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The Lives of the Artists
- Narrated by: Neville Jason
- Length: 7 hrs and 43 mins
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Publisher's Summary
An Italian Mannerist architect and painter, Giorgio Vasari was acquainted with many of the most famous artists of his day. He is best-known today for his biographies of artists including Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael, Michelangelo, Titian and Giotto. This recording is read with clarity and authority by Neville Jason.
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What listeners say about The Lives of the Artists
Average Customer RatingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- MistyKat
- 01-17-12
Excellent if the music was removed.
Would you listen to The Lives of the Artists again? Why?
Yes. As Vasari lived in the time of the Master artists, and gave his view of how they were perceived in his day.
Who was your favorite character and why?
Vasari himself, the way he talks about other artist; 'Leonardo da Vinci was frivolous'; could not complete anything before moving on to something else, or the artist that boiled 50 eggs at a time for eating, whilst he was making his egg mixture for tempera!
Which scene was your favorite?
I haven't finished the book yet. But there is a lot to take in, which makes you want to stop pause and talk about. I will definitely be listening to this book a few more times, start to finish, to learn a lot of past artist names, the way they perceived art and the way they were treated by their own people of their time.
If you were to make a film of this book, what would be the tag line be?
Vasari's View
Any additional comments?
The music between chapters is the real killer of the book. If the music went for 2 - 5 seconds and at a lower decibel, it may be bearable. Instead it last for up to 25 seconds by this stage I’m murderous. Only a Classis organ player would enjoy that part.
4 people found this helpful
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- Karahann Kiser
- 05-15-19
Dry presentation, limited perspective of art.
I am an art history buff and a professor of design. This book, while it discusses the lives and careers of many great artists, is incredibly dry and small-minded when it comes to addressing art. There is a turn to all of it that art being about representing nature in lieu of the broad spectrum of human expression. Clearly this was written by someone who knows about history, but does not practice art. I would not recommend this performance or this title, it was difficult to wade through the conservatism and viewpoint of art.
3 people found this helpful
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- Mel
- 07-15-16
Best version I have found!
I have tried to read this several times but the interpretations were tedious and boring. This version is more accessible and allows Vasari's charm and humor to shine. Loved it.
3 people found this helpful
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- Tony DiBiasio
- 08-20-12
A Personal History
Where does The Lives of the Artists rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?
As an educational read it ranks near the top.
What was one of the most memorable moments of The Lives of the Artists?
The very human tendencies of some of the most brilliant artists of all time. Like the fact that Donatello, I believe, eschewed money to the extent that he hung from the ceiling of his studio a basket where he placed all his commissioned earnings. The money was there for anyone working for him to take as needed, for personal or artistic needs.
What about Neville Jason’s performance did you like?
A nice voice that gives a very continental flavor to the story.
Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?
It affirmed for me the great glory of the genius of the Renaissance artists from Cimabue to Giotto, to Donatello through to DaVinci and Michelangelo.
Any additional comments?
It was a step back in time. However, comments at the end may have been helpful to identify where many of these masterpieces are today. Vasari was giving a contemporary account. Now the works of art he describes are now housed in some of the most famous museums in the world.
2 people found this helpful
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- Sam
- 11-30-17
I cannot recommend this more highly...
Giorgio Vasari describes the art, artists, and contemporary events of the Italian Renaissance as only an actual artist of the time could do. The narration is wonderful, the speaker's voice both melodious and interesting. I appreciated the music played between each chapter, as it added to the atmosphere of stories being told about artists by someone who actually knew and worked with them.
1 person found this helpful
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- Marc Degani
- 05-12-23
really surprised
i knew about the reputation of the book but thought I wouldn't be able to stay awake reading biographies of multiple artists so i thought I'd give the audiobook a shot. I'm glad i did, the narrator was excellent, he moved about the story quickly with different intonations to keep your interest.
The book itself is excellent, it's pretty amazing to hear the biographies of the most famous artists of the Renaissance told by someone who either knew them personally or indirectly. His facts are obviously embellished at times but I enjoyed that part too, I found it funny.
i discovered a lot about artists I had never heard of and others I knew about.
very highly recommended.
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- Ksel
- 11-20-16
Great performance
Performance and translation of this great work are wonderful. Highly recommended to all art lovers.
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- K dot H
- 05-21-18
Tech issues
This is an absolute must read for any art historian. I'd recommend, of course. However, the music between chapters is really, really grating. Also, on your mobile device you can't download the accompanying PDF which is annoying. This is made more annoying by the fact that the chapters aren't named, they're only numbered. So it's hard to find your bearings, and hard to work out which chapter is which if you want to dip back in and re listen to chapters about specific artists.
12 people found this helpful
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- Jeff Cotton
- 09-17-18
Excellent content, poor presentation
Leaving aside the arguements about trusting Vasari's grasp of the truth, he's unarguably an entertaining writer, which listening to these highlights brings out. The artists have been pruned drastically, as have the biographies of the famous names that have been kept - the survey of works by each artist is mostly omitted. The narration is excellent and mostly unconfusing. (But the narrator does refer to, for example, what sounds like the art of merchants, which is in fact the Arte or Guild of Merchants.)
As usual each chapter is just labelled as such, with no indication as to which artist it deals with. This makes navigating it a trial and a torment, but this is such a common, and often complained about, shortcoming of Audible that it's becoming truly tedious saying so and reading about it.
7 people found this helpful
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- NADYA D
- 08-22-21
Good book, brilliant narrator
highly recommend for those who love and appreciate italian art, nicely done, enjoyed it big time
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The Lives of the Artists
- By: Giorgio Vasari, Julia Conway Bondanella - Translated by, Peter Bondanella - Translated by
- Narrated by: James Cameron Stewart
- Length: 22 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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These biographies of the great quattrocento artists have long been considered among the most important of contemporary sources on Italian Renaissance art. Vasari, who invented the term "Renaissance", was the first to outline the influential theory of Renaissance art that traces a progression through Giotto, Brunelleschi, and finally the titanic figures of Michaelangelo, Da Vinci, and Raphael.
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Awesome
- By Daniel on 05-17-19
By: Giorgio Vasari, and others
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Michelangelo and the Pope's Ceiling
- By: Ross King
- Narrated by: Alan Sklar
- Length: 7 hrs and 25 mins
- Abridged
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In 1508, despite strong advice to the contrary, the powerful Pope Julius II commissioned Michelangelo Buonarroti to paint the ceiling of the newly restored Sistine Chapel in Rome. During the four extraordinary years that Michelangelo spent laboring over the ceiling, power politics and personal rivalries swirled around him. He battled ill health, financial and family difficulties, inadequate knowledge of the art of fresco, and the Pope's impatience - a history that is more compelling than most novels.
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History brought to life!
- By Anne on 05-17-03
By: Ross King
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Caravaggio
- A Life Sacred and Profane
- By: Andrew Graham-Dixon
- Narrated by: Edoardo Ballerini
- Length: 18 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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In the tradition of John Richardson's Picasso, a commanding new biography of the Italian master's tumultuous life and mysterious death. For four hundred years Caravaggio's (1571-1610) staggering artistic achievements have thrilled viewers, yet his volatile personal trajectory - the murder of Ranuccio Tomasini, the doubt surrounding Caravaggio's sexuality, the chain of events that began with his imprisonment on Malta and ended with his premature death - has long confounded historians.
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Interesting life
- By Jean on 08-28-13
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Leonardo and the Last Supper
- By: Ross King
- Narrated by: Mark Meadows
- Length: 11 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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Early in 1495, Leonardo da Vinci began work in Milan on what would become one of history's most influential and beloved works of art - The Last Supper. After a dozen years at the court of Lodovico Sforza, the Duke of Milan, Leonardo was at a low point personally and professionally: at 43, in an era when he had almost reached the average life expectancy, he had failed, despite a number of prestigious commissions, to complete anything that truly fulfilled his astonishing promise.
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Informative yet creative
- By Isabellabasil on 05-27-15
By: Ross King
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The Sistine Secrets
- Michelangelo's Forbidden Messages in the Heart of the Vatican
- By: Benjamin Blech, Roy Doliner
- Narrated by: James Cameron Stewart
- Length: 11 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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Five hundred years ago, Michelangelo began work on a painting that became one of the most famous pieces of art in the world - the Sistine Chapel ceiling. Every year millions of people come to see Michelangelo's Sistine ceiling, which is the largest fresco painting on earth in the holiest of Christianity's chapels; yet there is not one single Christian image in this vast, magnificent artwork.
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Well-researched!
- By Natalie K. on 08-28-17
By: Benjamin Blech, and others
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Basilica
- The Splendor and the Scandal: Building St. Peter's
- By: R.A. Scotti
- Narrated by: Josephine Bailey
- Length: 8 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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It was the splendor and the scandal of the age. In 1506, the ferociously ambitious Renaissance Pope Julius II tore down the most sacred shrine in Europe, the millennium-old St. Peter's Basilica built by the Emperor Constantine over the apostle's grave, to build a better basilica.
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Spell binding
- By Margaret on 10-17-07
By: R.A. Scotti
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Michelangelo, God's Architect
- The Story of His Final Years and Greatest Masterpiece
- By: William E. Wallace
- Narrated by: Simon Callow
- Length: 8 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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Michelangelo, God's Architect is the first book to tell the full story of Michelangelo's final two decades, when the peerless artist refashioned himself into the master architect of St. Peter’s Basilica and other major buildings. When the Pope handed Michelangelo control of the St. Peter’s project in 1546, it was a study in architectural mismanagement, plagued by flawed design and faulty engineering.
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Michelangelo, architect, urban designer, artist
- By Marco on 09-16-20
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Rembrandt Is in the Wind
- Learning to Love Art Through the Eyes of Faith
- By: Russ Ramsey, Makoto Fujimura
- Narrated by: Zach Hoffman, John Behrens
- Length: 6 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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Rembrandt Is in the Wind by Russ Ramsey is an invitation to discover some of the world's most celebrated artists and works, while presenting the gospel of Christ in a way that speaks to the struggles and longings common to the human experience.
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Creating Beauty as Our Lifework
- By Anonymous User on 07-02-22
By: Russ Ramsey, and others
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Leonardo da Vinci: A Life From Beginning to End
- By: Hourly History
- Narrated by: Nate Sjol
- Length: 1 hr and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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Creativity is in our bones. It is found in our very DNA, something not known to Leonardo da Vinci or anyone else who lived in his day and time. All he did was to uncover the hidden genius which lay within himself, and he used that inner genius to the very best of his abilities. Leonardo da Vinci is best known for some of the world's most masterful paintings, but he was so much more than merely another artist with paints and brushes. Born to a peasant woman in 1452, Leonardo would go on to astound the world he lived in with his artistry and his inventions.
By: Hourly History
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Sailing the Wine-Dark Sea
- Why the Greeks Matter
- By: Thomas Cahill
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 7 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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Best selling history writer Thomas Cahill continues his series on the roots of Western civilization with this volume about the contributions of ancient Greece to the development of contemporary culture. Tracing the origin of Greek culture in the migrations of armed Indo-European horsemen into Attica and the Peloponnesian peninsula, he follows their progress into the creation of the Greek city-states, the refinement of their machinery of war, and the flowering of intellectual and artistic culture.
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Super super
- By Richard on 12-28-03
By: Thomas Cahill
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The Greater Journey
- Americans in Paris
- By: David McCullough
- Narrated by: Edward Herrmann
- Length: 16 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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The Greater Journey is the enthralling, inspiring—and until now, untold—story of the adventurous American artists, writers, doctors, politicians, architects, and others of high aspiration who set off for Paris in the years between 1830 and 1900, ambitious to excel in their work.
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McCullough takes it to the next level
- By gregory m loyd on 07-12-11
By: David McCullough