Florentine line and suspended gesture · 1481 -1495

From the 1481 fresco to the Annunciation of Cestello, Botticelli transforms the meeting between Gabriel and Mary into a silent ballet of hands, fabrics and lines.

Sandro Botticelli addresses the Annunciation several times between the 1480s and 1490s. In the 1481 fresco, the story takes place in a Florentine palace opening onto an enclosed garden. The bed, chests, carpet and curtains give the miracle the appearance of an event occurring in a contemporary interior. The Annunciation of Cestello, commissioned in 1489 for the church of the Florentine monastery of Cestello, concentrates the action more: Gabriel kneels with an almost danceable momentum while Marie steps back and extends her hands. The line connects their bodies with an almost danceable momentum while Marie steps back and extends her hands. The line connects their bodies by an invisible diagonal. Versions linked to San Barnaba or the workshop take up and modify this vocabulary of thresholds, gestures and draperies. In Botticelli, perspective establishes the place, but emotion belongs above all to the contours: the announcement seems to circulate from one hand to the other even before being understood. The selection "Annunciations of Sandro Botticelli" notably compares Annunciation - Sandro Botticelli and The Annunciation of Cestello - Sandro Botticelli. His reading favors the story.

Botticelli paints the moment when the message crosses space: the hands respond to each other, the draperies move and the silence becomes almost choreographic.