The Immaculate Conception GIORGIO VASARI 1541

 

Giorgio Vasari was not only a painter, but an architect, and writer. Born at Arezzo, Italy in 1511, he died in Florence, 1574. Vasari was a relative of Luca Signorelli, and Luca's words, "Study well, little kinsman", were remembered by him all his life, although spoken when he was only a child, and when his father submitted to the old painter some drawings by the little boy. He was trained at Arezzo; he was an infant prodigy, exhibiting some of his drawings to Cardinal Passerini when only twelve years old, and reciting a great part of Virgil's Æneid. At Florence, young Vasari was placed under Michelangelo. Afterwards he went to Rome with Cardinal de' Medici, worked there for some time, and then returned to Arezzo in poor health; eventually he went back to Florence in 1541. He was responsible for the greater part of the historical decoration of the Sala Regia at Rome, and commenced frescoes for the cupola of the cathedral at Florence, which he never completed. Several buildings at Pistoia were built after his designs, and his architectural work was intimately associated with the Church of Santa Maria Novella at Florence, with the Palace of the Uffizi and the celebrated corridor connecting it with the Pitti which he built across the Arno, and with some rather unsatisfactory work in the Church of Santa Croce. His pictures can best be studied at Florence, but there are fine examples also at Bologna, Lucca, Madrid, Rome, Vienna, Paris, and Dresden.

This is one of the most unusual Immaculatas: Our Lady's hair is tightly curled and gathered in a knot at the back; the serpent is wound throughout the figures, keeping them within its grasp, then rising to just below Our Lady, foretelling her eventual crushing of the "seed" of Satan.






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