He paints the story
of the goddess of pleasure in other episodes besides that of her
birth from the sea, but never without some shadow of death in the
grey flesh and wan flowers. He paints Madonnas, but they shrink
from the pressure of the divine child, and plead in unmistakable
undertones for a warmer, lower humanity. The same figure--
tradition connects it with Simonetta, the Mistress of Giuliano de'
Medici--appears again as Judith, returning home across the hill
country, when the great deed is over, and the moment of
revulsion come, when the olive branch in her hand is becoming a
burthen; as Justice, sitting on a throne, but with a fixed look of
self-hatred which makes the sword in her hand seem that of a
suicide; and again as Veritas, in the allegorical picture of
Calumnia, where one may note in passing the suggestiveness of
an accident which identifies the image of Truth with the person
of Venus. [61] We might trace the same sentiment through his
engravings; but his share in them is doubtful, and the object of
this brief study has been attained, if I have defined aright the
temper in which he worked.
But, after all, it may be asked, is a painter like Botticelli--a
secondary painter, a proper subject for general criticism? There
are a few great painters, like Michelangelo or Leonardo, whose
work has become a force in general culture, partly for this very
reason that they have absorbed into themselves all such workmen
as Sandro Botticelli; and, over and above mere technical or
antiquarian criticism, general criticism may be very well
employed in that sort of interpretation which adjusts the position
of these men to general culture, whereas smaller men can be the
proper subjects only of technical or antiquarian treatment.
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