Sandro Botticelli, The Mystic Nativity, 1500

Sandro Botticelli, AKA Alessandro di Mariano Filipepi, walked both the life of luxury and the life of poverty. During the rainbows and unicorn portion of his life, he was best friends with the gangster family: the Medicis. During that friendship, he was renown for his paintings like Primavera. However once the Medici family fell from grace, he did too. So poor Botticelli finds himself another leader, Girolamo Savonarola. Savonarola was a rather insane monk who preached of leaving all worldly goods and reforming the government. Of course, any mention of reforming the government at that time should have been an enormous red sign screaming for Botticelli to leave the group. And instead of listening to common sense, Botticelli became deeply immersed in all that the monk preached. And that's where his works turned religious instead of mythical. The most prominent example would be The Mystic Nativity. Just by the title, Botticelli labeled himself as a fanatic and/or devout religious man.

Not only does the subject change in this painting, but the method in which Botticelli paints also slightly differs from before. In The Mystic Nativity, Botticelli paints a story instead of one scene, and to say that he enjoys inserting symbolism is the biggest understatement of his career. Starting from the bottom left, with the road, Botticelli paints a clear separation of the human, mortal and heavenly worlds. And rather cutely, Botticelli paints blue little devil monster creatures and snakes that decorate the view until about 1/3 up from the bottom. That's where the mortal world makes connection with the heavenly one and the symbolism is apparent. There are no devils in heaven. The viewer's eyes move from left to right from the angels seemingly helping the mortals to the final center with Mary, Joseph, and Baby Jesus. The gaping cave behind the family possibly represents the cave in which Jesus would emerge from (after his death) years later. The olive trees along the pathway represent connection between the human world and the divine world.

Botticelli enjoys using symmetry, evident in this painting where the angels circle at the top are evenly matched in colors and the forms of the group of men, most likely the shepherd and the kings, also show balance. If things aren't religious enough, Botticelli hammers the final nail in his religious coffin with Greek inscription at the top. It roughly translates to "This picture, at the end of the year 1500, in troubles of Italy, I Alessandro, in the half time after the time, painted, following the eleventh of Saint John, in the second woe of the Apocalypse, during the release of the devil for three anda  half years; then he shall be bound in the twelfth we shall see as shown in this picture." Botticelli evidently did not understand the concept of a run-on sentence. But in short, he possibly meant something along the lines of waiting for the time of Christ to save them all.

And, unfortunately for him, his revered insane monk leader, Savonarola was finally accused of being insane and killed along with a majority of followers. Though Botticelli escaped execution, he could never get his career on path again and thus he died penniless. Ouch.