Book Review - Vasari The Lives Of The Artists – Introduction

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We tend to think of great art as eternal and immortal, but at the height of the Renaissance (a label he created), art-scholar Vasari lamented that many artists were already being forgotten and many great paintings, sculptures and works of architecture were already crumbling and being neglected. Vasari (1511-74), himself an artist of note, set out to record the lives of the great artists, their methods and achievements for posterity. His work provides the central key reference to many of the most important figures in the development of Western art. Vasari saw a great rift between the arts of painting and sculpture. Sculptures argue that Adam, as life-breath clay shaped by God, as a sculpture, and that stone figures have potential to endure longer than oil on canvas work. Vasari talks of the physicality of transporting and carving marble compared to a painter’s much lighter transportation and wielding of brushes, paint and easels. Sculpture, in being three dimensional, seems also more truthful than flat two dimensional paintings. To his credit, Vasari gives painters an equally measured and remarkably objective counter argument. Sculptures often plan out their creations first on paper, and painters work on a multitude of surfaces and materials, adding colour to fabrics, frescos, curtains, bannisters, stained glass, and even sculptures. Painting is also more accessible to poorer students as someone able to buy paint and brushes may not be able to afford large slabs of bronze or marble to work with. He compares the dispute between painters and sculptures to the absurdity of declaring a goldsmith more valuable than a blacksmith. While the wealthy desire gold artefacts, everyone needs swords, pans and horse-shoes. Most people have no room for life sized human statues but many have space on modest walls for paintings. He also laments the commercialism of art, criticising Pliny the Younger for his private collections severing art from public attention. Artists covered include Giotto, Donatello, Da Vinci, Botticelli, Michelangelo and himself among hundreds of others. Though he favoured Tuscan school artists over general Italian or European artists, and added a few mischievous anecdotes of his own invention, his work is mostly seen as honest and accurate. I am aiming to educate myself further in art appreciation by studying Vasari’s lives, artist by artist. Arthur Chappell Link – Vasari’s painting – Six Tuscan Poets Arthur Chappell