"In our own time it has been seen... that simple children, roughly brought up in the wilderness, have begun to draw by themselves, impelled by their own natural genius, instructed solely by the example of these beautiful paintings and sculptures of Nature"
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Vasari can’t resist turning the origin story of art into a morality play: leave a child alone with “beautiful paintings and sculptures of Nature” and genius will bloom, uncoached, like a vine finding a trellis. It’s a seductively democratic fantasy from a man deeply invested in hierarchy. By insisting that “simple children” can begin to draw “by themselves,” he flatters the idea of innate talent while quietly reserving the right to define what counts as true “genius” in the first place.
The subtext is Renaissance ideology in miniature. Nature is cast as the first master, the ultimate academy, but also as a legitimizing backdrop for the Renaissance project of mimesis: art as faithful imitation elevated into cultural achievement. Vasari is writing at a moment when artists are fighting to be seen as thinkers, not manual laborers. Calling Nature’s forms “paintings and sculptures” doesn’t just praise the landscape; it upgrades the artist’s job description. If Nature is already doing “art,” then the human artist is not a craftsman making objects but an interpreter deciphering a higher visual language.
Context matters: Vasari’s Lives helped invent the canon and the myth of steady “progress” from rough beginnings toward Florentine refinement. The “wilderness” is doing double duty as romantic incubator and convenient straw man. Yes, talent may spark anywhere, he grants, but it only becomes history when it’s recognized, narrated, and folded into the cultural machinery Vasari represents. The quote sells spontaneity while quietly consolidating authority.
The subtext is Renaissance ideology in miniature. Nature is cast as the first master, the ultimate academy, but also as a legitimizing backdrop for the Renaissance project of mimesis: art as faithful imitation elevated into cultural achievement. Vasari is writing at a moment when artists are fighting to be seen as thinkers, not manual laborers. Calling Nature’s forms “paintings and sculptures” doesn’t just praise the landscape; it upgrades the artist’s job description. If Nature is already doing “art,” then the human artist is not a craftsman making objects but an interpreter deciphering a higher visual language.
Context matters: Vasari’s Lives helped invent the canon and the myth of steady “progress” from rough beginnings toward Florentine refinement. The “wilderness” is doing double duty as romantic incubator and convenient straw man. Yes, talent may spark anywhere, he grants, but it only becomes history when it’s recognized, narrated, and folded into the cultural machinery Vasari represents. The quote sells spontaneity while quietly consolidating authority.
Quote Details
| Topic | Art |
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