Adoration of the Magi by Botticelli

The Adoration of the Magi by Sandro Botticelli, c. 1478-1482, is a tempera painting on wood depicting the Wise Men and onlookers around the Holy Family at the birth of Christ in a manger in Bethlehem. Set amidst Roman ruins in a cool, Italian landscape, the linear perspective lines of the architectural elements converge and lead the eye to the vanishing point in the center of the composition. Botticelli displays his mastery of the placement of figures and forms in perspectival space, a leading innovation of the early Renaissance painters. The figures’ individual features and varieties of pose, costume and color show the fusion of Christian religion with classical art, science and philosophy of antiquity that is the hallmark of High Renaissance culture. Sandro Botticelli (1445-1510) was a Florentine painter of the of the early Italian Renaissance who apprenticed under the master Filippo Lippi. With strong Gothic influences, the mature work of Botticelli reflected a study of antique classical sculpture and was noted for its linear grace and rhythm, flattened relief-like forms with strong contours, and subtle coloring. The complexity of meanings in Botticelli’s compositions, from sources drawn from classical antiquity, mythology and philosophy, enthralled scholars for centuries.