Take that, Elvis, who’s 1959 album title, and cover, I just borrowed. Michelangelo was the “King” of a different kind of rock. Old school rock.
Marble.
So “old school,” his work is proving to be timeless. Good luck outlasting him, Mr. Presley. No, they didn’t call him “The King.” Such were his skills as a Sculptor, Painter, Architect and Poet, they called him “Il Divino” during his lifetime. “The Divine One.”
Met Curator Carmen C. Bambach deserves a medal. Nine years in the making, she now joins the ranks of The Museum’s “superstar” curators, like Andrew Bolton. After curating the Leonardo da Vinci, Master Draftsman Blockbuster, in 2003, Michelangelo: Divine Draftsman & Designer is her crowning masterpiece. In her superb catalog for this show she points out that Michelangelo, himself, was quite fond of this rendering of his profile in this Portrait Medal of Michelangelo, c.1561, one of which was given to him by its creator, Leone Leoni. Click any Photo for full size.
Since Art is my religion, “Il Divino” works in my book, too, these 542 years after his birth. For me, Michelangelo is not “Divine,” as in “more” or “other than human.” His talent is “Divine”- Merriam-Webster definition 2a “supremely good: superb.” It is in that sense I relate to him as “Il Divino.” While qualitatively comparing creative people or their work is meaningless, I will say that if there is a “greater” Artist than Michelangelo? I haven’t found him, or her. Michelangelo was Art’s first “reality” superstar. He was the first Artist to have a biography written about him during his lifetime. In fact, there were three . Such was his renown that people came from all over Europe hoping to simply see him, or in hopes of acquiring something from his hand (like a Drawing).
Met fun fact- If you look over the banner, one of the largest I’ve ever seen hung outside, into the corner alcove on the right, that’s Michelangelo’s circular portrait permanently part of the wall of The Museum. It’s a “Badge of Honor” now. Though, I don’t think he’d be thrilled at having to face his rival Raphael, left alcove, in perpetuity. By accounts Michelangelo wasn’t fond of the younger Artist because of his “borrowing” from/being influence by him, and then having to compete with him for work. But? He can smirk now. Raphael is still waiting for his Met blockbuster show.
Yet, a good deal of the “Il Divino” cult that has surrounded him ever since his passing in 1654, at 88, was his own doing in creating. The third of those biographies, A Life of Michelangelo, 1553, by Ascanio Condivi, has been seen by many/most Michelangelo scholars as being ghostwritten by Michelangelo as a means of giving the world his story the way he wants it to be seen and known. The recent birth of the printing press served to help make it “go viral.” Ok. Widely read by many more than had ever been possible. That theory also holds that it was created as a “response” to the story of his life as told in Giorgio Vasari’s 1550 edition of The Lives of the Artists. For instance, in Michelangelo’s view (per Condivi), he burst on the Art world fully formed- i.e. without having studied Art. If this had been true, it would have been highly unlikely Pope Julius II would have entrusted him with Painting the Sistine Chapel ceiling, the most important church in Christiandom, a surface that amounts to about 10,000 square feet, if he had not been trained in Painting. Vasari’ “replied” with a revised version of his Life of Michelangelo in 1568, four years after Michelangelo’s passing. The revised version includes documentary proof, that Michelangelo was, indeed, apprenticed to Domenico Ghirlandaio. Nonetheless, the legend took root, including fact and fiction, and thanks to popular novels and movies, has lived on.
I’ll be seeing this in my dreams for the rest of my life. The show’s sign in Gallery 1 covers the faux scaffolding in the large Gallery 7 behind it devoted to the Sistine Chapel ceiling.
It doesn’t end with his life. There are all sorts of myths about Michelangelo’s works as well, and this show, along with recent scholarship, is slowly bringing the truth to light, even though it takes some darkened rooms to do so. Works by Michelangelo in the Western Hemisphere are about as rare as Leonardo da Vinci’s are. His Drawings (the only works in this part of the world besides one Sculpture and one Painting- both of which are included in this show) appear every once in a while, but given they are going on 500 years old and done in the days before acid-free or archival papers, their sensitivity to light means they’ll be shown briefly and in the darkened galleries, seen throughout this show. So, I’ve waited my whole life to see more than one or two Michelangelos in one place, let alone upwards of about ONE HUNDRED FORTY (I got chills typing that) by Il Divino among 250 items the catalog lists. The closest I’ve come to this point was when I last left Manhattan overnight, exactly six years ago in early February, 2012 to see the once in a lifetime Leonardo da Vinci: Painter at the Court of Milan, on its closing day, at London’s National Gallery, then stayed 3 more days solely to see the rest of the National Gallery, including their two, strange, Michelangelo Paintings (Photos were not allowed). So, to say I’ve been eagerly anticipating Michelangelo: Divine Draftsman & Designer since The Met announced it, is as big an understatement as I’ve yet made on this site.
When I finally turned the corner to see it, I was stopped in my tracks. I’ve said before in these pages that sometimes I don’t feel like I’m alive anymore. Here was one of those moments. How else to explain THIS?-
Art Heaven? No. It’s just one part of The Met’s 2nd floor. From far right to left- 1- Rodin In The Met, 2- Michelangelo, in the darkened room, 3- David Hockney, straight ahead, 4- Joseph Cornell & Juan Gris seen in this 270 degree view. It’s so big, it’s seen better if you click to enlarge it.
Being The Met, the “once in a lifetime” (to quote their own press release) Michelangelo show, apparently, isn’t “enough.” Not only was that going on, right NEXT to it on one side, the David Hockney 80th Birthday Retrospective was going on in 8 large galleries, on the other side, “Rodin in The Met, was going on, AND down the hall, the Joseph Cornell/Juan Gris show, Birds of a Feather, had opened! Just amazing. The run of the four shows overlapped for 8 days. I don’t know what’s on view now in Heaven’s Art Museum, and I’m not in a hurry to find out, but can it be any better? I hear they don’t allow Photos, either.
Welcome to New York. At the back of the line in the gallery now occupied by the Joseph Cornell/Juan Gris show, “4”, above, on December 29th, with a long way to go to get in.
Over the holidays there was a waiting line that snaked all the way down that long hall, to the left in the panorama, around the corner and through the Modern Art galleries, including the one now occupied by the Joseph Cornell/Juan Gris show, Birds of a Feather, “4” in the panorama, above. Still, I managed 10 visits, and I was there when the show ended at 9pm on February 12th. The Met staying open that late on a Monday is unheard of in my experience. After its first month, it was continually crowded right to the end, amazing given the show’s huge size (see my floor plan further below). On February 13th, The Museum announced 702,506 other visitors attended (702,516 all told), making it the 10th most visited exhibition in Met history.
“It’s full of stars.” Stanley Kubrick was right. It really was. Before Michelangelo, the Sistine’s ceiling was a Painted blue sky with stars until a structural collapse in 1504 necessitated it be repainted after being repaired. Michelangelo’s rivals wanted the Pope to select him because they were sure he couldn’t possibly Paint as well as he could Sculpt. I would laugh out loud at them if I weren’t eternally in their debt.
Michelangelo: Divine Draftsman and Designer is a dream come true. Wandering the 20 sections in the 12 galleries, a number of them large, all of them densely lined with 250 pieces, including 133 Drawings by Michelangelo, 3 of his sculptures and one Painting, the largest Michelangelo show in this country during our lifetimes (regardless of when you were born), I was left to wonder if anything like this will ever be mounted on this side of the pond again. Only the 1980 Picasso Retrospective, which took over all of the old MoMA, is comparable among shows I’ve seen in NYC.
My Drawing of the show’s floor plan.
“It’s overwhelming…” was the comment I heard visitors say most often as they passed me. Most said it in the affirmative. Yes, there is a lot to take in. The detail in the Drawings is staggering- on a number of levels. First, Michelangelo’s technical mastery of Drawing provides an endless amount to admire and study. Second, since many of the Drawings here are details of large compositions (like the Sistine Chapel’s ceiling and The Last Judgement), the show presents a rare chance to study how these details fit into his grand vision for both of those incomparable works, as well as to appreciate how much Artistry is packed into them. (A Note- Michelangelo’s immortal Vatican Pieta, and David are omitted here. In the show’s catalog, page 69, Carmen Bambach says no Drawings for the former survive. He, possibly, worked from a model, which may, or may not, have been found. I remain to be convinced by it. Michelangelo, famously, burned many of his Drawings right before he died, as Vasari theorized, so nothing remaining by him would appear to be less than perfect.) Out of the 140 works by him on view, complete works (i.e. whole compositions) by Michelangelo are in the minority. Studies of details for huge compositions are what most of these Drawings are. They are, often, the Artist working out on paper exactly how to realize figures, body parts, faces, etc.. There are also Drawings for Architectural works, most of them details, as well. It’s hard not to come away thinking that his large Paintings for the Sistine Chapel were not conceived the way he conceived his Architectural plans. His work on Pope Julius’ Tomb, which occupied him for FORTY YEARS (Seriously!… Don’t get me started.), is something of a “bridge,” it seems to me, between these enormous Paintings and his Architectural works, since the Pope’s Tomb is equal parts Sculptured figures and Architecture. Especially in its early incarnations as a free standing monument, it combines these two of his three core Arts. Painting and Architecture are also, in a sense, combined in the Sistine Chapel, which includes Painted Architectural elements throughout the composition. But, before I get too far ahead, let’s start at the beginning…
The first gallery contains his earliest surviving work, alongside brilliant examples by his teacher, Ghirlandaio (first two works, center), and his fellow student under him, Granacci (large Painting from The Met’s collection, left).
Based on the evidence here, Michelangelo demonstrated his genius for design early on. In the first gallery, we’re treated to masterpieces of Drawing by Ghirlandaio, who Michelangelo was apprenticed to, and a brilliantly executed Painting by Francesco Granacci, Michelangelo’s fellow student under Ghirlandaio, from The Met’s collection.
Saint John the Baptist Bearing Witness, 1506-7, by the “Workshop of Francesco Granacci.” In 2010, Everett Fahy, no less than the former head of European Paintings at The Met, announced that in his opinion, this was really by Michelangelo, not Granacci. Carmen Bambach disagrees, saying that some of the figures may be based on a Michelangelo Drawing. Looking at it, the work lacks the overall compositional unity seen in, say, Michelangelo’s version of St. Anthony, below. Strangely, at least 6 of the foreground figures are not even paying attention to St. John. The top half of the figure of the Saint’s body doesn’t seem attached to the lower part. Finally, it’s so different stylistically, with none of Michelangelo’s “dash and daring,” combining to make it too hard for me to believe that Michelangelo could have Painted this a mere two years before Painting the Sistine Chapel ceiling, which he began in 1508.
Granacci is an Artist who, nonetheless, deserves closer study, because of his involvement with Michelangelo as well as to fully study and recognize his style, particularly in the Sistine ceiling. About 6 years older, he introduced Michelangelo to Ghirlandaio, and later became the foreman of the assistant Painters for the Sistine Chapel’s ceiling. But, the star of this gallery is
The Torment of Saint Anthony, 1487-88, which Met curators determined is Michelangelo’s long lost first painting, after restoring it, and presenting it as such in
its own show in 2009, which I saw. Based on a print of the same name the brilliant Martin Schongauer created between 1470-75, shown to him by Granacci, so taken with it was Michelangelo that he decided to create his own version of it- in color! Legend has it he haunted fish stands to learn how to render their skin. Beyond Painting it, in color, which adds another element of realism to it entirely, he recast the composition. Whereas Schongauer’s imagines the scene from “The Golden Legend” by Jacobus de Voragine, 1260, of Saint Anthony beset by various savage beasts, as taking place in mid-air. Michelangelo, does him one-better. He fills out the composition, adding a landscape, with rocky cliffs in the foreground, and a river complete with sailing craft behind. It’s been said that even Ghirlandaio envied it.
The Torment of Saint Anthony, 1487-88, is more than “just” astonishingly well-executed for a 13 or 14 year old. It reveals a young Artist of vision, someone able to conceive, and wonderfully execute, a complex, unified, composition. Michelangelo felt something was “lacking” in Schongauer’s original and set out to solve this “problem” for himself. My question is- The Met had the chance to buy it circa 2009. WHY didn’t they? Instead, led by their own brilliant head Conservator, Michael Gallagher, they gorgeously restored it, and it now resides in the collection of the Art Museum in Fort Worth, Texas, where it remains the only Michelangelo Painting in the country.
A shot across the bow of Art History. Two versions of the The Torment of Saint Anthony. Martin Schongauer’s print, right, which inspired Michelangelo’s astonishing first Painting, left.
Looking at it, I realized his genius for design begins here (among the works that have survived to reach us), and I now see it as nothing less than a “Rosetta Stone” of sorts for much that came after. It’s hard not to remember that both of his most famous later Paintings- the Sistine Chapel’s ceiling and The Last Judgement take place, largely, in mid-air, though both have elements that “attach” them to the Earth. On the ceiling, he does this by including faux Architectural elements he Painted between and among the scenes, and in The Last Judgement, of course, by including Earth, Purgatory and Hell. In fact, there are quite a few interesting similarities between The Last Judgement (seen here, and further below), and The Torment of Saint Anthony, including the landscape, river and sailing craft, and of course, beings suspended in mid-air. As brilliant as the execution of the Painting is, it’s the mind at work in the background creating the overall composition, from Schongauer’s original, in light of its similarities with these later works that proves for me that this IS a Michelangelo.
Michelangelo, The Torment of Saint Anthony.
And so, even in Gallery 1, we see that underlying much of what he created is his mastery of Drawing and his genius for design and compositions. This will be made clearer in every following gallery. As a result, Carmen Bambach serves to rewrite our understanding of Michelangelo as not only a genius of Sculpture, Painting and Architecture, but one of the supreme masters of composition and design.
The first gallery is completed with our first taste of masterpieces of Michelangelo’s Drawings. Drapery studies have been a staple for Art students probably since the advent of Drawing. Having recently seen, and written about a masterpiece of Drapery Drawing by Leonardo da Vinci at MoMA, it’s utterly fascinating to compare it with those of his great rival, Michelangelo. Leonardo’s though “perfect” as it is, is focused solely on the thigh, knee and calf of the subject, leaving much of the rest undone/unfinished, particularly on the fabric that lies on the floor. In this Drawing, a study after Giotto, Michelangelo gives us an almost complete figure, and another in less detail, save for his face and hands. While it is fascinating to compare these two supreme masters of Drawing, some consider this to be Michelangelo’s earliest extant drawing, which might make it unfair to compare with the more mature Leonardo piece.
Michelangelo’s earliest surviving Drawing, Studies after Two Figures in the Ascension of Saint John the Evangelist by Giotto, c.1492. Michelangelo would have been 16 or 17. Notice the standing figure clutching at his robe- something that makes the folds so difficult to draw, you rarely see a student attempt it. Interesting, also, these are two male figures which are not “sculptural.” Rare in Michelangelo’s later figures.
Few people may realize that Michelangelo started out as a Painter. It was only in 1490, when he was all of 15, that he began Sculpting. From Saint Anthony, the Young Archer greets us alongside a few possible influences and examples of other works that bear some similarity to lost early Sculptures by Michelangelo.
Young Archer, c. 1490, when Michelangelo would have been about 15, seen at The Met in 2015. Recognized as an early Michelangelo by Kathleen Weil-Garnis Brandt in 1996, it’s been the only work by the Master regularly on view in NYC since 2009, though, most visitors to The Museum, apparently, don’t realize it given this typical “crowd” I’ve encountered around it every time I’ve seen it- until now.
As if to make up for it’s questionable placement for much of the past decade, The Met placed it smack dab in the middle of the path to the next gallery so you can’t miss it. It’s certainly worth a long look wherever it winds up being displayed in The Museum now that the show has ended, to see if you think it’s the real thing, or…?
After 527 years? The Young Archer’s moment has arrived.
In The Room With Michelangelo.
“In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo”
T.S. Eliot, “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”
’Tis no different almost exactly 100 years after T.S. Eliot wrote those immortal words in 1920. At The Met I heard them. More than once. It was hard not to. Visitors were often shoulder to shoulder its last two months.
Rush hour on the A Train? Gallery 3 on February 11th, the day before it ended. I was thrilled to see so many people at this show. Not only that, they looked and they looked hard. That’s particularly amazing given that many of the works were studies of details of large compositions.
Seen without the crowd, Bastiano da Sangallo’s famous, Copy after the Central Episode of the Bathers in Michelangelo’s Battle of Cascina, The only surviving record of Michelangelo’s lost Battle of Cascina, which he was commissioned to do on a wall opposite the also lost Battle of Anghiari, commissioned from Leonardo da Vinci, of which a Drawing by Rubens is it’s only record. Still, so many Artists have been influenced by this work. I always wonder if Gericault’s masterpiece The Raft of the Medusa, is one.
I admit it. I did lean in to hear the details, and FINALLY know what Thomas Stearns Eliot was referring to. Most of the time? There were commenting on Michelangelo’s “unusual” female bodies. Their second most popular topic was his “choice of ‘friends.’” Oh well. Imagine my disappointment. Neither of these topics were news to me.
Sketches of the Virgin, the Christ Child Reclining on a Cushion, and Other Sketches of Infants. Early on, as seen here, and in the immortal Vatican Pieta, Michelangelo’s women seemed much more feminine to my eyes. This beautiful Drawing, which echoes his early Madonna of the Stairs, may have been a model for the Painting Virgin and Child with the Infant Saint John, possibly by Piero d’Argents, that was displayed next to it.
One of his “friends.” One Michelangelo portrait in the aptly titled, staggering, “Divine Heads,” section of Gallery 5, Portrait of Andrea Quaratesi, c. 1532.
A section on his early designs for Pope Julius II’s tomb leads us to a gallery of early Architectural projects, and then to a gallery full of “Divine Heads,” which includes the one above.
Demonstration Drawing for the 1505 Design of the Tomb of Pope Julius II. It’s interesting to me that once again, we see a compositions of multiple levels- like The Last Judgement. In this one, as well, salvation is to be found at the top. This was just one of the countless incarnations of the design for Pope Julius’ Tomb, as it evolved from free standing monument to the wall tomb it is today, which was FINALLY finished in 1545. The haggling lasted so many years that of course the Pope died (in 1513!) before it was finished…32 years before it was finished! Michelangelo’s Moses, one of his enduring, greatest, masterpieces, is its central Sculpture, in quite a different design, in the church of San Pietro in Vincoli.
Moving back to figurative Drawings, in Galleries 5 & 6, one card described his style perfectly- “He drew like a Sculptor.” Meaning he drew with a heavy hand, the examples just above notwithstanding. Yes, his outlines are distinct, lyrical, and strong, and yes, his figures are often “Sculptural,” but even beyond all of this, his brilliant composition extends beyond the possibilities of Sculpture. Look at this, for example-
The Archers A work of sublime beauty equalled only by its mystery that starts with the fact that most of the the titular “archers” hold no bows.
The Risen Christ. A fascinating, “simpler,” composition with only one figure that nonetheless reaches to the infinite.
Its wall card. I selected this one as a typically, enlightening, example of the commentary throughout.
Michelangelo presented a design for the Pope’s tomb that included 40 Sculptures, a composition so incredibly ambitious it was impossible for any one man, even one with “divine” skills, to Sculpt during one lifetime. Though he considered himself a “Sculptor,” we can be thankful that he was compelled to Paint the Sistine Chapel ceiling (seen, fully, here). Painting, especially (and Drawing in lieu of a Painting), provided the best means of realizing many of his extraordinarily ambitious and involved compositions. Thankfully, he was able to finish this one- in four years. Sill clouded in drama, fiction and fantasy after 500 years of dirt was removed from it in the 1980s, the real story of the ceiling’s creation is every bit as dramatic as are the incomparable results, which many consider to be the greatest work of Art in the Western world.
“It’s not the real thing.” I heard one visitor comment in Gallery 7. ! No, but it’s 1/4 size of the original. You can take a 360 degree tour of this gallery, with The Met’s brilliant curator, Carmen Bambach, here. By the way, Michelangelo’s scaffolding ingeniously hovered over the floor and was moved as the work progressed. So brilliantly conceived, the 1980 restoration team reconstructed it, in lightweight metals, as STILL the best option to work on the ceiling.
In the heart of the show, Gallery 7 featured a range of studies for the Sistine Chapel ceiling that provide fascinating insights to the individual characters and the overall composition. Full of details who’s meanings have faded over the centuries (like what’s up with all the acorns?), one of the most fascinating and thought-provoking voices about it belongs to Art critic, writer and filmmaker, Waldemar Januszczak, who was one of those to receive permission to observe the restoration up close on the reconstruction of Michelangelo’s ingenious scaffolding in the 1980s. He used the opportunity to launch into a full fledged investigation of the ceiling’s history, and its “meaning.” His resulting book, Sayonara, Michelangelo: The Sistine Chapel Restored And Repackaged, 1990, and documentary, The Michelangelo Code: Lost Secrets of the Sistine Chapel, looks at the history of the Chapel and the “meaning” of both the ceiling and The Last Judgement. More on that in a bit.
Fact versus fiction. Michelangelo’s self-portrait Painting the Sistine Chapel ceiling.
Regarding the infamous “he Painted it lying on his back” story, Mr. Januszczak says, “Its origins can be traced back to a mistranslation of Michelangelo’s first biography, 31 lines written in Latin by Paolo Giovio, Bishop of Nocera, sometime between 1523 and 1527, (which can be read here). Giovio describes Michelangelo’s posture while painting the Sistine ceiling as resupinus. This was assumed to mean ‘on his back’ by various Michelangelo commentators who spent 5 centuries enthusiastically emphasizing his agony at the expense of his ecstasy. A more accurate translation of resupinus would be ‘bent backward.’” In the show, we see Michelangelo’s own Drawing of the way he worked, above, alongside a sonnet he wrote to a friend about it.
The Met’s caption for the Drawing, above.
Apparently, The Agony & The Ecstasy author Irving Stone, and the film’s director, Carol Reed, haven’t seen this. At The Met, old wives’ tales died hard in the dim light of the darkened galleries.
No. Michelangelo did not paint it lying on his back. Given how crowded it was, and how many visitors were looking up, it’s a bit amazing he didn’t get stepped on, though the young lady on the left almost got him.
Studies for the Libyan Sibyl in the Sistine ceiling. One of the most amazing things for me in the ceiling, beyond the astounding overall composition, are the postures of the figures- almost all of them. Perhaps none is more extreme than the immortal Libyan Sibyl. In the finished work, this priestess is seen at once stepping down from her throne while apparently preparing to move or close the gigantic book she holds in both hands. So complex are these movements that Michelangelo made studies of this figure in sections so he could closely analyze them, like this well-known example, in which the left hand is slightly higher than the right- the opposite of how they are in the Painting. The Artist possibly realized this would have made the whole pose look extremely unbalanced, not to mention rob the figure of much of its timeless grace.
Jaw dropping. One of the most important Drawings in existence. Every time I went, I had to stop and ponder this. I never knew it existed. Two Studies for an Outstretched Right Arm, Very possibly for God the Father in the Creation of Adam section of the Sistine Chapel. According to Waldemar Januszczak, the celing’s fingers have been REPAINTED by restorers at least twice, including during the most recent restoration in the 1980s! So? THIS is as close as we may ever get to what Michelangelo intended they look like, from his own hand. Just astounding.
In Gallery 9, viewers were treated to the rarest of the rare- TWO sculptures by Michelangelo (with, or without, assistants), both unfinished. Both remarkable. When was the last time was that THREE sculptures (counting the
Young Archer) by Michelangelo were shown in the U.S.A., at the same time? I don’t think it’s ever happened. If you know differently, please drop me a line.
Bust of Brutus, (with “some assistance” from Tiberio Calcagni), My recreation of an iPhone Photo the great Photographer, Stephen Shore, the subject of a terrific retrospective up right now at MoMA, took of it during his visit and posted on his Instagram page.
Last look. The crowd was still heavy around Michelangelo’s stunning, Bust of Brutus, in the final hour of the run of the show on February 12th.
Apollo-David, (Unfinished). Both it, and the Brutus, were on loan from the Museo Nazionale del Bargello, Florence, Italy. I can’t imagine how much the insurance was to ship these…round trip.
The Met’s glorious show goes a long way further to set the record straight about Michelangelo and his accomplishments, in my view. Michelangelo, the somehow “not human” myth, is dead. Long live Michelangelo, the all too human genius of Art & Design. It seems to me that the myth does him a disservice. If he wasn’t human, it would have been easier for him to accomplish Artistic perfection. But, he was very human, as his Poems and letters reveal, as does how hard he worked for a very long time (he died at 88, about 3 weeks short of his 89th Birthday- unheard of in the fifteenth & sixteenth century, when 35 was closer to the norm) to achieve the brilliant results he brought the world. Yes, human. He was continually worried about his finances (as we see in this show, where he uses every square inch of paper, on both sides, to economize), he continually worried about his family and their status, he worried about being paid, often by whichever Pope he was working for (He lived through the reigns of 12 popes and, extraordinarly, worked for 7 of them.), and his temperament ran hot and cold. If you were out, he could be very hard on you. It seems to me he lived a largely loveless, isolated life. His loves, such as we see in his Drawings and Poems and in his relationships, remained largely unrequited.
Michelangelo, Fragment with a Study for the Virgin for a Crucifixion, left, and Fragment, with a Study for Saint John the Baptist for a Crucifixion, right.
Michelangelo: Divine Draftsman & Designer, serves to revise our perception of Il Divino. To this point, he, and Leonardo, are perceived as geniuses who finished little of what they started. While there are many projects that Michelangelo didn’t complete (as well as others he did finish that are now lost), the bigger picture is that he completed a remarkable number of compositions & designs- some of which were either intended for, or realized by, other Artists, or were completed after his death. During his lifetime, Michelangelo was the only Artist thought to have excelled the revered masters of ancient Greece and Rome (per Vasari), who inspired the Renaissance- perhaps the highest esteem a Renaissance Artist could achieve.
Marcello Venusti, The Crucifixion with the Virgin and Saint John the Evangelist, based on Drawings by Michelangelo, above, shown as one example among many of Michelangelo’s designs adapted by other Artists in this show. I selected Venusti’s because, well, it’s just gorgeous.
In one of the great mysteries in Art History, TWENTY FOUR YEARS after completing the ceiling, Michelangelo returned to the Sistine Chapel to Paint this. Well, almost this, The Last Judgement.
Marcello Vanusti’s copy of The Last Judgement, is a very valuable record of what the work looked like in the mid-sixteenth century, before the addition of the controversial loincloths. However, Venusti took a number of liberties elsewhere, himself, so this is not a verbatim record of what he saw, though important nontheless. Due to its popularity, this was, perhaps, the hardest work to get full frame in the entire show.
WHY? Never before had an Artist returned to the scene of one work to complete another after such a long period. Whereas the ceiling gives us Genesis, the beginning of the universe, and life, on the wall over the altar, Michelangelo now gives us the end of the world, in all of it’s shocking glory. A bit too shocking for the time as it turned out. The beginning, and the end, in one space. In the interest of keeping this piece shorter than it might be, I’m only going to briefly mention something I feel is important, though not addressed in this show- The possible “meaning” of the Sistine Chapel ceiling and The Last Judgement. There seem to be two main theories. First, Waldemar Januszczak believes the Chapel building, itself, is modeled on the plan of the universe laid out by the ancient Christian Cartographer, Cosmas, in his Christian Typography, 547 AD. In it, the universe is rectangular, with a dome, like the Sistine Chapel, and its proportions are the same as the Temple of Solomon’s, which also match the Sistine Chapel’s. The universe is bordered by curtains with heaven and a second earth lying beyond. This is where the Genesis story takes place. So, when we look at the ceiling, we see into the past, through the painted Architectural elements all over the ceiling, in a world that is flat with the Sun revolving around it.
Waldemar Januszczak mentions the long forgotten sixth century Christian Cartographer, Cosmas, as the creator of this model for the universe, which looks shockingly similar to the structure of the Sistine Chapel. Notice, the Sun revolves around the Earth, with God & Christ above. Interestingly, it shows a blue background sky, with stars, which is how the Sistine’s ceiling looked before the collapse led to Michelanglo repainting it.
The second theory is based on the coincidence that Nicolaus Copernicus happened to be in Rome espousing his theory the the Earth revolved around the Sun at the exact moment Michelangelo was painting the ceiling. It believes he, and the Pope, were privy to it, though it had not as yet been published, and they included it in the ceiling and The Last Judgement. In the latter work, Jesus’ left thigh is at the exact center of the composition. Dr. Valerie Shrimplin says, “The most probable source for this choice of a central point on Christ’s thigh, as the pivotal centre of the entire cosmological fresco, seems to be the Book of Revelation 19:16. In a description of the Christ of the Judgment, it reads: ‘And he hath on his vesture and on his thigh a name written, KING OF KINGS AND LORD OF LORDS.’ This text is immediately followed by a reference to the Sun-symbol: ‘And I saw an angel standing in the sun…’ (v. 17). In the Sistine Last Judgment, Christ is thus depicted (theologically, neoplatonically and scientifically) as Michelangelo viewed Him: as King of Kings and Lords of Lords, the Sun, the centre of the Universe.”
Given the lack of anything definitive in Michelangelo’s surviving documents (his Drawings or letters), to support either of these theories, I find Mr. Januszczak’s the more compelling case. Pope Julius was a theological scholar who became a Doctor of Theology before becoming Pope. It makes sense to me that he would have known about Cosmas, and given that his uncle built the Sistine Chapel in the exact same dimensions Cosmas espoused (the building is not mentioned in the other theory), means that TWO Popes were involved in the Sistine Chapel. Nicolaus Copernicus was 2 years old when the Sistine Chapel’s construction, in Cosmas’ proportions, began, which would seem to make it a moot point. These factors tips the balance to Mr. Januszczak’s theory, in my mind.
By the way, Pope Julius II and his uncle, Pope Sixtus IV, were members of the della Rovere family who’s coat of arms include acorns and oak trees, both of which are seen all over the ceiling, and indeed, all over Italy, by way of “marking their turf,” as it has been called.
From all I’ve read, one thing seems certain. Michelangelo was a deeply religious man. An Artist who included himself in his final Pieta, called The Deposition, as well as including his Self-Portrait on his flayed skin that St. Bartholomew holds in The Last Judgement. Some see a self portrait included in the depiction of the Archangel Michael (or “Michelangelo”) on the ceiling. I don’t think he would have done any of these things if he was not deeply religious. It also makes me think that he went back to the Sistine Chapel to Paint The Last Judgement years after Pope Julius’ death because, then in his 60’s, he may have been thinking of his own mortality. Regardless, 506 years after he completed the ceiling, and going on 500 years after he completed The Last Judgement, the discussion remains ongoing about trying to understand these two incomparable masterpieces.
The controversy doesn’t end there. Regarding those “ladies talking of Michelangelo”… Waldemar Januszczak says, “Michelangelo was thus never a fully accepted and fully committed homosexual of the modern kind. He belongs, rather, besides Donatello, Leonardo, Botticelli and the painter nicknamed Sodoma among those homogamous Renaissance artists about whom we have conflicting evidentce of a conflicting sexuality. That he was a homosexual in some form seems certain. that he was not homosexual, in the way we understand the word today, appears equally unarguable.” And, on the question of his depictions of the female body, he continues, “Given Michelangelo’s obsession with human anatomy, it seems improbable that he never actually saw a naked woman in his life. But he cannot have seen very many. And he does not appear to have looked too closely.”
Nothing Less than Michelangelo’s model for the vault of the Chapel of the King of France, 1556-57, created under his direction by Fabbrica di San Pietro, Vaticano, Vatican City. The calotte of the dome of the south apse at a scale of 1:30. He would not live to see his designs for St. Peter’s, of which he was chief architect for 17 years, completed, and those that were were, including its dome, were altered.
Drawing, Draftsmanship & Design underlie all of his works. As such, they are the key to understanding his genius as a visual Artist. His brilliant Poetry lies on yet another plane of it, a tributary springing from the same font. Regarding his work as an Architect, Camen Bambach summed it up saying, “The physical beauty of the human body, which so deeply inspired Michelangelo’s Drawings, Sculptures and Paintings, also provided some meaningful analogies for his work as an Architect. His sheets with preparatory Drawings often combine ideas for figures and buildings…The human body offered an organizing principle in creating a unity of forms, whether the component parts were symmetrical or in freestyle.”
Frederico Zuccaro, Portrait of Michelangelo as Moses, showing “Il Divino” in a similar posture to that of his brilliant Sculpture for Pope Julius’ tomb. Michelangelo was not a tall man, and I imagine his arms must have looked not all that different to these after a life of carving stone. The tools of his trade lie on the pedestal beneath his feet. Carmen Bambach says of it, “Much as the prophet (Moses) led the Children of Israel out of Egypt, do did Michelangelo save the Artis, by indicating the true path through a command of disegno and visual judgment..” (Catalog, P.257)
While I continue to love and admire his Sculpture, Painting, Drawing, Poetry, and what I can understand of his Architecture (most of which was unbuilt), I now see him as a genius of design and composition, first and foremost, due to this show. That his Art continues to speak to so many of us 542 years after his birth is the supreme testament to his skill. It makes me wonder why he felt he needed to “pump himself up” to mythic proportions when his work, itself, has done so for him. His real story, as far as is known, makes him much more “human,” than “divine,” and I, for one, find that more compelling. It gives me hope that there may be another “supremely talented” Artist, or perhaps there already has been and he or she remains unknown to us. For the here and now, nearly three-quarters of one million people saw something they’ll never forget. One of the ultimate displays ever mounted of what human Creativity is capable of, and has achieved.
I am thankful I lived to see it.
“Now, speak!,” Michelangelo said after finishing the monumental “Moses” for Pope Julius’ Tomb, according to legend. I muttered it silently when I stood in front of his friend and collaborator Daniele de Volterra”s lifelike bust of him, partially created from Michelangelo’s death mask, at the very end of the final Gallery #12.
“‘Immortality’
Here my fate wills that I should sleep
too early,
but I’m not really dead; though I’ve
changed homes,
I live on in you, who see and mourn
me now,
since one lover is transformed into
the other.
Here I am, believed dead; but I lived for
the comfort
of the world, with the souls of
thousand true lovers.
Although I have been deprived of my
own soul,
I still live on in the souls of all those
who loved and remember me.”*
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
(Happy 543rd Birthday, Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti, born March 6, 1475 in Caprese near Arezzo, Tuscany, since renamed Caprese Michelangelo.)
Michelangelo: Divine Draftsman & Designer is a NoteWorthy show in my life, and for February, 2018.
*-Soundtrack for this Post is “Suite on Verses of Michelangelo Buonarroti,” Op. 145a, by Dmitri Shostakovich in 1974, the year before he died, which includes Michelangelo’s words quoted above in its final section, titled “Immortality.” Shostakovich, one of the great symphonists of the 20th Century, considered it to be his Sixteenth (and obviously, final,) Symphony, as he told his son.
Appendix- Recommended Resources-
-The Exhibition Catalog for Michelangelo: Divine Draftsman & Designer, by Carmen Bambach, is one of the best books on Michelangelo I’ve come across this past year, at least. It’s certainly the first stop for anyone who saw this show and wants to know more about it, and I highly recommend it to those who missed it as all the works displayed are wonderfully reproduced, along with a good many that were not here. Unlike many exhibition catalogs I see that are slapped together quickly, this one was NINE YEARS in the researching and writing (Catalog P.8). It shows on every page. Full of insights, stories and details, I haven’t seen anywhere else, it truly is the next best thing to having been there, and the best record of what it was. Though its focus is on the show and works included in it, Ms. Bambach never forgets to tie the works into the bigger picture, providing a remarkably thorough running biographical picture in the process, plainly sorting facts from fiction as she sees them in a wonderfully no-nonsense way, along with including priceless technical details and insights only a world class curator, who’s spent her life immersed in this work would have. Essential reading for Art History students, Michelangelo collectors (soft smile), and anyone with a passion for Art History, or Michelangelo.
-The best overall current Michelangelo book is Frank Zollner’s Michelangelo, The Complete Paintings, Sculptrues and Architecture, published by Taschen. I’m saying that while also saying there are better books for the Paintings. Better books for the Sculptures, but most are out of print and would require quite a bit of digging. But, if you want one book on Michelangelo, with as many good Photos of the full range of his accomplishment (yes, that means after restoration where they have been done, and I have no problem with any of them I’ve seen thus far), I’d recommend you look at it. Prior to the Taschen book, which originally came in the HUGE, 23 pound, XL size (which I, personally LOVE), look for “Michelangelo: The Compete Sculpture, Painting, Architecture,” by William E. Wallace, who teaches and lectures on the Artist, and has also written a good biography of him.
-The best books on the restored Sistine Chapel is the 2 Volume set, The Sistine Chapel, 1991, featuring the Photographs of Takashi Okamura, very probably the best ever taken of the ceiling and “The Last Judgment,” because he, and NHK TV had exclusive rights to Photograph it in return for NHK Japanese TV putting up 3 million dollars for their restorations. But? Being issued in limited editions, weighing 27 pounds, they’re very expensive now. The good news is there are other books with many of the same Photos, though smaller, and text by the restorers which are currently very cheap, including- “The Sistine Chapel: A Glorious Restoration,” “Michelangelo: The Last Judgement,” and Michelangelo: The Vatican Frescoes” which have all been on my shelf for years.
-As for his Sculpture- There are two ways to go- General overviews, or books that focus on one work. Which way you go depends on how closely you want to look at one particular work. A good number of the specialized books are out of print, but can be found at a decent price used, and of course, depending on age, feature black & white Photos, the older you get. I have the Hartt Frederick book published by Abrams, but it’s out of print, now and pricey. For current overviews, take a look at the Zollner and Wallace books cited earlier and see what you think of them.
-Writings- Michelangelo’s Poems are beautiful. They reveal the depth of his feelings in a way that is surprising at first, while they give a bit of insight to how his mind worked. For the true devotee of Michelangelo, they are essential. The problem is that there has yet to be a “definitive” translation of them into English. You can drive yourself crazy reading different translations of the same Poem. Find one that speaks to you, and don’t read any others…unless you’re THAT obsessed. I have the James M. Saslow paperback, which includes annotations, and more than 300 of his sonnets, madrigals and other poems.
-As for the biographies, Condivi’s or Vasari’s Biographies of Michelangelo both have the issues I outlined earlier. Condivi’s is a bit harder to find currently. Another way to go is to start by reading his letters. There’s a lot of them, and the 2 volume set edited by E.H. Ramsden (the one I have), gives a the largest number of them. They’re presented chronologically, and give you the feeling of his day to day life, which no biography does, and, in my opinion, you also get a sense of some of his values, and what’s important to him. Then, you can read the biographies and sort out for yourself what’s true and what’s “marketing.” Penguin has a paperback of selected poems and letters, which I have not looked at, so I can’t share any thoughts about it. Please, do not read Irving Stone’s books on Michelangelo (or Vincent Van Gogh) as “biography.” You’ll get much closer to the real Michelangelo’s biography reading Carmen Bambach’s catalog for this show, and it’s not, primarily, a “biography.”
-Finally, as I mention in the piece, I find Waldemar Januszczak’s book, Sayonara, Michelangelo: The Sistine Chapel Restored And Repackaged, 1990, and documentary on the Sistine Chapel, “The Michelangelo Code: Lost Secrets of the Sistine Chapel,” to be the most enlightening, and extremely well researched exploration of the ceiling’s history I have found. It also includes a fascinating presentation of a possible “meaning” Mr. Januszczak researched and developed over more than a decade. He may be right about it. Agree with him, or not, it’s well worth seeing for the tour it gives, which includes access to many off-limits areas, as well as for the history lesson. The 2-part film is out of print on DVD, but appears on Public Television’s “Secrets of the Dead” series every once in a while.
The former entrance as seen on February 23rd, thirteen days after it closed. “Sayonara, Michelangelo.”
NighthawkNYC.com has been entirely self-funded & ad-free for over 7 years, during which over 275 full length pieces have been published!
If you’ve found it worthwhile, PLEASE donate to allow me to continue below.
Thank you, Kenn.
Also- I’m pleased to announce I’m curating a selection of Art, ArtBooks & PhotoBooks for sale! All items are from my collection or selected by me in my travels through the Art world. The complete selection of over 370 items is here.
Written & photographed by Kenn Sava for nighthawknyc.com unless otherwise credited.
To send comments, thoughts, feedback or propositions click here.
Click the white box on the upper right for the archives or to search them.
Subscribe to be notified of new Posts below. Your information will be used for no other purpose.
