Anthony Russell - MAP FORUM скачать в хорошем качестве

Anthony Russell - MAP FORUM

MAP FORUM - 30 November 2021 The Rewards of Virtù and the Religion of Art in Vasari's Lives: the Case of Fra Angelico and Fra Filippo Lippi This talk examines the problematic relationship between art, religion, and morality in Vasari’s Vite (as well as his times). The talk will focus on his biographies of two monks, Fra Angelico and Fra Filippo Lippi, who lived out their vows in stark contrast with each other. From Vasari’s perspective, Fra Angelico was clearly the better man, yet he considered Fra Filippo the better artist. Playing on the multiple meanings of virtù as both moral virtue and artistic skill, Vasari offers us a justification of Fra Filippo’s freewheeling habits in the form of an audacious a-morality tale that turns on the notion of artistic virtù, as opposed to moral virtù. The questions Vasari grapples with in these two lives are ones we are still confronting today, of course, when it comes to judging the achievements of artists such as Wagner, Ezra Pound, or Degas. Anthony Russell is an Associate Professor of English and Comparative Literature at the University of Richmond. He has published articles and chapters on Dante’s Vita Nuova, on Rabelais and Folengo, on spirits, magic, and vitality in the poetics of John Donne and Tommaso Campanella, and on the problem of authenticity in the lyric poetry of Sidney and Du Bellay. In Spring 2020 he published in I Tatti the article on which the present talk is based, ““La forza della virtù”: Vasari on Skill and Holiness in the Lives of Fra Angelico and Fra Filippo Lippi.” That article is part of a monograph he is working on entitled Performing Life: Vitality, Grace, and the Miracles of Art in Vasari’s “Lives of the Artists."