The Lives of the Artists (Oxford World's Classics)

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Vasari gets his dates mixed up at times, and sometimes misattributes artwork, but he has a great eye as an art critic, and certainly gets the spirit of these men right. In 155o he published his volume “The Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects,” an exhaustive (and imaginative) record of the artists of his day, and those who came before. In Rome, Vasari worked with Giacomo Barozzi da Vignola and Bartolomeo Ammannati at Pope Julius III's Villa Giulia. For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. It is a commonly held truth that this traumatic event soured Warhol, driving him toward more cynical modes of art making.

Not just a collection of biographies, Vasari is surprisingly a good storyteller as well, finding the connections and continuity between the artists and along the years and the development in the arts. Its very real value in doing so is proven by the fact that it remained in print and in demand through the nineteenth century.In Santa Croce, he produced the painting of The Adoration of the Magi commissioned by Pope Pius V in 1566 and completed in February 1567. My mind boggles at that last magnificent threesome, and how they were all together in the same place at the same time, even if they didn’t get along together all that well. The first English translation was a short plagiarised version, published in 1685 and presented as William Aglionby’s own work under the title Painting Illustrated in Three Dialogues. Vasari on technique: being the introduction to the three arts of design, architecture, sculpture, and painting, prefixed to the Lives of the most excellent painters, sculptors, and architects.

Reed Enger, "The Lives of the Artists, The first encyclopedia of artists," in Obelisk Art History, Published February 15, 2016; last modified October 31, 2022, http://www. Sent to Florence at the age of sixteen by Cardinal Silvio Passerini, he joined the circle of Andrea del Sarto and his pupils, Rosso Fiorentino and Jacopo Pontormo, where his humanist education was encouraged.

I found Vasari's narratives helped me to put two and two together in artistic developments that are scattered across several cathedrals and museums--so it's easier to see the influence between the paintings in this chapel and the painting done somewhere else later. His love of fast cars – Man Ray made several images of him with cars in the 1920s – was surpassed only by his insatiable taste for women. He is clearly intent on writing about the artists of Florence and Tuscany with the occasional foray to Mantua, Rome and Venice where it can't be avoided. Giotto’s perfect O, Brunelleschi challenging competitive architects on how to balance an egg, Raphael convincing the pope to give Michelangelo the job to paint the vault of the Sistine Chapel in hope he would fail, only to end up creating the best painting in history. The subject for the art commissions in these days was mostly biblical scenes, some mythology, portraits, and how many times is it possible to be excited to read the description of the nativity or annunciation for example?