Lives of the most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects, Vol. 06 (of 10): Fra Giocondo to Niccolo SoggiVasari, Giorgio
History
Lives of the most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects, Vol. 06 (of 10): Fra Giocondo to Niccolo Soggi
Vasari, Giorgio
Art, Italian; Artists -- Italy -- Biography
Finally, recognizing that perfection in this art consists in nothing
else but seeking in good time to become rich in invention and to study
the nude continually, and thus to render facile the difficulties of
execution, Giovanni Antonio repented that he had not spent in the study
of art the time that he had given to his pleasures, perceiving that what
can be done easily in youth cannot be done well in old age. But although
he was always conscious of his error, yet he did not recognize it fully
until, having set himself to study when already an old man, he saw a
picture in oils, fourteen braccia long and six braccia and a half high,
executed in forty-two days by Giorgio Vasari, who painted it for the
Refectory of the Monks of the Abbey of S. Fiore at Arezzo; in which work
are painted the Nuptials of Esther and King Ahasuerus, and there are in
it more than sixty figures larger than life. Going therefore at times to
see Giorgio at work, and staying to discourse with him, Giovanni Antonio
said: "Now I see that continual study and work is what lifts men out of
laborious effort, and that our art does not come down upon us like the
Holy Ghost."
Giovanni Antonio did not work much in fresco, for the reason that the
colours changed too much to please him; nevertheless, there may be seen
over the Church of Murello a Pieta with two little naked Angels by his
hand, executed passing well. Finally, after having lived like a man of
good judgment and one not unpractised in the ways of the world, he fell
sick of a most violent fever at the age of sixty, in the year 1552, and
died.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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