"Inside A Renaissance Studio"

Like Leonardo and Michelangelo, many of the greatest artists of the Renaissance began their careers as apprentices. Michelangelo, for instance, was apprenticed to a master sculptor. One of his first duties was to visit, study, and sketch the beautiful sculptures found in the magnificent gardens of the prominent Medici family of Florence.

We know a great deal about the lives of Renaissance artists through the writings of a sixteenth-century biographer named Giorgio Vasari. Vasari, a painter himself, admired many of the artists who lived and worked in Italy during his lifetime. Vasari's book about them, entitled Lives of the Artists, was a collection of brief biographies of many famous Renaissance painters.

Vasari's volumes not only recounted the lives of artists but also helped to change the way people viewed them. As Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael, and others became more well known, the public started to see them not just as skilled artisans. People now regarded them as brilliant and creative artists, geniuses as Vasari called them. . In fact, many came to believe that artistic creativity was divinely inspired, that it came directly from God. This shift in attitude marked the emergence of the modern conception of the artist as one touched by a special creativity, inspiration, and virtuosity-an idea that still prevails today.

Want To Know More? Take a look at these sites done by students: The Renaissance done by a student at James Madison High School, and another terrific student site, Renaissance Personalities done by the eighth grade students in Ruth Armson's Humanities class at Riverdale Secondary School, in Whitehorse, Yukon.

Check Out At Your Library: Andrew Langley's excellent, The Renaissance (Grade 5+), and Sarah Howarth's Renaissance Places and Renaissance People (grade 4+). For a fictional look at the artist's studio try Taylor Morrison's Antonio's Apprenticeship: Painting A Fresco In Renaissance Italy(grade 1+).

Something To Think About: Is apprenticeship still being practiced today in some professions? If so, what are they? Do you think you would have liked to have been an apprentice? Why or why not?

Next Week: He was known simply as "Il Divinio," the "Divine One." One of his greatest masterpieces is the magnificent Sistine Chapel ceiling. Yet Michelangelo never considered himself a painter. Find out more about this amazing artist on our next visit to the Renaissance.

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