Why Mona Lisa Smiles and Other Tales by Vasari Barolsky Paperback 9780271026152

Why Mona Lisa Smiles and Other Tales by VasariAuthor(s): Paul Barolsky\nFormat: Paperback\nPublisher: Pennsylvania State University Press, United States\nImprint: Pennsylvania State University Press\nISBN-13: 9780271026152, 978-0271026152\nSynopsis\nArt history as we know it would not exist without Vasari, and Barolsky shows us that something of the same claim should be made for literary history. He demonstrates the ways in which a literary approach to Vasari's book deepens our understanding of its historical, art-historical, and imaginative character. Why Mona Lisa Smiles discusses Vasari's shrewd, witty, intimate awareness of Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio and relates the Lives to the works of Castiglione, Aretino, Cellini, and Rabelais. Barolsky reveals the unexpected fantasy of Vasari, who imagined and then invented artists and works of art, totally fabricating the lives of artists about whom he knew little or nothing. Barolsky traces the myth of Pygmalion through the Lives, demo.