Nature Itself

Il Duomo Madeline Cox

Giorgio Vasari created the discipline of art history, as we know it today. Not only has his work dominated the visual imagination of subsequent generations but also it has added to our knowledge of the Renaissance as a whole. His division of the Renaissance artists into three phases of an evolutionary process allows for us to wrap our head around the development of art during that period. The first was a rebirth of art after the demise of classical civilization brought about due to the plundering and fall of Rome and other great empires. For not only did the barbarians lead to the fall of Rome but also the fall of the most excellent artisans there were. The only art left was architecture but it had been depleted to something that was purely functionary, not beautiful and detailed like the art of the Etruscans and ancient Greeks. The Christian religion aided this demise by demolishing churches and the ancient pagan religion. The problem was not that they were trying to spread their beliefs but that they felt that they had to annihilate ancient structures and relics in order to do so. Artists such as Cimabue and Giotto revived the classical style and furthered it by adding more sophisticated techniques and increased artistic skill. This led into the second phase in which these ideals were built upon further as rigorous rules of painting, sculpture and architecture were formed and carried out by Ghiberti, Brunelleschi, Donatello, and Masaccio. Their work led to the third phase dominated by the ‘genius’ of Michelangelo, Raphael, and Leonardo.

One of the most interesting subjects he writes about is his identification of God as the ultimate creator. For it is God that created the first image of man from our mass of earth, sculpted him from nature itself. It is God who is the Divine Architect of Time and Nature, who adds and subtracts from his materials just as artists do today. No matter how much Vasari elevates an artist, they will never be the ultimate creator, God.