of the principal Florentine painters of his time, particularly Botticelli. The painting originally decorated a wooden chest in which linens and household objects were stored."

The Muscarelle.org site identifies the work to the left as

Antonio del Pollaiolo
Saint Michael Killing the Dragon, before 1465
Oil on canvas
Florence, Museo Stefano Bardini

St. Michael Archangel by Antonio Del Pollaiolo
Oil on canvas. Museo Stefano Bardini, Florence.

(Nearby was Pollaiolo's The Battle of the [Male] Nudes...)

Virgin & Child (ca. 1478-80)
aka "Madonna of the Book"
Tempera and gold on panel.
Museo Poldi Pezzoli, Milan. 

The colors are extraordinary, and precious.  Apparently, "in the final layer of this work he used only lapis lazuli for the blue sections" according to Dr Annalisa Zanni's research as reported in 2012.

The show was not huge, so we headed off to explore the rest of the museum (or at least the Robert McCloskey exhibit) until closing time.  Inevitably, we saw a few other cool things en route...

[Note: I'd like to go back and actually read this blog post, which helped me initially identify the Sellaio and Pollaiolo paintings.  It looks very scholarly.]

Crocodile

Rabbit

What McCloskey was doing before Blueberries for Sal...

There were also studies for Make Way for Ducklings and other works.  I hadn't known about most of the others.  His last book, Burt Dow, Deep Water-man (1963), starred a fisherman:

initial idea...

... and final (published) result!

This is how the fisherman escapes the belly of the whale --
perhaps a tribute to Jackson Pollock (1912-1956)?

We lingered in a ship-themed room as well, before the PA system brought us the sad news that it was time to go.

shh! it's only a model.

On Sunday, we got together at a place called Canoe.  We had to eat and run so I could catch my return transportation, but it was great to have three generations together!