Giorgio Vasari (1511–74) was an Italian painter, architect, and art historian known for his biographies of Renaissance artists and contributions to Mannerist architecture. His writings helped define the concept of the Renaissance.
Born in Arezzo, Italy, Vasari trained under Andrea del Sarto and was influenced by Michelangelo. As a court artist for the Medici family, he designed the Uffizi Gallery (1560) and renovated Palazzo Vecchio in Florence.
His most famous work, Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects (1550, Lives of the Artists,) expanded in 1568, remains a foundational text in art history, documenting Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael, and Michelangelo.
Vasari’s architectural works include the Vasari Corridor (1564) and the Church of San Giovanni Battista (1567.) His frescoes in Palazzo Vecchio exemplify Mannerist style.
Patricia Lee Rubin’s Giorgio Vasari: Art and History (1991) offers a modern analysis of Vasari’s impact on Renaissance art and historiography.
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Giorgio Vasari
In our own time it has been seen… that simple children, roughly brought up in the wilderness, have begun to draw by themselves, impelled by their own natural genius, instructed solely by the example of these beautiful paintings and sculptures of Nature.
—Giorgio Vasari
Topics: Wilderness
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