by Jon Lackman | 24 April 2006 | Books, Renaissance
There’s no consensus yet on whether the original German version of Frank Zöllner’s Botticelli book is as dry as the English translation seems to be. In reviewer Martin Warnke’s comparison with Pater (“What is the peculiar sensation, what is the peculiar quality of pleasure, which [Botticelli's] work has the property of exciting in us, and which we cannot get elsewhere?”), Zöllner certainly comes off as rather uninspiring if solidly historical and somewhat original — in searching for context, Zöllner largely replaces the usual appeals to neo-Platonic cosmology with an analysis of the special character of daily life in the artist’s time. Eduard Beaucamp notes the attention Zöllner gives to portraiture, and like Warnke praises his refraining from iconographical acrobatics, but is most impressed with the connections made to contemporary history — for example, the desire for peaceful pictures amid the apocalyptic fears that accompanied the approach of the year 1500, the Calumny of Apelles’ defense of art practice against art theory, and the pagan-party-crashing of Savonarola. Both reviewers note that you’ll need the knees of a giant, or a massive lectern, to read the thing.
