Uffizi Masterpieces

The masterpiece Birth of Venus was accredited by Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco’Medici who was one of his cousins of Lorenzo. The theme of this painting was likely to be proposed by Poliziano, the humanist. It portrays Venus who took birth from the sea foam, squandered by the west wind, Zephyr, Chloris and the nymph approaching one of the Horai, who gets ready to put on her a flowered mantle. This famous masterpiece of the West was painted in the year 1484, for Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco de Medici’s villa of Castello. 

This work was seen by Giorgio Vasari, in the middle of the sixteenth century accompanying the other famous masterpieces of Botticelli known as Primavera and depicting it as “showing the Birth of Venus”. The primitive concept that the two masterpieces of Botticelli were made for a similar occasion, despite their fundamental diversity in style and form is not accepted anymore. Apart from the birth, what one sees is the landing of the goddess on her homeland’s shore, on the kithara or island of Cyprus.

This theme which could be discovered in Ovid’s Metamorphoses to Homer was also commemorated by Agnolo Poliziano, a great humanist through his poetic verses. The Venus of the Uffizi resembles the type of “Venus pudica”, who covers her right breast with her right hand and her long blond hair covers her body parts. The goddess is seen standing straight on a shell while the breeze of Zephyrus, one of the Gods of the Wind takes her towards the shore holding Chloris, the nymph. The Hora of Springtime stands on the right, the one waiting to greet Venus shorewards with a pink flowers-covered cloak. 

The seascape, incredible for its imaginary quality and metaphysical tone is brightened up by a delicate and soft light. Just like the other gems of Botticelli such as the Centaur and Pallas, the Birth of Venus is portrayed on a canvas, applying the mechanism of thin tempera which is based on the application of diluted egg yolk, this technique gives the masterpiece extraordinary transparency and it instantly reminds us of fresco’s pictorial quality.

The figure takes us back to the classical sculptures and looks alike the prominent Medici Venus which exists in the Uffizi. The true meaning of the illusive vision is under investigation and debate but is connected with the Neo-Platonic philosophy, extensively cultured in the Medici Court.

Medusa painted by Caravaggio was commissioned by Cardinal del Monte and he gifted it to the Grand Duke of Tuscany, Ferdinando I de Medici. It is a portrayal of Medusa’s head painted on a wooden shield of curved and circular wooden shield. Greek mythology describes the figure of Medusa, she has the power to turn people with her glanced whoever watched her into stone.

She does not have normal hair on her head but venomous snakes. These watersnakes belong to the river Tiber and are one of the best kinds of snakes which Caravaggio could get in the adjacent areas. It seems that Perseus, the Greek demigod has killed her as blood oozes out of her head.

The masterpiece portrays the moment at which Medusa looks at the reflective shield, she feels as if she got beheaded but remains conscious. The horror in her eyes shows you the realization. Since the painting is made on a shield, the idea of Caravaggio is that the masterpiece stands for the vision of the shield which is held by Perseus after killing Medusa. It is quite exciting to have a look at the application of shadow and light in this masterpiece.

The painting Doni Tondo was done by Michaelangelo, he painted it on a panel of a round shape for Agnolo Doni, a rich merchant of Florence. This masterpiece is anonymously accredited to Michaelangelo and is known as Doni Tondo taking its name from the buyer. In the tradition of Florence, the usage of the round shape was done for celebrating a child’s birth. Currently, the work is conserved in the Uffizi Gallery. The Doni Tondo was created post David’s sculpture and this is reflected in the shades that shape Michaelangelo’s experience as a sculptor.