Lives Artists: Volume 2 Giorgio Vasari, Peter Murray, George Bull, Book Review -The audience read book, give Essentially, the author of the work of literature entitled Lives of the Artist, Volume 2, created this work in order to immortalize artists who painted approximately during the time of the Renaissance. Some of these individuals who are depicted in this book are famous and are known by posterity without this piece of literature; others, however, are decidedly less so. In the latter case Vasari's work serves to preserve some of the memorable facets of the character behind the artist. In all cases, he helps to build the legend of these devoted artists while also portraying them as regular humans. To the end that Vasari is simply issuing a collection of remembrances and overviews of a plethora of different artists, this manuscript does not explicitly have a thesis. Additionally, the author is not necessarily providing a new viewpoint since in many cases, there are not necessarily unifying themes found in his depictions of the multitude of artists discussed in this work. However, one can make an argument that there are new viewpoints in the individual descriptions of the artists separately, since many...

He has organized the work around the individual painters that whose lives he chronicles. Moreover, the entries themselves are either based on the lives of the artists, their most notable works, or both. In this respect, the author has not only taken on a subject that is interesting, but he has also structured it in a way so that the most noteworthy aspect of the artist (either themselves and the way they lived life or the works for which they are best known) is manifest. For many of the subjects, readers who are not students of art history will find out an enormous amount of information which they would have likely not known otherwise. Thus, the book provides an engaging read and a number of personal touches that help the author accomplish his objective.
Vasari is well qualified to write this book. Since he lived in the 16th century (Bull 1) and was contemporaries with many of the Renaissance artists he writes about in this work, he has an insider's point-of-view that helps to inform his entries. Furthermore,…