Lives of the Artists

by Giorgio Vasari

  The theories of the nature and history of art which are expressed in and through the Lives were similarly derivative. Vasari’s achievement was to fuse in a work of great literary merit all the knowledge possessed by Florentine artists about their incomparable artistic heritage and the art theories current in intellectual circles in Florence and Rome. In doing this, he also achieved an impressive success as a critic.

  He wrote, above all, for his fellow artists, and his purpose was essentially to establish and maintain artistic standards. The complete text of the Lives, indeed, includes Vasari’s ’parte teorica’ or three-part Introduction, dealing in a highly technical and practical fashion with the methods and materials of architecture, sculpture, and painting.

  I have endeavoured [he claimed in his preface to the second part of the Lives] to distinguish between the good, the better, and the best… I have tried as well as I know how to help people who cannot find out for themselves how to understand the sources and origins of various styles.…

  In his dedication of the 1550 edition of the Lives to Cosimo de’ Medici, Vasari again stressed his didactic purpose. His intention, he said, had been not to win praise for his writing but as a craftsman to praise the skill and keep alive the memory of the great artists, hoping also that

  the example of so many able men and all the various details of all kinds collected by my labours in this book will be no little help to practising artists as well as pleasing all those who follow and delight in the arts.…

  The letters of dedication to Cosimo for the 1550 and 1568 editions of the Lives echo in their obsequiousness other letters addressed by artists and writers to the Medici – notably Machiavelli’s letter to Cosimo’s father, Lorenzo, at the head of The Prince: the humble posture adopted in these dedications reflected, perhaps, standard modes of address as much as genuine servility. More interesting is the manner in which both Machiavelli and Vasari interpreted political and art history, respectively, in terms of inevitable progression and decline and yet, paradoxically, suggested that the decline could be arrested by genius, by the virtù of a political leader or artist, endowed by nature with great ability and taught to emulate the perfection reached in the past. This affirmation of virtù has been called the ‘fundamental theme of the Lives’.

  The acceptance of rise and decline in the affairs of men and the idea that a rebirth or renaissance of the fine arts had taken place in Tuscany were both common currency in the intellectual world of Vasari’s time. For the idea of a rebirth of the arts, however, Vasari gave compelling chapter and verse: the signs were first seen in such and such buildings, such and such works of sculpture; the men who some two hundred years before had first turned away from the degenerate art of the post-classical world were Cimabue and Giotto, legendary figures to some extent but artists many of whose works could still be seen and whose influence could be traced on succeeding generations. In the second period flourished the flesh-and-blood figures of Ghiberti, Brunelleschi, and Donatello; in the third, when the arts reached the ‘summit of perfection’, men who worked within living memory or were still alive, Leonardo and Raphael and Michelangelo.

  Allowing for various paradoxes or contradictions (such as the belief that the inevitable decline of the arts could be arrested by human effort), Vasari’s historical theory is reasonably coherent. But he was no philosopher. His theory of art, confused in any case, was largely expressed in the alarmingly imprecise language of neoplatonism. The best approach to it may be through a brief discussion of some of the key-words used by Vasari (and his fellow artists) in a fairly technical sense, bearing in mind that the influence of neoplatonist thought had, by the middle of the sixteenth century, imbued art jargon with a lofty and even mystical significance.1

  The reader anxious to judge for himself the content and coherence of Vasari’s theories could do worse than read the three prefaces of the Lives before embarking on the biographies. On the other hand anyone who finds the discussion tedious can go straight to the biographies whose enduring appeal, after all, lies in the colourful manner in which they portray to the life so many of the greatest artists the world has ever known.

  There are boring stretches in the Lives. When he is moralizing or philosophizing Vasari’s writing grows stilted and tortuous. He is at his best when describing a work that has fired his enthusiasm, telling a story, giving a rapid character-sketch, or recalling some significant gesture or encounter. Then his language becomes euphonious, lively and direct, conveying with graceful familiarity his mood of tenderness or humour, wonder or admiration. In such passages Vasari achieves the lucidity and grace of the finest Tuscan writers.

  As part of our heritage (like King Alfred’s cakes and Newton’s apple) the picturesque and often significant details of the Lives are familiar enough: Cimabue watching the young Giotto scratching his first drawings on a stone, Giotto drawing his O, Brunelleschi showing the Florentines how to make an egg stand on end, Donatello gaping at Brunelleschi’s Crucifix and letting the eggs drop from his apron, Leonardo freeing the birds from their cages or staring for hours on end at the Last Supper, the Jews of Rome ‘flocking like starlings’ to see the great statue of Moses, Michelangelo ‘altering’ the nose of the David to fool Soderini, in his youth storming angrily out of Rome, and in his old age, sick at heart and near to God, refusing ever to leave. In their entirety, the Lives may fairly be called a work of art. On one great canvas Vasari painted a harmonious and glowing composition which sustains with ease the task of conveying the revolutionary nature of what happened in Italian art between the fourteenth and sixteenth centuries. He lifted the story of Tuscan art -a series of explosive discoveries by men chosen by God – to the plane of the heroic, stretching back to the quasi-legendary figures of Cimabue and Giotto, and forward to the inspired Michelangelo Buonarroti, genius and saint.

  Vasari’s accuracy on this, that, or the other point is often impugned by one scholar only to be vindicated by another (as, for example, in the dispute over whether Lorenzo de’ Medici did in fact establish an Academy for young artists); but he was certainly careless (even scornful) of dates, many of his attributions are faulty, and his descriptions of particular works are often muddled and wrong in detail. None the less, for the art historian the Lives remain today a source of the highest importance, transcending all others for many subjects which may be as broad as the development of Italian sculpture in the sixteenth century or as contained as Michelangelo’s plan for the dome of St Peter’s. The Lives are important, furthermore, not only as literature and source material. Vasari was, to be sure, starkly out of sympathy with Gothic and Byzantine art. His total lack of interest in the relationship between art and political and social development now appears as a grave omission. However, his critical approach still contains much that is intellectually valid and instructive. He perceived, for example, that a major task of the art historian is to distinguish good work from bad; to relate a work of art both to the artist’s intentions and to the central artistic tradition of the age; to judge a work of art by the standards and knowledge available at the time of its creation as well as by the highest standards set by contemporary criticism. These precepts he applied with a large measure of success when making his own judgements. Moreover, he rightly saw (as an artist himself) that the first job of a critic is to look long and carefully at the work being criticized: an obvious duty, perhaps, but not one that art historians have consistently observed.

  By using his eyes he often succeeded in rising above his academic prejudices; not enough to see the rich influence of the Byzantine or Gothic on the art he admired, but enough, for example, to appreciate contemporary Venetian art despite its violation of the rules as he knew them. (When he looked at a picture he was prone, however, not only to describe what he saw but to use the scene as starting-point for a Novella or story in words of his own, reversing the process by which painters of the early Renaissance had turned literary fantasies into pictures. The story-teller in Vasari wins at the expense of the critic but to
the reader’s benefit, if he reads for pleasure.) Some artists he underrated (by our present-day standards) and to others (including himself) he did much more than justice. None the less his verdicts on the best, the good, and the not so good have in general stood the test of time.

  George Bull

  Sutton, 1965; Pimlico, 1996

  VASARI AND THE RENAISSANCE ARTIST

  WHEN William Aglionby rendered some of the Lives into English in the seventeenth century he wrote:

  That of all the Civilized Nations in Europe, we are the only that want Curiosity for Artists; the Dutch in the midst of their Boggs and ill Airs, have their Houses full of Pictures, from the Highest to the Lowest; the Germans are also Curious in their Collections; the French have as good as can be had for Money.…

  Reading the Lives one is constantly struck not so much by the influence of rich or religious patrons as by the part played by pictures, statues, and beautiful buildings in the everyday life of ordinary people. It is arguable whether this was characteristic of the Renaissance, or of Italy, or is simply (as Aglion by suggested) uncharacteristic of England. Michelangelo said of a statue that it was by the light of the public square that it would be judged. Vasari’s description of Michelangelo’s funeral includes an extraordinary account of popular fervour. At the time of Giotto, art was essentially popular and religious. By Vasari’s time, despite the importance of autocratic patronage, the opinion of the crowd still mattered and by then its hunger for art was also being fed by reproductions.

  Religion still provided the main theme and inspiration, but by the middle of the sixteenth century the artist had been largely freed from the restrictions of the guilds and the narrow requirements of ecclesiastical patronage. His prestige was immeasurably greater: Cellini boasted that artists were above the laws; the Pope invited Michelangelo to sit down when he came into his presence in case he did so without being asked; Raphael, who went to work attended by a proud escort of painters, was, in Vasari’s words, a ‘mortal God’. In more practical terms, the artist had become a professional man, dependent on the whims of his patron – who was now usually at or near the Court – but conscious and jealous of his transformed status. He was bourgeois rather than Bohemian. The development can be traced in the Lives themselves, throughout which Vasari was anxious to demonstrate the important part played by the artist in society, on the one hand showing an awareness that the artist’s status had in fact improved, on the other anxious to elevate even the early craftsmen to a higher rank than that of simple decorators or builders. In Vasari the ideas of genius and of the fine arts – the arts of design – assume something like their modern form. So does the idea of the cognoscenti, the discriminating, knowledgeable critics, either artists or connoisseurs.

  As they became professional, so artists acquired a more esoteric jargon, heavily influenced by fashionable philosophical theories. Art theory and practice were interpreted by new rules meant to refine but often serving to deaden creative work. The following comments on some of the key-words used by Vasari indicate the broad content of his approach to the actual process of artistic creation and the qualities looked for in a perfect work of art.

  Disegno. This can mean design, draughtsmanship, or simply drawing according to the context. Drawing, for the Florentine, was the foundation of sound art: the painter achieved perfection in his finished work by careful practice with preparatory sketches; when he applied his paint to the wall or panel he worked by filling up his outlines with tints arranged in graduation. (In the Lives, Michelangelo and Vasari are found regretting that Titian for all his ability had never learned to draw properly!) At the same time, for Vasari and his contemporaries design was the foundation of the fine arts in the philosophical sense that in the creative act the artist has (implanted in his mind by God) an Idea of the object he is reproducing. The figure he draws or carves must reflect both what he sees and the perfect form or design existing in his mind.

  Natura. It follows that although Vasari insists that true art consists in the imitation of nature – and this was itself a revolutionary discovery or rediscovery of the early fifteenth century – mere reproduction falls short of perfection. An artist may be praised for painting a figure so that it seems to breathe; figures are commended if they seem not painted but three-dimensional – in relief. But the artist must bring to his copying of natural forms a knowledge of the great works of the past as well as the Platonic Idea in his mind. Art, in fact, can and must improve on nature, although nature remains both a starting-point and a constant reference.

  Just as in the work of art, nature is enhanced by imitation and judgement, so in the life of the artist, natural or inborn talent is enhanced by constant practice and study.

  Grazia. Grace is one of the essential qualities of a perfect work of art. In Vasari’s art theory its appearance is a ‘crucial feature’ and it ‘takes on a quite new function…’ as ‘an undefinable quality dependent on judgement and therefore on the eye’.1 By contrast with the dryness of the early Renaissance painters and with the severity and sublimity of Michelangelo’s style, grace is a quality suggesting softness, facility, and appropriateness.

  Decoro. The sense of decorum is basically and simply that of appropriateness: thus, if the painter depicts a saint, his gestures, expression, and clothes should reflect the character of a holy man. Later, the meaning was extended to cover the suitability of a work of art to its surroundings and the idea of decorum was used, for example, to attack the over-exposure of Michelangelo’s nudes. Vasari was uncomfortably aware of the sterner attitude towards art prevailing in Rome in the 1560s (the Index was first published in 1559); generally, however, he uses the word decorum in its earlier sense.

  Iudizio. Decorum, like grace, depends on the painter’s judgement which is a faculty not so much of the reason as of the eye. It comes into operation after an artist has observed all the rules (of imitation, measurement, proportion) and when he is executing the final work swiftly and surely.

  Maniera may be translated as style or manner, referring either to an artist’s personal style or to the style of a school. Vasari talks of a ‘new style’ discovered by Giotto and his pupils and of a ‘renewal of style’ during the second phase of the rebirth of the arts. He also, however, referred to a ‘true’ or ‘fine’ style, namely the maniera of the ‘modern age’ which originated with Leonardo da Vinci and reached perfection with Michelangelo. (Vasari gives his own definitions of ‘rule, order, proportion, design, and style’ in his preface to the third part of the Lives.)

  TRANSLATOR’S NOTE

  MY selections are taken from the second edition of the Lives, published in 1568. The full title was: The Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, written by Giorgio Vasari, Painter and Architect of Arezzo, revised and extended by the same, with their portraits, and with the addition of the Lives of living artists and those who died between the years 1550 up to 1567. When he wrote the first edition Vasari already had the intention of adding further lives of living artists at a later period, but to a great extent the first edition reflected more accurately his brilliant historical design, ending as it did with the climax of the Life of Michelangelo, to whom everything that had gone before was leading. In the second edition there are about a hundred and sixty Lives (including several groups of artists, brief references to various Flemish artists and Vasari’s autobiography) as well as the long Introduction, three Prefaces, the dedications to Cosimo de’ Medici, and an address to fellow artists. I have translated the three Prefaces and twenty of the Lives, aiming at giving a balanced view of Vasari’s attitude towards the development of the arts, but including only those artists still regarded as great masters. As this is itself a mutilation of the Lives I have not abridged any of those translated, save the Life of Michelangelo, which is by far the longest. The edition I have mostly used is that of Carlo Ragghianti (I Classici Rizzoli) published in 1945 at Milan. Generally, I have not corrected Vasari’s inaccuracies in the text. The correct dates at t
he head of each Life may, therefore, be contradicted by what Vasari says himself. Notes have been kept to a minimum: single phrases in Vasari have prompted libraries of comment, but my translation is meant for easy reading. I have given place names and proper names in the form current in English today. The lists at the end of the translation were supplied by Dr Peter Murray.

  A selection from the Lives was first translated into English by William Aglionby in 1685. The first almost complete translation came in 1850 from Mrs Jonathan Foster, who was followed by A. B. Hinds, in 1900, and Gaston du C. de Vere, in 1912. Various selections have also been published, all or most of them based on one or other of these translations. My own version is fairly close to the Italian text, though for the sake of clarity I have paraphrased here and there, especially when translating Vasari’s philosophical reflections and his involved technical descriptions. Vasari’s grammar and punctuation were both erratic and his stock of adjectives limited; in these matters I have, of course, tried to improve in departing from the original. But Vasari, like most writers of the Italian Renaissance in my experience, goes smoothly into modern English; my version of some of the most important of the Lives may perhaps restore for a new generation of readers some of the highlights of the original picture.