I have said that the peculiar character of Botticelli is the result
of a blending in him of a sympathy for humanity in its uncertain
condition, its attractiveness, its investiture at rarer moments in a
character of loveliness and energy, with his consciousness of the
shadow upon it of the great things from which it shrinks, and that
this conveys into his work somewhat more than painting usually attains
of the true complexion of humanity. 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 gray 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.
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