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

by Giorgio Vasari (Author), Julia Conway Bondanella (Translator), Peter Bondanella (Translator) "I know it is an opinion commonly accepted among almost all writers that sculpture, as well as painting, was first discovered in nature by the..." (more)
3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)

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Product Description

Packed with facts, attributions, and entertaining anecdotes about his contemporaries, Vasari's collection of biographical accounts also presents a highly influential theory of the development of Renaissance art. Beginning with Cimabue and Giotto, who represent the infancy of art, Vasari considers the period of youthful vigour, shaped by Donatello, Brunelleschi, Ghiberti, and Masaccio, before discussing the mature period of perfection, dominated by the titanic figures of Leonardo, Raphael, and Michelangelo. This specially commissioned translation contains thirty-six of the most important lives as well as an introduction and explanatory notes.

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Vasari 1511-74
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First Sentence
I know it is an opinion commonly accepted among almost all writers that sculpture, as well as painting, was first discovered in nature by the peoples of Egypt; and that some others attribute to the Chaldeans the first rough carvings in marble and the first figures in relief; just as still others assign to the Greeks the invention of the brush and the use of colour. Read the first page
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40 of 43 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars For A level and later on an invaluable book, 27 April 2002
By A Customer
This book will appeal to either the history of art student or someone interested in Renaissance writings. A very useful book in that it offers a chance to see what a Mannerist artist thought about his contemporaries. It provides information on the fashions of the time and even insights into the very character of the artist, including some highly amusing stories and occasionally very biased points of view! If you can put a quote in an essay or exam then you will definately stand out as a good candidate.
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4 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars Extremely Detailed, 21 May 2008
By Mrs. K. A. Wheatley "katywheatley" (Leicester, UK) - See all my reviews
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This is a long, long book with a great deal of information. Clocking in at over five hundred pages and covering about thirty artists of the Italian Renaissance, it is fairly comprehensive and detailed.

Some of Vasari's 'facts' have been discredited over the years and so the reader should not take everything here as gospel and indeed should be using this as a supplementary text with other material to get the best use out of it. Nevertheless it remains an important contemporary text and one of the first books on 'art history' ever produced.

I have to admit that I found it extremely hard going. There are great long lists of works and their subjects and the patrons of artists which it is easy to get bored or confused by but there are some interesting snippets of humour and details of the artists lives and habits which can offer real illumination to what otherwise can be fairly dry.
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18 of 62 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars The One-Eyed King May 19, 2003, 11 Jun 2003
By Captain Cook (Leeward to the Sandwich Islands) - See all my reviews
'In the land of the blind the one-eyed man is king.'

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.

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