Art History Challenge – The Renaissance Meets People Magazine

What better way to learn art history than to have it mixed with 500 year old gossip?  Giorgio Vasari’s The Lives of the Artists is a jumble of fact and fiction.  Does this make the first art history book less valuable?  Maybe if I was writing a scholarly paper, but for me, it’s fun romp with the big shots of Renaissance art.

Vasari’s book provides a deeper understanding to Renaissance art without burying the reader in technical jargon.  I love art, I love discussing it, I love reading about it, but I roll my eyes when I see a sentence full of words that I individually understand, but together are a jumble.  The Lives of the Artists exposed the back story of artists and several of their works.  The experience of walking around the Pantheon and Duomo was richer after learning how Brunelleschi crawled all over the Pantheon measuring and calculating in order to crack the ancient secret of building a dome. 

My favorite stories are the legendary ones.  Brunelleschi comment that Donatello’s crucifix made Christ look like a peasant caused him to challenge Brunelleschi to sculpt a better one.  In secret Brunelleschi does and surprises Donatello with it.  In shock, Donatello drops the raw eggs he is carrying for their lunch and stomps away.  Now both crucifixes are placed across town in separate Florentine cathedrals.  I visited the cathedrals consecutively just to better compare crucifixes.  

Vasari explores artistic obsession in The Lives of the Artists.  Vasari’s described Uccello almost complete descent into madness trying to perfect perspective.  The story of Castagno’s plotting murder of Veneziano out of envy and ambition caused me to pay more attention to both of their works even though the story is completely false.  Since Veneziano outlived Castagno by at least four years, it would be difficult for Castagno to kill him.  Although, I wondered if Castagno was so ambitious in life that he would be happy to remembered even if for a false murder, and that Vasari correctly portrayed the essence of the artist. 

The Lives of the Artists proceeds chronologically through the Renaissance, pinpointing Cimbue and Giotto as the beginning of the period and ending with Michelangelo and Titian.  This timeline for Renassiance art still exists today.  Vasari focuses on Florentine artists and seems to favor them, describing the Venetians as lacking the same drawing ability.  His favorite is Michelangelo:  ”Oh, truly happy age of ours!  Oh, blessed artists! For you must call yourselves fortunate, since in your own lifetime you have been able to rekindle the dim lights of your eyes from a source of such clarity, and to see everything that was difficult made simple by such a marvellous and singular artist!”  The description of the painting of the Sistine Chapel is the stuff of daytime soap operas:  the tumultuous relationship between Pope Julian and Michelangelo; the portrait of a Vatican official as Minos in Hell in the “Last Judgement” because of a nasty comment he made: or, the artist’s fall from scaffolding that caused him to direct a portion of the painting of the “Last Judgment” from bed.

Little did I know that the decision to read The Lives of the Artists before I visited Italy created a quandary, which edition should I chose?  There are several, some in two volumes and others compacted into one.  Again, since I wasn’t researching a historical issue, but reading for my own viewing pleasure, I picked the single volume Oxford edition with a new translation by Julia Conaway Bondanella and Peter Bondanella.  It included chapters on all of the artists whose works I would be seeing (and some of them were edited to focus on significant works), added extensive notes for anything I wanted pursue further, and kept the text to 5oo pages.

The Lives of the Artists is a history, a collection of anecdotes and a guidebook all wrapped up together.  I highlighted the discussion of the major works of art that I would visit, then went back to Vasari’s commentary when I was in front of the art.  Looking at the art through the eyes of a contemporary, a gossipy and opinionated one, added a whole new dimension and even some giggles to my visit.  A visit to  Italy isn’t necessary to enjoy The Lives of the Artists, it’s a hoot wherever the reader is located, but a trip to Italy without The Lives of the Artists would be a shame.