This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1974.
Liechtenstein is one of the smallest European states, a principality situated between Austria and Switzerland in the Upper Rhine Valley. The nation is less than three hundred years old, but the ruling family, whose name it bears, traces its lineage back to the twelfth century. For successive generations, members of the Princely House of Liechtenstein have been devoted art collectors. With a high degree of appreciation of artistic achievement, they have pursued a centuries-long family tradition of acquiring not only great paintings and sculpture but also rare firearms, fine porcelain, and other works of art. The result of this tradition is a collection of masterpieces that in its depth and breadth reflects more than four hundred years of European history and ranks among the world's greatest private collections. This publication accompanies an exhibition at The Metropolitan Museum of Art that marked the first time the masterpieces from this private collection were put on public display. The rich and varied array of paintings, sculpture, and other works included in this exhibition not only represents the paradigm of a great European princely collection, but also has the added distinction of being the collection of the only surviving monarchy of the Holy Roman Empire. -- Metropolitan Museum of Art website.
The Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects Often called "the first art historian", Vasari invented the genre of the encyclopedia of artistic biographies with his Le Vite de' più eccellenti pittori, scultori, ed architettori (Lives of the Most Eminent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects), dedicated to Grand Duke Cosimo I de' Medici, which was first published in 1550. He was the first to use the term "Renaissance" (rinascita) in print, though an awareness of the ongoing "rebirth" in the arts had been in the air since the time of Alberti, and he was responsible for our use of the term Gothic Art, though he only used the word Goth which he associated with the "barbaric" German style. The Lives also included a novel treatise on the technical methods employed in the arts. The book was partly rewritten and enlarged in 1568, with the addition of woodcut portraits of artists (some conjectural). The work has a consistent and notorious bias in favour of Florentines, and tends to attribute to them all the developments in Renaissance art — for example, the invention of engraving. Venetian art in particular (along with arts from other parts of Europe), is systematically ignored in the first edition. Between the first and second editions, Vasari visited Venice and while the second edition gave more attention to Venetian art (finally including Titian) it did so without achieving a neutral point of view. Vasari's biographies are interspersed with amusing gossip. Many of his anecdotes have the ring of truth, while others are inventions or generic fictions, such as the tale of young Giotto painting a fly on the surface of a painting by Cimabue that the older master repeatedly tried to brush away, a genre tale that echoes anecdotes told of the Greek painter Apelles. With a few exceptions, however, Vasari's aesthetic judgement was acute and unbiased. He did not research archives for exact dates, as modern art historians do, and naturally his biographies are most dependable for the painters of his own generation and those of the immediate past. Modern criticism – with new materials opened up by research – has corrected many of his traditional dates and attributions. Vasari includes a sketch of his own biography at the end of the Lives, and adds further details about himself and his family in his lives of Lazzaro Vasari and Francesco Salviati. According to the historian Richard Goldthwaite, Vasari was one of the earliest authors to use the term "competition" (or "concorrenza" in Italian) in its economic sense. He used it repeatedly, and stressed the concept in his introduction to the life of Pietro Perugino, in explaining the reasons for Florentine artistic preeminence. In Vasari's view, Florentine artists excelled because they were hungry, and they were hungry because their fierce competition amongst themselves for commissions kept them so. Competition, he said, is "one of the nourishments that maintain them."
Giorgio Vasari's 'Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors and Architects' is a pivotal work in the history of art criticism and biography. Written in a fluid and engaging style, Vasari provides detailed accounts of the lives and works of renowned artists such as Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, and Raphael. The book not only serves as a valuable historical document, but also as a source of inspiration for aspiring artists and art enthusiasts alike. Vasari's emphasis on the personal lives and artistic achievements of these masters sheds light on the Renaissance art world and its cultural significance. His vivid descriptions and insightful commentary make this a must-read for anyone interested in art history.
The Renaissance was a fantastic period of rebirth in terms of art and culture. This book recounts the struggles and victories of the most celebrated artists who lived and worked at this time. The masterpieces of Leonardo da Vinci, Pieter Bruegel, Sandro Botticelli, and others are highlighted.
