Art & Music Appreciation: Week Fifteen (November 17, 2025 – November 21, 2025)

ART APPRECIATION

^{Madonna of the Magnificat (1481) by Sandro Botticelli}

Madonna of the Magnificat was probably Botticelli’s most famous picture of Mary. It is almost life-size and lavishly covered with gold paint making it the most expensive painting he ever did. The picture shows two angels crowning Mary as the Queen of Heaven. While being encouraged by the Christ child, Mary is dipping her pen into an inkwell and beginning to write the final words to the “Magnificat.” Both Mary and Jesus are holding a pomegranate, which symbolizes the Passion.
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Sandro Botticelli (1445-1510) was trained as a goldsmith before beginning his career in art. He studied art with Fra Filippo Lippi, a great painter of the Renaissance. Later he was under the patronage of (hired by) the well-known de Medici family. He loved to hide their likenesses in his paintings! Botticelli was invited to Rome to take part in the painting of the Sistine Chapel. His works contained a combination of mythology and religion. Two of his masterpieces are Primavera and The Birth of Venus.
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MUSIC APPRECIATION

Suite N. 1 in G Major for Solo Cello, BWV 1007: I. Prélude

This is the opening of the first of six suites written for unaccompanied cello and is so popular that it is often heard in movies and television. The prelude does not have an actual melody as was often the case in music from the Baroque period but is rather mostly made up of arpeggiated chords.
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Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) was a composer of the Baroque era, the most celebrated member of a large family of north German musicians. Although he was admired by his contemporaries primarily as an outstanding harpsichordist, organist, and expert on organ building, Bach is now generally regarded as one of the greatest composers of all time and is celebrated as the creator of the Brandenburg Concertos, The Well-Tempered Clavier, the Mass in B Minor, and numerous other masterpieces of church and instrumental music. ⁴