Giorgio Vasari and the Woman Artist

Paper Summary:

This paper explains that Giorgio Vasari's attitude about artistic genius had a permanent impact on our modern view and criticism within the history of art. The author points out that Vasari's idea that unique genius is a part of an unbroken line of tradition, producing works of greatness and significance by male artists rather than women with their limited opportunities at the time of the Renaissance, still haunts women in the arts today. The paper concludes that, until artistic genius is deemed to be innate rather than the constructed concept of Vasari, the denigrated reputation of female artistic contemporaries will never die.

From the Paper:

"During the period, women's main purpose in life was still viewed in the service of male institutional development. Women's education might be a delightful and entertaining addition to a marriage or to a household full of children, but it was an extraneous commodity, rather than a fundamental necessity. Furthermore, enduring the rigors of marriage and childbirth alone often forced women to abandon their education entirely, and a female humanistic tradition could not be "built up" as it was for men after the period in human history ended. Thus, although there may have been a stylistic Renaissance in the education of middle-class girls, and an individual Renaissance of education of sorts for some individual, women, the contribution of artists such as de? Rossi was not seen as significant as those of her contemporaries were."

More papers on Giorgio Vasari and the Woman Artist:

• Comparison Essay # 50865 : "Kafka's "The Metamorphosis" and "The Hunger Artist"
• Analytical Essay # 46190 : "The Things They Carried" and "The Woman Warrior"
• Comparison Essay # 49182 : "My Forbidden Face" and "The Woman Warrior"

APA Citation:

MLA Citation: