Perhaps one of the most common psychological divisions we make these days is the distinction between “art” and “science” types. Whether it’s couched in terms of “left brain–right brain divides” or “creative vs. logical personalities”, we’re all familiar with the distinction, continually reinforced by frank admissions of successful actors and writers admitting that “they’ve always been terrible at math” with a tone coming perilously close to a badge of pride.
Typically those who roll up their sleeves to battle against such wildly false stereotypes are those determined to encourage people—particularly young people—to appreciate that, far from the emotionally cold, rote memorization-riddled domain that it’s so often portrayed as, science is actually an inspirational, incontrovertibly human enterprise requiring enormous amounts of creativity, lateral thinking and intuition.
That is all true.
But it is equally true—and much more rarely remarked upon—that many of history’s most successful artist were deeply endowed with a significant dose of what we now unhesitatingly classify as “scientific” attributes: sophisticated mathematical understanding, internal consistency and the ability to continually come up with innovative solutions to complex, multi-variable problems.
Earlier this year, we released our first Renaissance Masterpieces film, on Botticelli’s Primavera. During my research for the film I discovered that one of the things that’s particularly striking about Botticelli is how he managed to so skillfully adapt his style to best fit the particular circumstances of the situation at hand:
From a full utilization of linear perspective to its complete abandonment, brilliantly ornamented figures to those wearing the drabbest possible clothes, emotionally supercharged devotional meditations to provocative displays of deliberately nuanced classical mythological scenes.
Botticelli, in other words, like any successful Renaissance artist, was a master at problem-solving within an often highly constrained environment—precisely the sort of trait that’s nowadays considered so paradigmatically “scientific”.
So much so that many tourist guidebooks, and even some art history books, seem to forget that such constraints existed at all, subconsciously influenced as they are by our modern notions of an artist freely producing whatever happens to come into her head at any given moment.
Many’s the time, for example, that I’ve read how Botticelli “opted to use the device of continuous narration” for his three celebrated frescos in the Sistine Chapel—a simply ridiculous statement when placed in its proper context.
Because Botticelli didn’t, in fact, “opt” for that at all. All of the 14 frescos presently lining the chapel’s walls (originally 16, as it happens, along with a separate altarpiece, before Michelangelo’s Last Judgement covered the altarpiece wall 60 years later) were clearly required to be of a certain format, of which the use of continuous narration was one aspect, along with many other things, such as a ridiculously large amount of kitschy gold coloring to satisfy Sixtus IV’s decidedly unsophisticated taste.
There was, in short, a comprehensive program that was designed by the powers that be (very much including Sixtus IV himself), one which all the artists involved—Botticelli, Perugino, Ghirlandaio, Rosselli and later Signorelli, together with their many workshop assistants working by their side—needed to rigorously adhere to.
What Botticelli accomplished in those frescos, then—what went a considerable distance towards establishing him as one of Italy’s greatest artists by the time he left Rome less than a year after his arrival—was not which specific scenes of the lives of Moses and Christ he depicted on the walls (a decision over which he clearly had no control), but how, exactly he managed to portray them: with his customary flair and ingenuity.
And Botticelli is a particularly good example to use here, because unlike the likes of Leonardo da Vinci or Piero della Francesca, who were so obviously keen to investigate what we now consider “bonafide scientific subjects” like military engineering or mathematics, he was not (so far as we know, anyway).
He was just a guy trying to paint as effectively as possible in his own uniquely captivating style.
In our age so rife with false dichotomies and academic administrators incessantly braying about their bold commitment to “overcome” them through the magic of “interdisciplinarity”, it’s worth bearing in mind that virtually all successful artists five hundred years ago intuitively understood how aesthetic sensitivity must naturally be combined with a rigorous scientific discipline in order to do the greatest justice to their art.
Meanwhile, these days we have an expression for someone who manages to be genuinely interested in both science and art, a feat broadly considered vaguely superhuman: we call him “a Renaissance man”.
Back in the actual Renaissance, however, they just called him “a man”, albeit a particularly thoughtful one.
*** Click below to read The False Divide - Part 2
Howard Burton
For more details about Botticelli’s Primavera (2025), visit the film page here: https://ideasroadshow.com/primavera/.
“A lucid, thoughtful and well-reasoned study of a Renaissance masterpiece. Impressive is the combination of high-mindedness and clarity on show here.” - The Guardian
