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Title: The Lives of the Artists (Oxford World's Classics) by Giorgio Vasari, Julia Conaway Bondanella, Peter Bondanella, Giorgi Vasari ISBN: 0-19-283410-X Publisher: Oxford University Press Pub. Date: May, 1998 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $11.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.64 (11 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: Some hard work, ultimately worth it.
Comment: Slogging a little bit, because it's difficult to read even interesting prose descriptions of paintings and also painfully aware that I lacked a lot of the technical understanding of what he was discussing-- my history of art knowledge has huge holes in it. I turned frequently to the Internet to find the paintings Vasari was discussing and that helped a great deal.
I read the George Bull translation and it felt really clunky, although it's a plus that the footnotes are at the bottom of the pages rather than at the rear of the book. If I'm going to go on to read Volume 2 then I have to say that I'd choose another translator.
I knew in an intellectual way that a lot of the Renaissance was about reclaiming lost arts and sciences, but reading Vasari gave me a much better gut level feel about that really meant about the development of the arts. Connects real people to the history lesson, albeit in a gossipy and occasionally too-flowery way.
Rating: 3
Summary: In the Land of the Blind . . .
Comment: This is badly-written, badly-structured, gossipy, confused, misleading, and in too many places downright dishonest. Nevertheless it remians our main source of biographical information on the great artists of the Renaissance and Mannerist periods.
Most of these geniuses were considered so unimportant in their own lifetimes that the details of their lives weren't thought worthy to be recorded. It is telling therefore that it was Vasari, himself a rather vainglorious and self-important artist, who first conceived the notion of setting down the minutae of his own class. Unfortunately he was more a man of the brush than the pen and used his biographical duties to settle a few old scores and to pass on rumor and gossip.
Of course, the very ineptitude with which this work is written gives it an extra appeal in our own dumbed down age, but compared to great biographers of the past, like Plutarch, this is clearly inferior goods. Unfortunately, it's all we have to go on for most of the artists here. If it's a great work, it's a great work solely by default.
'In the land of the blind the one-eyed man is king.'
Rating: 5
Summary: Absolutely fascinating
Comment: I read this book in preparation for an upcoming trip to Florence. I am a big Michelangelo fan to begin with, and the idea of reading something written by a contemporary and aficionado of his was intriguing. I was well rewarded for my interests.
Vasari clearly idolized Michelangeo and Raphael. That is apparent, but as he did for every other artist's Life he covered, the level of personal detail and anecdotes is invaluable for someone like me looking for the story behind the artists. Artists from each phase of the Renaissance are covered with detail of both their personal and artistic lives. I can say I learned so much from each chapter that I will surely be taking this book with me for reference when I am in Florence.
One caveat, I think it would be helpful to have a book with photographs of the works Vasari discusses. Unless you are already up to speed on the major Renaissance works, it is more helpful to visualize them with the assistance of Vasari's descriptions. I found myself running to the internet often to see what he had been talking about.
Kick back and relax with this very easy to read and thoroughly enjoyable guide to some of the Renaissance's finest artists.
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Title: The House of Medici: Its Rise and Fall by Christopher Hibbert ISBN: 0688053394 Publisher: Perennial Pub. Date: 02 June, 1999 List Price(USD): $16.00 |
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Title: Painting and Experience in Fifteenth Century Italy: A Primer in the Social History of Pictorial Style by Michael Baxandall ISBN: 019282144X Publisher: Oxford University Press Pub. Date: June, 1988 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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Title: Brunelleschi's Dome: How a Renaissance Genius Reinvented Architecture by Ross King ISBN: 0142000159 Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: 30 October, 2001 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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Title: Michelangelo and the Pope's Ceiling by Ross King ISBN: 0802713955 Publisher: Walker & Co Pub. Date: January, 2003 List Price(USD): $28.00 |
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Title: The Agony and the Ecstasy: A Biographical Novel of Michelangelo by Irving Stone ISBN: 0451171357 Publisher: New American Library Pub. Date: December, 1996 List Price(USD): $8.99 |
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