In his monumental systematic interpretation of mythology, the 2-volume “The Golden Bough: A Study in Comparative Religion” [1890] (retitled “The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion” in its 3-volume 2nd edition [1900] and its 12-volume 3rd edition [1906-1915]), Sir James George Frazer examined in detail the concept of the sacred king who assured fertility but at the cost of being sacrificed as an atonement. The king represented the spirit of vegetation who was regarded as a "dying and reviving god" like Osiris, Adonis, Dionysus, Attis, Jesus, and many other familiar figure. In many societies he was an actual human who was chosen to rule for a time, but whose fate was to be offered back to the earth so that a new king could rule for a time in his stead. Oftentimes, he came into being in the spring, reigned during the summer, and ritually died at harvest time, only to be reborn at the winter solstice to wax and rule again. Leonard uses this concept as the central theme of his painting, but (as he often does) he associates it almost randomly with other motifs; in this case, he uses the concept of spring to recall one of Sandro Botticelli’s most familiar paintings, “Primavera,” which he pictorially echoes on the right side of the panel with his own transformation of Botticelli’s other famous painting, “Nascita di Venere” (The Birth of Venus), both of which he painted ca. 1480.
In his monumental systematic interpretation of mythology, the 2-volume “The Golden Bough: A Study in Comparative Religion” [1890] (retitled “The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion” in its 3-volume 2nd edition [1900] and its 12-volume 3rd edition [1906-1915]), Sir James George Frazer examined in detail the concept of the sacred king who assured fertility but at the cost of being sacrificed as an atonement. The king represented the spirit of vegetation who was regarded as a "dying and reviving god" like Osiris, Adonis, Dionysus, Attis, Jesus, and many other familiar figure. In many societies he was an actual human who was chosen to rule for a time, but whose fate was to be offered back to the earth so that a new king could rule for a time in his stead. Oftentimes, he came into being in the spring, reigned during the summer, and ritually died at harvest time, only to be reborn at the winter solstice to wax and rule again. Leonard uses this concept as the central theme of his painting, but (as he often does) he associates it almost randomly with other motifs; in this case, he uses the concept of spring to recall one of Sandro Botticelli’s most familiar paintings, “Primavera,” which he pictorially echoes on the right side of the panel with his own transformation of Botticelli’s other famous painting, “Nascita di Venere” (The Birth of Venus), both of which he painted ca. 1480.
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