Giovanni Pietro Bellori

Art historian Giovanni Pietro Bellori similarly challenged Le Brun’s elevation of classicism. In Le vite de’ pittori, scultori, et architetti moderni (1672; “The Lives of Modern Painters, Sculptors, and Architects”), he celebrates the rationality and classicism of Raphael’s art, but he also argues that the irrationality and…

…17th century, the art historian Giovanni Pietro Bellori condemned the same painters Vasari had praised because they had abandoned the study of nature and adulterated the arts with maniera.