UTOPIA IN ART AND LITERATURE: LINKING PRIMAVERA AND ODE TO THE WEST WIND (PART 2)

                   

CENTRAL FIGURES IN PRIMAVERA

  Now for the love goddess VENUS and her son CUPID, what better way to describe a festive mood than to bring in the elements of romance (though what mamma and her kid does here, I don’t know) it would have been better if it was MARS instead of cupid or PSYCHE instead of Venus, the boyfriends could be with his girlfriend. But then, cupid is in his child form, it may suggest a maternal love. 

CUPID AND PHYSCE

                     Cupid is shown as drawing his bow,to the beauties dancing in the left side(particularly to whom,only Botticelli knows). He may be also intending to aim at mercury,if  cupid is only drawing the bow and not completed the process. The idea of Cupid targeting the pure Three Graces with his arrow takes on a particular meaning in light of conjugal love. And love creates happiness, exactly what a spring does. Since the graces are figments of purity (cupid is drawing his arrows at them, so they were devoid of passions earlier), it can be equated with the charming purity of nature.

                   Venus given the position of idealized women with a halo shaped branches behind her head also equal Mother Nature. Presence of BACCHUS and MAENADS in the poem ode to the west wind adds the element of mysticism To Shelly’s poem.

                  Now it would have been better if there were mars, the god of war in primavera. Then I could probably account for the terrifying nature of west wind as a destroyer. Well, Botticelli and Shelly lived centuries apart, even if they were contemporaries, they wouldn’t have talked over it. But presence of mars, an aggressive character would have destroyed primavera. Similarly, absence of west wind’s role as the destroyer (no, a bully would be the right word) would weaken Shelly’s ode.

 

                 Despite of these , I found primavera and the ode to the west wind closely related, with the former showing  how beautiful nature’s love could be, indirectly warning us of the grave consequences should the harmony be broken(if primavera’s harmony is broken, zephyr could rape chloris, or by being converted to flora, she could be sad that she is no longer welcomed in her homeland of nymphs. the dancing beauties could get jealous of each other, ruining the rhythm of their dance, if cupid is directing at mercury, he may fall in love with the graces or even flora, causing an upset. then, all of a sudden, primavera would become an inferno).

PB SHELLY

               The latter shows how useful nature can be to us, despite of it bullying us. It ends by promising us that if life could throw failure at us, it could of course create triumphs, like winter and spring.

                As to the creators, both Botticelli and Shelly were radical believers of positive utopian-ism. In essence, both primavera and the ode to the west wind shows us one fact, a cycle: If the balance of harmony is lost, then success would turn into failures, happiness could result in sorrows, chaos will form from order.but as both the poem and the painting promises, the reverse is also possible, provided the equilibrium is shifted in the right direction.