A New Perspective of the Artist in Italian Renaissance Society

From the Medieval times and into the High Renaissance period, art went through a long progressive transformation. As art progressed over time, it reflected the transformation of societal and cultural values that went along with it. One of the major transformations that can be seen is the social status and perception of the Artist, going from mere craftsmen to artistic genius. Evidently, this is shown in Giorgio Vasari’s Lives of the Artists where he goes into various in-depth descriptions on the evolution and accomplishments of the Renaissance artists; telling the story of one of the greatest explosions of creativity in history. I will demonstrate the rise of a new appreciation and perception of the artist developed in the Renaissance through Vasari’s work. I will do this by evaluating his associations to artists when it comes to intellect, comparisons to God, the emphasis put on the social status that was acquired through the possession of such artwork, as well as the huge gap he places between these artists and the medieval period. One way in which Vasari reveals this newly transformed perception of the artist in society is by the way in which he uses the concepts of intellect, knowledge and genius to declare to the readers just how miraculous these Renaissance artists were. For instance, the knowledge and use of scientific methods placed art on a new foundation that was intellectual, theoretical, literary, and scientific, as opposed to earlier times when artists were considered simply skilled craftsmen; whom were “just manual labourers plying a mechanical trade”1. When Vasari describes Da Vinci as an artist that “proved himself to be a first-class geometrician in his work”2, he insinuates that an artist is on the same status level as other intellectual fields which were previously believed to be much superior to arts. Thus artists are viewed as having more than just an artistic skill; a true artist during this period needs significant intelligence in order