The history of responses to the work of the artist Sandra Botticelli (1444-1510)
suggests that widespread appreciation by critics is a relatively recent phenomenon.
Writing in 1550, Vasari expressed an unease with Botticelli’s work, admitting that
the artist fitted awkwardly into his (Vasari’s) evolutionary scheme of the history of
5 art. Over the next two centuries, academic art historians denigrated Botticelli in
favour of his fellow Florentine, Michelangelo. Even when anti-academic art
historians of the early nineteenth century rejected many of the standards of
evaluation espoused by their predecessors, Botticelli’s work remained outside of
accepted taste, pleasing neither amateur observers nor connoisseurs. (Many of his
10 best paintings, however, remained hidden away in obscure churches and private
homes.)
The primary reason for Botticelli’s unpopularity is not difficult to understand: most
observers, up until the mid-nineteenth century, did not consider him to be noteworthy
because his work, for the most part, did not seem to these observers to exhibit the
15 traditional characteristics of the fifteenth-century Florentine art. For example,
Botticelli rarely employed the technique of strict perspective and, unlike
Michelangelo, never used chiaroscuro. Another reason for Botticelli’s unpopularity
may have been that his attitude toward the style of classical art was very different
from that of his contemporaries. Although he was thoroughly exposed to classical art,
20 he showed little interest in borrowing from the classical style. Indeed, it is
paradoxical that a painter of large-scale classical subjects adopted a style that was
only slightly similar to that of classical art.
In any case, when viewers began to examine more closely the relationship of
Botticelli’s work to the tradition of fifteenth-century Florentine art, his reputation
25 began to grow. Analyses and assessments of Botticelli made between 1850 and 1870
by the artists of the Pre-Raphaelite movement, as well as by the writer Pater
(although he, unfortunately, based his assessment on an incorrect analysis of
Botticelli’s personality), inspired a new appreciation of Botticelli throughout the
English-speaking world. Yet Botticelli’s work, especially the Sistine frescoes, did not
30 generate worldwide attention until it was finally subjected to a comprehensive and
scrupulous analysis by Horne in 1908. Horne rightly demonstrated that the frescoes
shared important features with paintings by other fifteenth-century Florentines -
features such as skillful representation of anatomical proportions, and of the human
figure in motion. However, Horne argued that Botticelli did not treat these qualities
35 as ends in themselves - rather, that he emphasized clear depiction of a story, a unique
achievement and one that made the traditional Florentine qualities less central.
Because of Horne’s emphasis on the way a talented artist reflects a tradition but yet
moves beyond that tradition, an emphasis crucial to any study of art, the twentieth
century has come to appreciate Botticelli’s achievements.


1. Which of the following would be the most appropriate title for the passage?
(A) Botticelli’s Contribution to Florentine Art
(B) Botticelli and the Traditions of Classical Art
(C) Sandro Botticelli: From Denigration to Appreciation
(D) Botticelli and Michelangelo : A Study in Contrasts.
(E) Standards of Taste: Botticelli’s critical Reputation up to the Nineteenth Century


2. It can be inferred that the author of the passage would be likely to find most beneficial a study of an
artist that
(A) avoided placing the artist in an evolutionary scheme of the history of art
(B) analyzed the artist’s work in relation to the artist’s personality.
(C) analyzed the artist’s relationship to the style and subject matter of classical art
(D) analyzed the artist’s work in terms of both traditional characteristics and unique achievements
(E) sanctioned and extended the evaluation of the artist’s work made by the artist’s contemporaries


3. The passage suggests that Vasari would most probably have been more enthusiastic about Botticelli’s
work if that artist’s work
(A) had not revealed Botticelli’s inability to depict a story clearly
(B) had not evolved so straightforwardly from the Florentine art of the fourteenth century
(C) had not seemed to Vasari to be so similar to classical art
(D) could have been appreciated by amateur viewers as well as by connoisseurs
(E) could have been included more easily in Vasari’s discussion of art history


4. The author most likely mentions the fact that many of Botticelli’s best paintings were “hidden away
in obscure churches and private homes” (lines 10-11) in order to
(A) indicate the difficulty of trying to determine what an artist’s best work is
(B) persuade the reader that an artist’s work should be available for general public viewing
(C) prove that academic art historians had succeeded in keeping Botticelli’s work from general
public view
(D) call into question the assertion that anti-academic art historians disagreed with their
predecessors
(E) suggest a reason why, for a period of time, Botticelli’s work was not generally appreciated


5. The passage suggests that most seventeenth-and eighteenth-century academic art historians and
most early nineteenth-century anti-academic art historians would have disagreed significantly
about which of the following?
I. The artistic value of Botticelli’s work
II. The criteria by which art should be judged
III. The features that characterized fifteenth-century Florentine art
(A) I only
(B) II only
(C) III only
(D) II and III only
(E) I, II and III


6. According to the passage, which of the following is an accurate statement about Botticelli’s relation to
classical art?
(A) Botticelli more often made use of classical subject matter than classical style.
(B) Botticelli’s interest in perspective led him to study classical art.
(C) Botticelli’s style does not share any similarities with the style of classical art.
(D) Because he saw little classical art, Botticelli did not exhibit much interest in imitating such art.
(E) Although Botticelli sometimes borrowed his subject matter from classical art, he did not create
large-scale paintings of these subjects.