Giorgio Vasari (1511-1574) was a man of many talents--a sculptor, painter, architect, writer, and scholar--but he is best known for Lives of the Artists, the classic account that singlehandedly invented the genre of artistic biography and established the canon of Italian Renaissance art. Before Vasari's extraordinary book, art was considered a technical skill rather than an intellectual pursuit, and artists were mere decorators and craftsmen. It was through Vasari's visionary writings that artists like Raphael, Leonardo, and Michelangelo came to be regarded as great masters of...
Giorgio Vasari (1511-1574) was a man of many talents--a sculptor, painter, architect, writer, and scholar--but he is best known for Lives of th...
When one thinks of art crime, a Hollywood image is conjured, one of black-clad cat burglars, thieves in top hats and white gloves, and perhaps the occasional criminal collector twirling his waxed moustache as he cackles maniacally over a stolen horde in his Bavarian castle. But the truth behind art crime is far more sinister, and more intriguing. Art crime has its share of cinematic thefts and larger-than-life characters, but it is also the realm of transnational organized crime groups and terrorists, and is integrally linked to the drug and arms trades. Since the Second World War, art...
When one thinks of art crime, a Hollywood image is conjured, one of black-clad cat burglars, thieves in top hats and white gloves, and perhaps the occ...
"Readers curious about the making of Renaissance art . . . will find much to relish in these pages. . . . Lively, highly readable."- Wall Street Journal
"Readers curious about the making of Renaissance art . . . will find much to relish in these pages. . . . Lively, highly readable."- Wall Street Journ...
