In the 1470s (or 1480s according to some courses) the Italian artist Sandro Botticelli painted his Primavera (below), likely as a wedding gift for the Medici family. The painting today is prominently displayed in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, Italy, alongside Botticelli’s most celebrated masterpiece, The Birth of Venus.
I saw Botticelli’s Primavera for the first time in 1973, and have made a point of seeing it on each of my subsequent trips to Florence. On one such trip in 1994 – while leading a study abroad trip for Appalachian State University – I wrote a short story on the train from Florence to Lugano, Switzerland. The story was based on a dream I had while in Florence, a dream in which I was magically pulled into Botticelli’s painting and became part of the spectacle. Upon my return to the States and while completing my Primavera, I incorporated the entire draft of the story as part of the composition. Since the completion of my work in 1994, the story has been edited and re-written several times. However, no corrections or changes were ever made on the canvas once it was written in 1994.
Primavera, Noyes Capehart, Mixed Media Collage, 1994, 45” x 52”
Primavera is currently at the Art Cellar Gallery in Banner Elk, NC. A signed and personalized copy of my literary Primavera will accompany the sale of this painting.