Giorgio Vasari : art and history / Patricia Lee Rubin.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Rubin, Patricia Lee, 1951-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Vasari, Giorgio, 1511-1574.

Vasari, Giorgio.

Vasari, Giorgio, 1511-1574. Vite de' più eccellenti architetti, pittori et scultori italiani.

Physical Description:

viii, 448 pages : illustrations (some color), facsimiles ; 27cm

Other Title:

Art and history.

Place of Publication:

New Haven : Yale University Press, [1995]

Summary:

Vasari's Lives of the Painters, Sculptors, and Architects are and always have been central texts for the study of the Italian Renaissance. They can and should be read in many ways. Since their publication in the mid-sixteenth century, they have been a source of both information and pleasure. Their immediacy after more than four hundred years is a measure of Vasari's success. He wished the artists of his day, himself included, to be famous. He made the association of artistry and genius, of renaissance and the arts so familiar that they now seem inevitable. In this book Patricia Rubin argues that both the inevitability and the immediacy should be questioned. To read Vasari without historical perspective results in a limited and distorted view of The Lives. Rubin shows that Vasari had distinct ideas about the nature of his task as a biographer, about the importance of interpretation, judgment, and example - about the historian's art. Vasari's principles and practices as a writer are examined here, as are their sources in Vasari's experiences as an artist.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [413]-436) and index.

ISBN:

0300049099

OCLC:

29794354