Sandro Botticelli, Florence and the Medici

Botticelli (1445-1510) became associated by historians with the Florentine School under the patronage of Lorenzo de' Medici, a movement historians would later characterize as a "golden age".

The Medici family were effective rulers of Florence, which was nominally a republic, throughout Botticelli's lifetime up to 1494, when the main branch were expelled.

Lorenzo il Magnifico became the head of the family in 1469, just around the time Botticelli started his own workshop.

He was a great patron of both the visual and literary arts, and encouraged and financed the humanist and Neoplatonist circle from which much of the character of Botticelli's mythological painting seems to come.

Botticelli, il maestro dimenticato

Dopo la sua morte, la reputazione di Sandro Botticelli (1445-1510) fu eclissata più a lungo e più a fondo di quella di qualsiasi altro grande artista europeo.

I suoi dipinti rimasero nelle chiese e nelle ville per le quali erano stati creati, ed i suoi affreschi nella Cappella Sistina furono messi in ombra da quelli di Michelangelo.

Vi sono alcune menzioni di dipinti e della loro collocazione in fonti risalenti ai decenni successivi alla sua morte.

Van Gogh in Paris, 1886-1888 | Figures | Portraits

• If you hear a voice within you say ‘you cannot paint,’ then by all means paint, and that voice will be silenced.
• Love many things, for therein lies the true strength, and whosoever loves much performs much, and can accomplish much, and what is done in love is done well.
• Occasionally, in times of worry, I’ve longed to be stylish, but on second thought I say no - just let me be myself - and express rough, yet true things with rough workmanship.
• I’ll start with small things.

Sandro Botticelli | Later reputation

After his death, Botticelli's (1445-1510) reputation was eclipsed longer and more thoroughly than that of any other major European artist.

His paintings remained in the churches and villas for which they had been created, and his frescos in the Sistine Chapel were upstaged by those of Michelangelo.

There are a few mentions of paintings and their location in sources from the decades after his death. Vasari's Life is relatively short and, especially in the first edition of 1550, rather disapproving.

According to the Ettlingers "he is clearly ill at ease with Sandro and did not know how to fit him into his evolutionary scheme of the history of art running from Cimabue to Michelangelo".

Alonso Cano (1601-1667)

Alonzo Cano or Alonso Cano (19 March 1601 - 3 September 1667) was a Spanish painter**, architect and sculptor born in Granada.
He learned architecture from his father, Miguel Cano; painting in the academy of Juan del Castillo, and from Francisco Pacheco the teacher of Velázquez**; and sculpture from Juan Martínez Montañés.

L'arte fiabesca di Paul Bond, 1964

I pluripremiati dipinti ad olio di Paul Bond vivono negli spazi tra sogno e la realtà.

Nato a Guadalajara, in Messico, attinge al genere latinoamericano del Realismo Magico, dove elementi simbolici e fantastici si fondono con atmosfere realistiche, svelando un mondo dove tutto è possibile.

Spesso le definisce "fiabe per adulti".

Unendo ed alterando oggetti familiari - mescolati con parti uguali di fantasia, meraviglia e misticismo - le opere di Bond deliziano l'immaginazione e stimolano l'anima.

Antonio Guzmán Capel, 1960

Antonio Guzmán Capel è un pittore Spagnolo.

Dal 1961 risiede nella città di Palencia, in Spagna. Capel è un artista autodidatta. Fin dall'infanzia ha mostrato doti innate per il disegno e la pittura.

Ha fatto la sua prima mostra quando aveva solo undici anni. Da allora in poi, ogni anno ha tenuto delle mostre.

A quattordici anni, espose le sue opere in Svizzera, dove fu considerato dalla critica locale un genio della pittura, perché come affermato, non c'era nessun artista conosciuto in quel momento con la capacità di eseguire opere a tale giovane età.