Painting by artist Sandro Botticelli “The Annunciation of Chestello”. The size of the work is 150 x 156 cm, wood, tempera. The painting was painted for the church of Santa Maria Maddalena dei Pazzi in the monastery of Chestello. The dramatic scene of the Annunciation is represented in the space of strictly geometric lines: the patterns from the rectangles are carved out the floor, the dry geometrism is peculiar to the division of the wall.
Archangel, who had not yet stopped his impetuous flight, leaned on his knees before Maria. A rattled line, nervously vibrating along the contour of the figures, binds them together and leads the viewer’s eye. Following these kinks, bends, for looking towards each other lines, the view “reads” the story.
Participants in the action are extremely agitated, their postures are devoid of stability, as if under the influence of a mystical wind burst into space. Focus of expressiveness of the artist’s painting in the dialogue of the hands of the archangel and the Blessed Virgin Mary. He brought the divine message, she timidly withdrew, accepts her with submission.
The new mood of the artist Sandro Botticelli is manifested in the refusal to embellish the appearance of the Madonna, in the absence of jewelry, gold ornament, characteristic of the early painting of Botticelli. It seems that he listens to Savonarola’s statements about the simplicity of the garments of the saints, about the true value of the spiritual as opposed to the perishability of physical beauty.
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