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The Faun in the Garden Michelangelo and the Poetic Origins of Italian
Renaissance Art
Paul Barolsky
1994
Art History, Comparative Literature
Hardcover: $48.00 SH
ISBN: 978-0-271-01303-9
"In The Faun in the Garden, Barolsky offers a new reading of Vasari,
Condivi, and Michelangelo which substantially enlarges our understanding
of Renaissance biography, autobiography, and the ideas and attitudes
about artistic creativity. Barolsky's view of Vasari as a writer of
fiction is far more sophisticated and consequential than anything
else written about this crucial figure in the history of Renaissance
art. Moreover, Barolsky has intelligently and sensitively revealed
how artistic biography and autobiography are historical-poetic-imaginative
constructs which, if read with care and learning, can reveal much
about the fundamental nature of Renaissance art. All this is done
in spare prose of considerable lucidity always free of opaque theoretical
jargon. This is a stimulating, thought-provoking book."—Bruce
Cole, Indiana University
Sequel to Barolsky's Vasari trilogy and pendant volume in particular
to Michelangelo's Nose, this book continues the author's
examination of the poetic imagination of Michelangelo's autobiography
in relation to his art and poetry. With his usual brio, Barolsky
suggests that Michelangelo's concerns with poetic origins are linked
in subtle, diverse ways to the meanings of Botticelli's Primavera, Signorelli's Pan, Piero di Cosimo's Prometheus pictures,
Raphael's Parnassus, and Titian's Fête Champêtre.
Focusing on the unexpected importance for Michelangelo of the pastoral,
Barolsky illuminates the role of Ovid both in the artist's biography
and in his theory and practice of art. Conceiving his book as a
contribution to our understanding of poetic imagination in the age
of the Renaissance, Barolsky elaborates here on his previous discussion
of Renaissance biography in the tradition of Boccaccio's fables.
Paul
Barolsky is Professor of the History of Art at the University
of Virginia. He is the author of several books, including Giotto's
Father and the Family of Vasari's "Lives" (Penn State, 1992), Why Mona Lisa Smiles and Other Tales by Vasari (Penn State,
1991), and Michelangelo's Nose (Penn State, 1990).
