A Brief History of the Artist from God to Picasso

Paul Barolsky

ago 2015 · Penn State Press

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In A Brief History of the Artist from God to Picasso, Paul Barolsky explores the ways in which fiction shapes history and history informs fiction. It is a playful book about artistic obsession, about art history as both tragedy and farce, and about the heroic and the mock-heroic. The book demonstrates that the modern idea of the artist has deep roots in the image of the epic poet, from Homer to Ovid to Dante. Barolsky’s major claim is that the history of the artist is inseparable from historical fiction about the artist and that fiction is essential to the reality of the artist’s imagination.

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Paul Barolsky is Commonwealth Professor of the History of Art at the University of Virginia. He is the author of numerous books, including the Penn State Press titles The Faun in the Garden: Michelangelo and the Poetic Origins of Italian Renaissance Art (1994), Giotto's Father and the Family of Vasari’s "Lives" (1992), and Why Mona Lisa Smiles and Other Tales by Vasari (1991).