Interest

Thermae Romae's Mari Yamazaki Writes Book on Renaissance Art

Manga artist Mari Yamazaki is most famous for Thermae Romae, a story of a time- and place-traveling architect from Imperial Rome, but she also has a deep interest in and knowledge of the Italian Renaissance. She visited Italy by herself at age 17 and studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Florence. On December 17, Shueisha will publish a book collecting her thoughts on the Renaissance's leading artists called Yamazaki Mari no Hen'ai Renaissance Bijutsuron ("Mari Yamazaki's Theories About Her Favorite Renaissance Art").

Yamazaki's work discusses Raffaello ("too good of a person and died young"), Michelangelo ("a perfectionist with a muscle fetish") and Leonardo da Vinci ("a misanthrope of many talents"). The book's sleeve carries portraits of the three artists drawn by Yamazaki herself and describes them as "lovable eccentrics who gave birth to the Renaissance."

Yamazaki has also lectured about Renaissance artist Sandro Botticelli at the Bunkamura museum in Tokyo and drawn a manga biography of Steve Jobs. She also co-authored a book questioning the necessity of a "global education" to be published on December 7.

[Via Man-Tan Web; Image from Netallica]