Vasari

 

Vasari.. Italian painter, architect and writer. 

Vasari, born July 30, 1511, Arezzo [Italy]—died June 27, 1574, Florence), Italian painter, architect, and writer who is best known for his important biographies of  Italian Renaissance artists.  

When still a child, Vasari was the pupil of Guglielmo de Marcillat, but his decisive training was in Florence, where he enjoyed the friendship and patronage of the Medici family, trained within the circle of Andrea del Sarto, and became a lifelong admirer of Michelangelo. As an artist Vasari was both studious and prolific. His painting is best represented by the fresco cycles in the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence and by the so-called 100-days fresco, which depicts scenes from the life of Pope Paul III, in the Cancelleria in Rome. Vasari’s paintings, often produced with the help of a team of assistants, are in the style of the Tuscan Mannerists and have often been criticized as being facile, superficial, and lacking a sense of colour. Contemporary scholars regard Vasari more highly as an architect than as a painter. His best-known buildings are the Uffizi in Florence, begun in 1560 for Cosimo I de’ Medici, and the church, monastery, and palace created for the Cavalieri di San Stefano in Pisa. These designs show the influence of Michelangelo and are outstanding examples of the Tuscan Mannerist style of architecture.  Encyclopedia Brittanica. 

The artist at home: Casa Vasari's Hall of the Arts complete w/ various allegories & ancient tales of great painters. All by & for Giorgio Vasari, born on this day in 1511.

Vasari’s fame rests on his massive book Le Vite de’ più eccellenti architetti, pittori, et scultori italiani… (1550, 2nd ed., 1568; Lives of the Most Eminent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, 1850–52, trans. of the 2nd ed.), which was dedicated to Cosimo de’ Medici. In it Vasari offers his own critical history of Western art through several prefaces and a lengthy series of artist biographies. These discussions present three periods of artistic development: according to Vasari, the excellence of the art of classical antiquity was followed by a decline of quality during the Dark Ages, which was in turn reversed by a renaissance of the arts in Tuscany in the 14th century, initiated by Cimabue and Giotto and culminating in the works of Michelangelo. A second and much-enlarged edition of Lives, which added the biographies of a number of artists then living, as well as Vasari’s own autobiography, is now much better known than the first edition and has been widely translated.

Homage of all the peoples of the world (plus giraffe, & other beasts) to Lorenzo the Magnificent, as painted by Giorgio Vasari.

Vasari’s writing style in the Lives is anecdotal and eminently readable. When facts were scarce, however, he did not hesitate to fill in the gaps with information of questionable veracity. His bias toward Italian (and more specifically Tuscan) art is also undeniable. Despite these flaws, Vasari’s work in Lives represents the first grandiose example of modern historiography and has proven to be hugely influential. The canon of Italian Renaissance artists he established in the book endures as the standard to this day. Moreover, the trajectory of art history he presented has formed the conceptual basis for Renaissance scholarship and continues to influence popular perceptions of the history of Western painting. https://www.theartstory.org/artist/vasari-giorgio/

Six Tuscan Poets, c. 1544. From left to right: Marsilio Ficino, Cristoforo Landino, Francesco Petrarca, Giovanni Boccaccio, Dante Alighieri and Guido Cavalcanti.

Alessandro De Medici 

A section from the Salone dei Cinquecento in Florence

Ceres

Raphael, Italian Renaissance painter of serene grace and beauty

Raphael Sanzio, Italian painter and master builder (Madonna Sistina School of Athens), born in March 28 in Urbino (d. 1520) Gregorian calendar date. Urbino, Italy was a cultural center that encouraged the Arts. Raphael’s father, Giovanni Santi, was a court painter for the Duke of Urbino, Federigo da Montefeltro.

Giovanni Santi, Raphael's father; Christ supported by two angels, c.1490

His father Giovanni taught the young Raphael basic painting techniques and exposed him to the principles of humanistic philosophy at the Duke of Urbino’s court. It was clear from the beginning that Raphael possessed a prodigious talent. His father died when Raphael was 11 and even at that early age, Raphael was able to take over his father's workshop and later, became an apprentice to Perugino, one of the famous painters of the era.

In 1504 he moved to Florence and in 1508 he moved to Rome, where he soon attracted the attention of the Pope and nobility of the city. From 1508 to 1511, he created on of the most famous works of the Renaissance, "The School of Athens, " for the pope.

The School of Athens

The School of Athens (Italian: Scuola di Atene) is one of the most famous frescoes in Renaissance art. It was painted between 1509 and 1511 as a part of Raphael's commission to decorate the rooms now known as the Stanze di Raffaello, in the Apostolic Palace in the Vatican. The Stanza della Segnatura was the first of the rooms to be decorated, and "The School of Athens," representing Philosophy, was probably the second painting to be finished there, after La Disputa(Theology) on the opposite wall, and the Parnassus (Literature). The picture has long been seen as "Raphael's masterpiece and the perfect embodiment of the classical spirit of the Renaissance. (Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_School_of_Athens)

His career falls naturally into three phases and three styles, first described by Giorgio Vasari: his early years in Umbria, then a period of about four years (1504–1508) absorbing the artistic traditions of Florence, followed by his last hectic and triumphant twelve years in Rome, working for two Popes and their close associates.

Red chalk study for the Villa Farnesina Three Graces

 

Sistine Madonna (1512). One of the most famous paintings of the Madonna ever made.

 Dying young (age 37) only enhanced his reputation. Vasari claims that he died of "excessive lust" for his mistress. La Fornaria. Well, it makes a nice story but we will never know. Rome was not the most healthy city in the Renaissance and he could have died from the malarial fevers that were epidemic in the city, typhus, typhoid.. you name it, the Renaissance had it and no way to cure it

La Fornarina, Raphael's mistress

Margareti Luti, or the baker's daughter is in this portrait showing a lot of  bare skin with an oriental style hat plus jewel on her dark hair. Her breasts are bare with the left one partially covered by her hand. Her posture of partially covering the breast and the stomach mirrors that of the classical sculptures that were being discovered at the time.

Her left hand rests between her thighs, the fingers splayed out and outlined by the deep, bloody-red of her discarded gown.  On her left arm there is a narrow leather band on which is the name of the artist – RAPHAEL URBINAS.  On the third finger of her left hand she appears to be wearing a ruby wedding band.  The presence of a ring was only discovered in the early part of the twenty-first century when the painting underwent some X-Ray analysis during restoration and cleaning work and which has occasioned volumes of discussion. Whether or not the painting was of Raphael's mistress or of the mistress of his patron Agostino Chigi is also controversial.

Raphael's tomb in the Pantheon. The Madonna is by Lorenzetto.

After his death, the influence of his celebrated rival Michelangelo was more widespread until the 18th and 19th centuries, when Raphael's more serene and harmonious qualities were again regarded as the highest models.

While his reputation has risen and fallen with the tides of artistic taste, for those who like a certain type of Renaissance religious art, his work has never gone out of fashion.

Complete Works: http://www.raphaelsanzio.org
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raphael
The Met: http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/artist/raphael-raffaello-sanzio-or-santi/ 
Architecture in Renaissance Italy http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/itar/hd_itar.htm 
Leonardo da Vinci: http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/leon/hd_leon.htm 
Renaissance Drawings: http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/drwg/hd_drwg.htm

Lavinia Fontana. Born on August 24 , 1552. First professional woman artist

 

 Happy 466th birthday to Renaissance artist LaviniaFontana! 

First professional woman artist

Internationally renowned 

Portraitist to nobility

Household breadwinner

In 1577 Fontana married the minor painter Gian Paolo Zappi. He was willing to subordinate his career to her own; he also became her agent. After her marriage, Fontana sometimes signed her work with her married name. She enjoyed the patronage of the family of Pope Gregory XIII and painted the likenesses of many eminent people. In addition to her career as an artist, she was the mother of 11 children.

 Art critics surmise that Zappi also painted some of the drapery and background in Fontana's paintings.

http://ow.ly/7La350ihhPU

Bianca degli Utili Maselli surrounded by her five sons, one daughter, slightly dazed dog, & bird. Fantastic study in family resemblance & textile complementarity by Lavinia Fontana of Bologna,

Lavinia Fontana, (born 1552, Bologna [Italy]—died August 11, 1614, Rome), Italian painter of the Mannerist school and one of the most important portraitists in Bologna during the late 16th century. She was one of the first women to execute large, publicly commissioned figure paintings.

Fontana studied with her father, Prospero Fontana (c. 1512–97), a minor painter of the school of Bologna, who taught his daughter to paint in the Mannerist style. By the late 1570s she was known in Bologna for painting fine portraits, including Self-portrait at the Harpischord and the very formal Gozzadini Family (1584). The attention to detail in her portraits is reminiscent of the work of another northern Italian Renaissance painter, Sofonisba Anguissola. Fontana’s works were admired for their vibrant colour and the detail of the clothes and jewelry that her subjects wore.

Woman with very cheerful little pooch, painted by Lavinia Fontana of Bologna.

 Stay away from my sweet doggie! Threatening look from Costanza Alidosi in 1594, as recorded by Lavinia Fontana

She made great strides in the field of portraiture, which garnered her fame within and beyond Italy. In fact, Fontana is regarded as the first woman artist, working within the same sphere as her male counterparts, outside a court or convent.

At age 25, Fontana married a fellow painter from a noble family, who acted as his wife’s assistant and managed their growing household,  For 20 years beginning in the 1580s, Fontana was the portraitist of choice among Bolognese noblewomen. She also painted likenesses of important individuals connected with the University of Bologna.

Fontana’s fame spread to Rome, where she moved in 1604. There she became a portraitist at the court of Pope Paul V and was the recipient of numerous honors, including a bronze portrait medallion cast in 1611 by sculptor and architect Felice Antonio Casoni.

NMWA EXHIBITIONS

Italian Women Artists from Renaissance to Baroque, 2007

An Imperial Collection: Women Artists from the State Hermitage Museum, 2003

Lavinia Fontana of Bologna (1552-1614), 1998

Four Centuries of Women's Art: The National Museum of Women in the Arts, 1990–91

Online

"Lavinia Fontana," http://www.nmwa.org/legacy/bios/bfontana.htm (January 15, 2002).

The Lives of Renaissance Women,http://www.bctf.bc.ca/lessonaids/online/LA9245.html (January 15, 2002). □

Filippi Lippi, Early Italian Renaissance painter

Demonstrating the benefits of early childhood education: gorgeous Madonna and Child, 1484, in an elegant although 20th-century frame. Painted by Filippino Lippi

Begone! Saint Philip drives sweet little dragon out of v. well-decorated open-air temple of Hieropolis. Strozzi Chapel, Sta. Maria Novella, by Filippino Lippi

Some impressive attention to footgear

 Sly little look from this angel drummer by Filippino Lippi in Santa Maria Sopra Minerva, Rome

Filippino Lippi. Son of the painter Fra Filippo Lippi, & destined to follow in his father's artistic footsteps. Here by himself as a young man, 1485.

 Angel of the Annunciation, 1483

Filippino (' little Filippo') was probably born in Prato in 1457 following the elopement of his father Fra Filippo Lippi and Lucrezia Buti. Filippino was a leading Florentine exponent of the tradition of great fresco cycles, as well as an accomplished painter on panel. Filippino's father died in 1469 and he was soon in the workshop of Botticelli, who worked with Filippino on one Adoration of the Kings. A Milanese agent in Florence reported in about 1490, 'Filippino: a pupil of Botticelli and son of the most outstanding master of his time'.

Filippino's fame spread throughout Italy and he painted major series of frescoes in Rome as well as Florence. He was also a renowned painter of altarpieces, receiving commissions from Milan, Bologna and Genoa.

Perhaps through the historical misfortune of being eclipsed by the next generation, in particular by Raphael and Michelangelo, Filippino's contemporary success, greater than even that of his teacher Botticelli, is now forgotten. His sacra conversazione influenced High Renaissance artists and he can be seen as a link between the achievements of the 15th and 16th centuries.

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Filippino-Lippi

Michelangelo Buonarroti. One of the greatest artists of all time.

 

Michelangelo Buonarroti was born #onthisday in 1475. The painter, sculptor, architect and poet is widely considered to be one of the greatest artists of the Italian Renaissance period.

The Doni Tondo, 1504

I'm bent like a bow": Michelangelo complains about painting the Sistine Chapel ceiling, and draws his only self-portrait! 

The insanely beautiful Bruges Madonna, c. 1500

“It is a miracle that a formless block of stone could have been reduced to a perfection that nature is scarcely able to create in the flesh.” Vasari on 1498 Pieta of Michelangelo,

Michelangelo painted the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel; the work took approximately four years to complete (1508–1512)

The Libyan Sibyl (1511)

The last sculpture that Michelangelo worked on (six days before his death), the Rondanini Pietà could never be completed because Michelangelo carved it away until there was insufficient stone. The legs and a detached arm remain from a previous stage of the work. As it remains, the sculpture has an abstract quality, in keeping with 20th-century concepts of sculpture.

Michelangelo died in Rome in 1564, at the age of 88 (three weeks before his 89th birthday). His body was taken from Rome for interment at the Basilica of Santa Croce, fulfilling the maestro's last request to be buried in his beloved Florence.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michelangelo