ARTH218

The Artist as a Genius

“In the ancient world, and in Greece especially, children of gentle birth were required to learn painting at school, as a worthy and necessary accomplishment, and it was ranked among the foremost of the liberal arts; subsequently, a public law was passed forbidding it to be taught to slaves. It was also held in great honour among the Romans, and from it the very noble family of the Fabii took its name, for the first Fabius was called Pictor. He was, indeed, an outstanding painter, and so devoted to the art that when he painted the walls of the Temple of Salus he signed his name: this was because (despite his having been born into an illustrious family, honoured by so many consular titles, triumphs and other diginities, and despite the fact that he himself was a man of letters, learned in law and numbered among the orators) Fabius believed that he could enhance his name and reputation by leaving a memorial pointing out that he had also been a painter.”

Excerpt from Baldassare Castiglione’s The Book of the Courtier, p. 96-7

Required Readings

· Brown, p. 38-63

· Rona Goffen, “Agon” in: Renaissance Rivals. Michelangelo, Leonardo, Raphael, Titian. New Haven/London: Yale University Press, 2002, p. 24-30

Important names and terms

· Plato, Euclid, Heraclitus

· Pietro Aretino

· Nicodemus

· Order of the Golden Spur

· Salone dei Cinquecento, Palazzo della Signoria, Florence

Study Images

· Leonardo da Vinci, Self-portrait, c. 1512

· Raphael, The School of Athens, 1509-1511, Stanza della Segnatura, Vatican, Rome

· Raphael, Self-Portrait, 1506

· Raphael, Artist and friend, 1518

· Michelangelo, Last Judgment, 1534-1541, Sistine Chapel, Vatican, Rome

· Michelangelo, Pietà, c. 1550

· Titian, Self-Portrait, c. 1562

· Parmigianino, Self-Portrait in a convex mirror, c. 1524

· Paolo Veronese, The Marriage at Cana, 1563

· Baccio Bandinelli, Hercules and Cacus, 1525-34

· Benvenuto Cellini, Perseus, 1545-54

Additional Images

· Leon Battista Alberti, Self-Portrait, c. 1435

· Leonardo da Vinci, Battle of Anghiari, c. 1503-5

· Michelangelo, Study for the Battle of Cascina, 1505

· Michelangelo, Medici Chapel, San Lorenzo, Florence, 1519-1534

· Titian, Danae, 1553-1554

· Baccio Bandinelli, Bust of Cosimo I

· Benvenuto Cellini, Bust of Cosimo I