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Yet let the simple fact stand for what it is worth, that Beardsley had but one god, and that was Botticelli. Most of the things Beardsley did were ugly; many of the things Botticelli did were supremely beautiful. Yet in all of Botticelli's work there is a tinge of melancholy a shade of disappointment. The "Spring" is a sad picture.
We are left to conjecture whether Botticelli designed his composition for an allegory of intemperance, the so-called Venus typifying some moral quality. Botticelli's "Birth of Aphrodite" expresses this transient moment in the history of the Renaissance with more felicity.
The title indicates their aim, which was to draw the inspiration of their art from the fifteenth-century painters of Italy. The sweetness of feeling in a picture such as Botticelli's 'Nativity, the delicacy of workmanship and beautiful painting of detail in Antonello's 'St. Jerome' and other pictures of that date, had an irresistible fascination for them.
"How far we are from God with this paganism of Botticelli's!" said Durtal to himself. "What a difference between this painter and that Roger van der Weyden whose Nativity is the glory of one of the adjoining rooms in that magnificent Old Museum of Berlin!" Ay, that Nativity! He had only to turn to his notes to see it plainly before him.
The first sight, even in a poor copy, of the two Discoboli Diana with her swinging knee-high tunic the winged Victory of Samothrace to see them first at seventeen, without warning, without a glimmering knowledge of their existence! And the pictures! Portfolios of Angelo, of the voluptuous Titian, of the swaying forms of Botticelli's maidens trite enough now but then!
But for a portrait of the painter of more authenticity we must go to the Carmine, where, in the Brancacci chapel, we shall see a fresco by Botticelli's friend Filippino Lippi representing the Crucifixion of S. Peter, in which our painter is depicted on the right, looking on at the scene a rather coarse heavy face, with a large mouth and long hair. He wears a purple cap and red cloak.
This pre-eminence may be due to chance only, but to some it will appear a result of deliberate judgment; for people have begun to find out the charm of Botticelli's work, and his name, little known in the last century, is quietly becoming important.
Filippino was also a pupil of Botticelli's, while there was a higher sense of beauty and grace in the pupil than in the teacher. Among his last works is the Vision of St Bernard, an easel picture in the Badia at Florence. The apparition of the Madonna in this picture is said to be 'full of charm. In his larger works he is one of the greatest historical painters of his country.
Botticelli's picture may have been only one of those familiar compositions in which religious reverie has recorded its impressions of the various forms of beatified existence Glorias, as they were called, like that in which Giotto painted the portrait of Dante; but somehow it was suspected of embodying in a picture the wayward dream of Palmieri, and the chapel where it hung was closed.
"My love!" she repeated, as she knelt down to say her prayers, sending the adored and idealised name up on vibrations of light to the throne of the Most High, and "My love!" were the last words she murmured as she nestled into her little bed, her fair head on its white pillow looking like the head of one of Botticelli's angels.
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