Giorgio Vasari

“ As we read Vasari’s descriptions and recipes the air all about us seems full of the noise of the mason’s hammer, the splash of plaster on the wall, the tinkle of the carver’s chisel against the marble, the grating of the chaser’s rasp upon the bronze. We feel ourselves spectators of an organized activity on a vast scale, where processes are so well understood that they go on almost of themselves. ”

“ For when the intellect puts forth refined and judicious conceptions, the hand which has practised design for many years, exhibits the perfection and excellence of the arts as well as the knowledge of the artist. And seeing that there are certain sculptors who have not much practice in strokes and outlines, and consequently cannot draw on paper, these work instead in clay or wax, fashioning men, animals, and other things in relief, with beautiful proportion and balance. ”

“ Vasari indeed had a natural gift for biographical writing. He had a sense of light and shade and of contrast in colouring that animates his literary pictures, and is the secret of the fascination of his work, while it explains at the same time some of its acknowledged defects. Above all things he will have variety. If one artist have been presented to the reader of the Lives as a man of the world in constant touch with his fellows, the next artist who comes forward on the stage is a recluse. If one be open and free, another is secretive and brooding ”

“ This treatise by Theophilus is by far the most interesting and valuable of all those that have been named. No literary product of the middle ages is more precious, for it reflects a side of mediaeval life of which we should otherwise be imperfectly informed. Can it be possible, we ask ourselves, that men vowed to religion in its most ascetic form, who had turned their backs on the world’s vain shows and whose inward eye was to see only the mystic light of vision, could devote time and care to the minutiae of the craftsman’s technique? ”

“ Thus the art will always be associated with the grace of naturalness and of delicate charm of colour, and the work be brought to perfection not with the stress of cruel suffering, so that men who look at it have to endure pain on account of the suffering which they see has been borne by the artist in his work, but rather with rejoicing at his good fortune in that his hand has received from heaven the lightness of movement which shows his painting to be worked out with study and toil certainly, but not with drudgery ”

“ He would exact moreover that over all the place Art should breathe a spell to soothe the senses and to flatter pride; art sumptuous in materials, accomplished in technique, pagan in form and spirit, should people the galleries with sculptured shapes, cover walls and roof with graceful imagery, and set here and there on cabinet or console some jewel of carved ivory or gilded wood or chiselled bronze. ”

“ This manner of painting kindles the pigments and nothing else is needed save diligence and devotion, because the oil in itself softens and sweetens the colours and renders them more delicate and more easily blended than do the other mediums. While the work is wet the colours readily mix and unite one with the other; in short, by this method the artists impart wonderful grace and vivacity and vigour to their figures, so much so that these often seem to us in relief and ready to issue forth from the panel, especially when they are carried out in good drawing with invention and a beautiful style. ”

“ Of glass mosaic, while he gives very good advice about the sort of design suitable for it, he says that it must be so executed as to look like painting and not like inlaid work. Some, he says, are so clever that they make it resemble fresco. Floor mosaics in coloured marbles are to appear exactly like a flat picture; works in tarsia, or wood inlays, are dismissed because they cannot do more than counterfeit painting without equalling it; stained glass windows, on the other hand, are lauded because they can be carried to the same perfection as fine pictures on panel. ”

“ And although foreigners do not achieve that perfect design which the Italians exhibit in their productions, they have nevertheless wrought, and still continue to work, in such a manner that they bring their art to a point of refinement that makes the world wonder: as can be seen in a work, or to speak more correctly, in a miracle of wood carving by the hand of the Frenchman, Maestro Janni, who living in the city of Florence which he had chosen for his country, adopted, for his designs, in which he always delighted, the Italian style. ”

“ It is characteristically Florentine to regard painting as essentially the filling up of outlines, and to colour in staccato fashion with an assorted set of tints arranged in gradation. To the eye of the born painter outlines do not exist and nature is seen in tone and colour, while colours are like the tones of a violin infinite in gradation, not distinct like the notes of a piano. ”

“ They have certain obvious defects that are however counterbalanced by qualities of much value. Vasari’s treatment in many parts lacks system and completeness, his statement is wanting in clearness, his aesthetic comments are often banal. On the other hand there are sections or chapters of great, even enthralling, interest, as when he discourses with all a Florentine’s enthusiasm on the virile and decided handling of a master in fresco painting; or lets us follow step by step from the small sketch to the finished casting the whole process of making a great bronze statue. ”

“ But much more is the city itself enriched with magnificent buildings, decorated with rusticated masonry, as for example the Casa Medici, the façade of the Pitti Palace, the palace of the Strozzi family and innumerable others. When well designed, the more solid and simple the building, the more skill and beauty do we perceive in it, and this kind of work is necessarily more lasting and durable than all others, seeing that the pieces of stone are bigger and the assemblage much better, all the building being in bond, one stone with another. ”

“ In Painting, the lines are of service in many ways, but especially in outlining every figure, because when they are well drawn, and made correct and in proportion, the shadows and lights that are then added give the strongest relief to the lines of the figure and the result is all excellence and perfection. Hence it happens, that whoever understands and manages these lines well, will, with the help of practice and judgement, excel in each one of these arts. ”

“ Many of our artists excel in the other kinds of work, that is, in oil or in tempera, but in this do not succeed, fresco being truly the most manly, most certain, most resolute and durable of all the other methods, and as time goes on it continually acquires infinitely more beauty and harmony than do the others. Exposed to the air fresco throws off all impurities, water does not penetrate it, and it resists anything that would injure it. ”

“ And those who have this knowledge will certainly draw the outlines of the figures perfectly, and these, when drawn as they ought to be, show a pleasing grace and beautiful style.
He who studies good painting and sculpture, and at the same time sees and understands the life, must necessarily have acquired a good method in art. Hence springs the invention which groups figures in fours, sixes, tens, twenties, in such a manner as to represent battles and other great subjects of art. This invention demands an innate propriety springing out of harmony and obedience ”

“ Peter’s in compacting together the body of that edifice and in making so many sorts of various and novel ornaments, such beautiful profiles of mouldings, so many different niches and numerous other things, all invented by him and treated differently from the custom of the ancients. Therefore no one can deny that this new Composite Order, which through Michelagnolo has attained to such perfection, may be worthily compared with the others. In truth, the worth and capacity of this truly excellent sculptor, painter, and architect have worked miracles wherever he has put forth his hand. ”

“ Certain parts of the figures must be lost in the obscure tints and in the background of the group; for, if these parts were to appear too vivid and fiery, they would confound the distinction between the figures, but by remaining dark and hazy almost as background they give even greater force to the others which are in front. Nor can one believe how much grace and beauty is given to the work by varying the colours of the flesh, making the complexion of the young fresher than that of the old, giving to the middle-aged a tint between a brick-colour and a greenish yellow ”

“ Design cannot have a good origin if it have not come from continual practice in copying natural objects, and from the study of pictures by excellent masters and of ancient statues in relief, as has been said many times. But above all, the best thing is to draw men and women from the nude and thus fix in the memory by constant exercise the muscles of the torso, back, legs, arms, and knees, with the bones underneath. Then one may be sure that through much study attitudes in any position can be drawn by help of the imagination without one’s having the living forms in view. ”

“ Some are so clever in working mosaic that they make it appear as if painted in fresco. So firmly does the glass harden into the stucco, after the latter has set, that this mosaic lasts for ever—as is testified by the antique mosaics, which are in Rome, and those also which are of the older (modern) times. In both methods of working the moderns of our days have done marvellous things. ”

“ If it is not to be nude, do not let the drapery that is to cover it be so meagre as to look thin, nor clumsy like lumps of stone, but let the flow of the folds be so turned that they reveal the nude beneath—and with art and grace now show now hide it without any harshness that may detract from the figure. Let the hair and beard be worked with a certain delicacy, arranged and curled to show they have been combed, having the greatest softness and grace given to them that the chisel can convey ”

“ But I do not wish to speak further of the mode of drawing these out, because it is a wearisome theme and difficult to explain. It is enough to say that perspectives are beautiful in so far as they appear correct when looked at, and diminish as they retire from the eye, and when they are composed of a varied and beautiful scheme of buildings. The painter must take care too, to make them diminish in proportion by means of delicate gradations of colour that presuppose in the artist correct discretion and good judgement. ”

“ The Nature of Sculpture. Sculpture is an art which by removing all that is superfluous from the material under treatment reduces it to that form designed in the artist’s mind. [152]
§ 37. Qualities necessary for Work in the Round. Now seeing that all figures of whatever sort, whether carved in marble, cast in bronze, or wrought in plaster or wood, must be in salient work in the round, and seeing too that as we walk round them they are looked at from every side, it is clear that if we want to call them perfect they must have many qualities. ”