Primavera

In an orange grove charged with meaning, spring arrives from the right: the blue wind-god Zephyr seizes the nymph Chloris, who breathes out flowers and turns into Flora, goddess of spring, strewing blooms from her gown. At the center Venus presides, a blindfold Cupid aiming above her; at left the three Graces dance and Mercury lifts his staff to clear the clouds. The meaning is much debated, but it reads as a Neoplatonic procession from earthly toward divine love, painted for a young Medici. Botticelli subordinates everything to flowing line and reverie - and to a meadow holding hundreds of identifiable plants.