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An Analysis Of Vasari's Lives Of The Artists

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The second claim to be tested against the lives of Raphael, Titian, and Michelangelo is that of the stylistic imitation of artists. Cole expresses that artists were encouraged to copy and learn from the work of master’s in a chosen field. To the Renaissance artist, Cole asserts, it was an important part of learning the trade. By copying and imitating great artists, Renaissance artists felt their work could be improved upon (Cole 32). Vasari’s Lives of the Artists provides records of the training of each artist in question which will help verify or disprove this claim. The training of Raphael under his first master provides great veracity to Cole’s claim. Raphael trained under Pietro Perugino (1446/52-1523) as a boy and became incredibly skilled …show more content…

One of the first events covered by Vasari in Michelangelo’s life shows Michelangelo imitating his master and immediately surpassing his skill. While observing his master painting a ceiling, a young Michelangelo began to sketch what he observed. When his master finished and came down to see what he had done Vasari reports that the master exclaimed, “This boy knows more about it than I do” (Vasari 418). What Vasari reports greatly lends support to the idea that during the time copying was seen in a much more favorable light. Vasari not only covers the event in a favorable light for Michelangelo, but also gives evidence that others during the time also shared this viewpoint. Another act of imitation by Michelangelo that Vasari recorded was during his first years as a student. According to Vasari, while observing another apprentice copying his master’s work, Michelangelo noticed errors and corrected it (Vasari 417). This event both reinforced the idea that Michelangelo acquired much of his style through imitation and the fact that this imitation was a widespread practice as seen through the other apprentice. A final note on Michelangelo’s teachings was made on his schooling with Lorenzo de’ Medici (1449-92). During his time with Lorenzo, Michelangelo studied the art of sculpture and worked to refine his skills. One of the sculptors Lorenzo had working for him was Pietro Torregiani (1472-1528) who worked in the garden where Michelangelo could observe him. Vasari writes that Michelangelo upon seeing Torregiani’s work decided to imitate it and created such a close imitation that Lorenzo was greatly impressed and focused on sculpting with him (Vasari 419). Lorenzo was not appalled at his apprentices copying of another work’s, but rather he was impressed and saw it as a sign of greatness to

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These understandable themes allow Michelangelo’s viewers to relate to the paintings at a personal level. Michelangelo and Reb Saunders can be compared to each other by how others comprehend their ideas. Reb Saunders is not understood by others because of his complex and peculiar thinking. Michelangelo, on the other hand, is easy to comprehend because of his personal style of

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The narrative of art that Lorenzo Ghiberti tells in “The Second Commentary” is how the Christian faith was victorious in the time of Emperor Constaine and Pope Sylvester (152). But the decline, began when everyone was ordered to make any statue and or picture in the color white (153). This, in Ghiberti’s opinion ended the art and teachings of sculpture and art. But, the rise of art and sculpture began when Greeks began to create paintings and sculptures over six hundred before the great era of Christianity (153). It is when Cimabue, one of the greatest painters from Florence took a young boy under his wing by the name of Gitto.

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The semesters that he spent in art school were ones of development and scrutiny. A broad spread of courses were taken in the history of Western Art. Here he gained knowledge of the works of Italy’s finest sculptors, Michelangelo and also the works of the Florentine, Leonardo Da Vinci. During the eighteen months at the school he developed his critical thinking. His study in period courses included Romanesque Art 1050 to 1200, the colorful points of the Renaissance, a look at contemporary artists of London, the Impressionists and Picasso.

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The marble masterpiece was made to portray the Virgin Mary holding dead Christ in her arms and is named Pietà. Since Michelangelo had immense knowledge of the human body, he created life-like details in the bodies of Christ and Mary. In the end, the 69-inch was an astonishing masterpiece, so remarkable that “Not since the time of the ancient Greeks had there been a sculptor with such amazing skill.” Next, in 1501, a half-done sculpture was in dire need of someone to finish it. The sculpture was a seventeens foot tall sculptor of David.

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Piero di Cosimo was a painter from Florence, Italy, who lived from 1462 until 1522. The biography begins with a brief introduction of Piero’s early life and the beginning of his artistic craft under the care of Cosimo Rosselli, then detailing various artworks that he has done in the years he was alive until his passing. This depiction of his life illustrated how Piero’s art style had progressed and evolved as time moved forward, as each of his pieces brought out a new particular style to it. Vasari mentions this intriguing fact when addressing that, “he changed his manner almost for every work that he executed.” (652).

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Similoluwa Oluwole Professor Bult ART 107 13 November, 2015 Michelangelo and his work: Creation of Adam Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni, commonly known as Michelangelo, was born on March 6, 1475 at Caprese, Tuscany now known as Italy (Roger 2). Michelangelo, like Leonardo, was a man of many talents; he was a renowned Florentine sculptor, architect, painter, and poet. He is credited as the founder of the high Renaissance style and considered the most influential of late Renaissance artists (Houston 16). His works exhibit his remarkable understanding of human anatomy and muscular structure, a skill which he used to incorporate emotion and liveliness into his works. He rarely painted landscapes; his subject matters were mostly human,

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Alberti, Visari, Raphael, and Leonardo, known list of Renaissance artist, was an advocate of Aristotle’s idea of ideal imitation and proclaimed that painting, as Lee phrases, “Rises above the mere imitation of things with direct experience to nature (Shannon 2005). The ability of poet to visualize images of nature in his/her thought and the ability of a painter to transform the images, painting it into a canvas, was most closely linked the two arts (Shannon 2005). Ludovico Dolce applies his own ideas of ideal beauty to Aristotle's idea stating that artists should use a perfect beauty as model or, if a perfect beauty cannot be found, imitate ancient classic art(Shannon 2005). Horace that relates poetry and drawing, these two can be relevant because it can be applied to paintings. He claimed through observation that a true poets knows their subject very well by observing and experiencing them.

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