A Brief History of the Artist from God to Picasso

Contents

c on te nt s Preface ix Acknowledgments xvii one The Art of God from the Beginning of the World till the End of Time 1 two Homer, Hephaistos, and the Poetic Origins of Art History 9 three Ovid’s Protean Epic and Artistic Personae 35 four Dante and the Modern Cult of the Artist 45 five Vasari and the Quixotic Painter 59 six Leonardo, Vasari, and the Historical Imagination 67 seven Vasari and the Autobiography of Michelangelo 79 eight Balzac and the Fable of Failure in Modern Art 93 nine Myths and Mysteries of Modern Art 103 contents ten Toward a Mock-Heroic History of Art 121 eleven The Metamorphoses of Picasso 129 Coda 135 Bibliographical Note 139 Selected Bibliography 143 Index 145 viii ...