Giorgio Vasari Biography

Audrey Claire Henderson Ms. McPeak Art1113 3 April 2017 Leonardo da Vinci Leonardo da Vinci was born April 15, 1452 in a little farmhouse along the rolling hills of Tuscany. Leonardo was the illegitimate child of a young peasant woman, Caterina, and a respected Florentine notary, Ser Piero. His father was also a wealthy businessman and landowner. He lived with his mother until the age of five and then moved in with his father where he welcomed as a member of the family and received elementary education. At the age of 15, Leonardo began an apprenticeship with the artist Andrea del Verrocchio in Florence where he learned a wide spread of skills dealing with technical and mechanical subjects. These included drawing, painting, and sculpting

Michelangelo Buonarroti is a very well known artist from Italy and is know all over the world. He was more than just a painter he was a poet, sculptor, and architect. Michelangelo was born on March 6, 1475 to Francesca Neri and Leonardo di Buonarrota Simoni in Caprese, Italy. His family was in the banking business, he was born to the Florentine family of burgher nobility. Early in Michelangelo's life his mother became ill and he was places with a family of stonecutters. He loved going to a local church and watching the painters paint and drawing what he saw, that's where he grew his interest in painting. Michelangelo's friend from grammar school Francesco Granacci introduced him to a painter named Domenico Ghirlandaio.

Giovanni Bellini was born in c.1430 in Venice, Italy. Giovanni, his brother Gentile, and sister Nickolosa came from a long line of Italian venetian painters. In his early days, Bellini worked with his brother Gentile in their father Jacopo’s house. There, they learned important skills and techniques from some of Jacopo's pupils. Bellini’s father helped bring the Italian Renaissance to Venice. A Paduan painter named Andrea Mantegna was one of the most important pupils because he later became Giovanni’s brother-in-law, and one of the great influences of his work. Around the 1470’s he began to use a new technique called oil painting instead of using the common style of tempera painting. He quickly mastered this and captured the human emotions

Michelangelo Merisi; also known as Caravaggio was a historical painter that can be traced back to Northern Italy. He was born on September 28th, 1571 in a town called Milan. At an early age, Michelangelo would flee with his family to Caravaggio to escape a plague that devastated their hometown. This was a major aspect in his life as he would soon be known by that name. Both his father and grandfather would pass away there just a few years later, coincidentally on the same day. It is believed that his family had close connections with the Sforzas which were a ruling class group in Italy at the time. They ended up playing a major part in the following years. Merisi was a man filled with intersecting personalities. During his early ages, he was a well trained painter.

He wasn’t the very first artist to come upon these ideals but he has given this mantle by Giorgio Vasari in his book written in 1550 titled “ The Lives of the artists”. Vasari was contemporary to many famous Renaissance artists that we know about including Michelangelo.

Giorgio Vasari is known for being the first Art Historian. He wrote the seminal work The Lives of the Artists. But why did he write it? Of course every book is written for a purpose but I don’t think Vasari was writing just to inform people of art and artists. At the beginning of the 14th Century the value of artists and their craft began to rise. They had been a member of the guild system along with other valued members of the medieval economic system certainly but suddenly wealthy people not just the clergy saw buying art and dedicating it to God as a way to pay for past sins and show their esteemed colleagues that they were actually doing something to ensure passage to heaven. This rise of humanism is continuing theme into the next two centuries when it reaches Vasari. If Art has reached its zenith in realism and can go no higher. How then can Vasari increase his worth and that of his fellow artists in the world’s estimation? Write a book detailing the lives of great artists and explain how they received their genius from God and made startling contributions to the many great religious and civic efforts of Italy and Florence in particular. This was going to help him increase his own power if he could connect his talent to the greatness of God and those who needed God’s Grace more than most; the rich and powerful.

With such extensive training, and Vasari’s urge to learn, improve and create, he started producing his own artworks. Vasari had a humble beginning and had to slowly build his reputation, so he moved around Italy to see and create new art. Yet, he soon was commissioned by many wealthy nobles such as the Medici themselves, for his artistic talent. He also collaborated with artists and architects like Michelangelo and Raphael in his later artworks. Vasari produced artworks for different people’s needs (ie. religious artworks for chapels) and some of his famous works include remarkable architectural wonders such as the Uffizi Gallery; several portraits, or rather, propaganda art for the Medici’s. This was because Vasari as an artist, was greatly

Tiziano Vecellio, also known as Titian was an Italian painter, born sometime around 1488 and died around 1576. Titian was one of the furthermost important members of the sixteenth century Venetian school. Titian’s painting career was prosperous from the start but over the years his style changed drastically and he retained a lifelong interest in color, which

Alessandro Filipepi most commonly known as Sandro Botticelli was born in Florence, Italy around 1445. Botticelli began studying under Renaissance painter Fra Filippo Lippi at the age of 16 and would go on to become one of the most acclaimed artists in Italy during his lifetime. During the Renaissance, art

Vasari, an artist, and well known writer provides the reader with a detailed view inside the lives of artists across history. His view takes the reader on a journey through the struggles of these renowned artists. Vasari describes each painting as if they are narratives ready to come off the walls. Three artists that Vasari takes a great liking to are the artists Leonardo Da Vinci, Raphael of Urbino, and Michelangelo Buonarroti. Vasari’s words for these artists come off as endearing and appreciative. To Vasari these were more than just artists, they were inventors and contributors to society as we know it.

Michelangelo Di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni was the full name of the famous artist we all call by just his first name Michelangelo. Michelangelo was born on March 6th, 1475 in Caprese, Italy and lived with his parents and four siblings. Michelangelo's mother became sick when he was an infant and he was raised by a wet nurse. In Michelangelo's teen years he would leave school early and go to the church to watch the painted while they worked; his family started to see him as a disgrace as they didn’t see art as a profession he should join(Michelangelo). As he became older he worked more and more with stone over any other type of art and made

Leonardo’s Family and kind of time line from his adoption and his younger age. “In the fifteenth century in Italy Leonardo da Vinci born on April 15, 1452. He was the son of Piero, notary from the village of Vinci, near Florence. Marriage to a woman called Albiera di Giovanni. As a child Leonardo keep in his room a collection of things that interested him: snakeskins, odd stones polished by water, birds eggs, skeletons of small animals, insects stuck on pins, tadpoles and strange plants. In 1466, at the age of fourteen, Leonardo was apprenticed to one of the most successful artists of his day, Andrea di Cione, known as Verrocchio. Verrocchio 's workshop was at the center of the intellectual currents of Florence, assuring the young Leonardo of an education in the humanities.” (Jay Williams. Pg.11-15)

Giovanni Bellini, (born c. 1430, Venice [Italy]—died 1516, Venice), Italian painter who, in his work, reflects the increasing interest of the Venetian artistic milieu in the stylistic innovations and concerns of the Renaissance (metmuseum). Bellini was one of the most influential Venetian artists. He lived and worked in Venice all his life; his career spanned 65 years. Little is known about Bellini’s family. Bellini’s father, Jacopo, a painter was a pupil of the Gentile da Fabriano, in any case, Jacopo introduced the principles of the Florentine Renaissance to Venice before either of his sons (Britannica). Jacopo strove to ensure that his sons would become distinguished painters as well and, it is said, often pitted them each other.

Born Vinci, Italy in the year of 1452, Da Vinci was born into a respected family of the community. Early on in his life, his artistic talents were evident and he was sent to Florence to be an apprentice to the respected artist Andrea del Verrocchio. Under the guidance of Verrocchio, Da Vinci acquired a variety of skills which he would later master. Da Vinci learned skills such as metalworking, sculpting and carpentry. Equipped with a wide

Leonardo da Vinci is one of the most remarkable painters, sculptors, architects and brilliant philosophers of all time. He was born on April 15, 1452 near Vinci but the biggest part of his life he spent in Florence where he began drawing and after a certain period-painting. When Leonardo was fourteen he began working with Andrea del Verrocchio, who was one of the most recognized painters of his day. Da Vinci’s work soon