The Renaissance period saw the status change of the artist from a manual labourer to a learned scholar. This change was closely connected with the renewed interest in art theory and an increased number of art treatises originating predominantly in Italy.
Historical Writing
The primary factor that has had a great influence on the way we perceive artists is historical writing. The most prominent writers on the subject are also considered to have laid the foundations of art history as a discipline. One of the reasons the Italian Renaissance artists hold prominent position in the history of art is because arts were most discussed and documented by art theorians in Italy.
Giorgio Vasari
Giorgio Vasari (1511-1574), Italian architect and painter, wrote his Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors and Architects (Le Vite delle piu eccellenti pittori, scultori ed architettori). This collection of biographies of Italian artists conatining woodcut portraits of the artists and dedicated to Grand Duke Cosimo I de Medici of Florence, was first published in 1550 and a new, expanded edition re-published in 1568.
The treatise is commonly referred to as Lives of the Artists and is considered the predecessor of the modern art-historical monograph. However, it has to ne noted that Vasari's account of episodes from the artists' lives is embellished, to say the least, as he presents the artists as highly gifted individuals, unequalled by ordinary men. His views are subjective and presented with clear favouritism for Italian, and Florentine art in particular. Vasari claims Renaissance and its greatest artistic achievements for Florence.
Vasari's Lives of the Artists is noteworthy as its author introduced the new concept of the artist as a highly gifted individual, an idea that has shaped the perception of artists ever since.
Lorenzi Ghiberti
Vasari's Lives were based on the art historical writing of his predecessor, Lorenzo Ghiberti (1378-1455), an Early Renaissance Italian sculptor and goldsmith. Ghiberti was a Florentine historian, writer and collector of classical Roman art.
His Commentaries ( I Commentarii) written around 1447was the primary source on Late Medieval - Early Renaissance artists for Vasari. This treatise on art history and theory from antiquity to Ghiberti's time is divided into three volumes. The first book contains a history of classical art based on Latin authors' writing on the subject. The second book deals with the description as well as technical and stylistic analysis of 13th and 14th century art and covers Ghiberti's autobiography. The third book dicusses theoretical principles of art. Ghiberti's second book is also the first surviving autobiography of an artist.
Ghiberti accorded the highest esteem to Greek art, particularly the Greek sculpture. By associating the excellence of Greek art with the theoretical learning of antiquity, he makes the connection between theory and practice in art. This changes the perception of the artist from a mere craftsman to a humanist scholar. Indeed, Ghiberti's writing demonstrates that he saw himself as an important figure of the Florentine Renaissance as an artist and a scholar.
Sources: Encyclopaedia Britannica
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