One of the many curiosities of Michelangelo's art is his almost total dependence on the figure - usually the nude male - as his language, especially in sculpture. Michelangelo was also a fine poet and therefore used language in the literal sense; but what I'm referring to here is his reliance on one element, or object, only, whereas, in most works of art, and especially in Michelangelo's time (1475 - 1564), the human body, clothed or not, was only one element in a complex composition. In the case of Michelangelo, very often, the human figure was the composition!
Saint George by Donatello, 1417-18, marble; now in the Bargello Museum in Florence
Photo: the author
A simple example will serve to point up this peculiarity: let's take Donatello's St George, now in the Bargello Museum but originally in a niche, or tabernacle, on the north wall of Orsanmichele, in Florence. This marble sculpture has, naturally, as its main focus, a roughly life-size statue of Saint George, dressed in an eclectic Roman-cum-contemporary-style armour and holding a shield, resting on the ground in front of him, with his left hand. This figure is certainly a single, isolated object, but, below the principal figure is a low- or bas-relief scene (in Italian: rilievo stiacciato), again in marble, illustrating the heroic deed of St George, as he kills the menacing dragon and saves the terrified maiden - who, incidentally, is seen on the right in front of a series of receding arches, a kind of loggia, while St George is this time mounted on his charger in the very act of killing the dragon; the hapless dragon is placed before his cave, the form of which recedes on the left into the background, thereby mirroring the perspective of the loggia on the right. In other words, through this narrative panel, the larger, free-standing figure above is given a raison d'être, as in the story itself.
The low-relief marble panel, 1417-18, which sits under the St George by Donatello, now in the
Bargello Museum, in Florence. Photo: the author
Donatello's career as a sculptor involved the making of, not only many bas-reliefs in both bronze and marble, but also free-standing figures in bronze, marble and wood, either alone - as in the St George, his St Mary Magdalen (Florence) or his St John the Baptist (Venice) - or as parts of a larger complex, such as that for the altar of the Basilica del Santo, in Padua. His own free-standing bronze figure of a young David is another example (not to be confused with his earlier (c.1408) marble David, also in the Bargello): this bronze David however, holds in his right hand the enormous sword of the slain Goliath, whose severed head he rests his left leg on. These accoutrements aid in the 'reading' of the significance of the sculpture (moral, civic, and so on) - and in identifying whom it represents - but function therefore, as elements of narrative. It is precisely these elements of narrative which are (virtually) entirely lacking in Michelangelo's sculpture, or are so reduced that they might as well be! In fact, in this bronze David of Donatello, the narrative elements, including a memorable helmet or hat - together with the sword and Goliath's head - are so active as to be almost distractions from the figure: the trap of decoration overwhelming the actual subject.
If we now consider Michelangelo's works, from his Battle of the Centaurs and the David, to the Medici Tombs, to the Moses (below) and the various Pietà, we note that all of these are entirely dependent on the human figure, nude or not, to express the eloquence and power of his ideas. In other words, there is no 'setting', no structure or environment, other than that of the site for which a given work was destined, that site, in effect, providing a de facto narrative. A clear contrast in this regard may be seen for instance, in a beautiful 'tabernacle' by Donatello (the Annunciation), on the interior south wall of the church of Santa Croce, in Florence [1]. It is worth pointing out incidentally, that Donatello's so-called 'Pulpits' in San Lorenzo in Florence, or his low reliefs at Padua, are examples of the common practice in 15th and 16th century Italy of providing a more or less complete narrative exposition - often requiring many subsidiary figures - of the story concerned [2].
In Donatello's early free-standing figures for the Campanile of the Duomo of Florence - now in the Museo dell'Opera del Duomo - or Verrocchio's Doubting Thomas (below; like Donatello's St George, made for a tabernacle [designed by Donatello!] but on the east wall, of Orsanmichele), we find that other sculptors apart from Michelangelo also relied on one or perhaps two figures, and no narrative support, to put across their ideas. Michelangelo was neither the first nor the only sculptor to rely on the power and success of only one or two isolated figures in a given composition or situation: much earlier masters in sculpture had already done so - although not in the same large-scale and dramatically-focused way in which Michelangelo was to do it. We can go to Pisa, Siena and Pistoia to see the wonderful Pulpits (from 1260 to 1301) of Nicola and Giovanni Pisano (note especially Nicola's Daniel at Pisa) and to witness the foretelling, in hindsight, of their culmination as it were, in Michelangelo - especially in the figure-only style of composition. But, Michelangelo was the only one to do so exclusively, that is, to make virtually all his sculptural statements wholly dependent on the communicative power of a, usually, isolated human form - with no supporting narrative features.
The Madonna of the Stairs and the Battle of the Centaurs remained an exception as Michelangelo's career, notwithstanding the several commissions for large-scale, multi-figure monuments - the Tomb of Julius II in Rome for example - for better or worse, saw him produce many single-figure 'compositions' in marble, every one of which is almost completely devoid of narrative support. On some occasions, for example Notte (Night), one of the sculptures for the Medici Tombs, the figure may be equipped with certain 'attributes' which serve to indicate who the sculpture represents: in the case of the Notte, a crescent moon and a star on her diadem, the owl, a mask and a garland. This quantity of attributes, albeit discreet as they are, is exceptional in Michelangelo's oeuvre; and images of the 'Madonna and Child' and the 'Pietà' are self-explanatory to anyone brought up in the Christian tradition. This applies to 'David' as well since merely the title is enough to conjure the Biblical story in people's minds; in fact, unlike other versions of 'David', where there may be a large sword and/or the severed head of Goliath (again Donatello's version, as well as Verrocchio's, or later, Caravaggio's painted version of about 1605-06), Michelangelo's is, to all intents and purposes, a beautiful statue of a naked young man. Even the sling is barely suggested and is certainly not an active element in the composition; Bernini's David (1623) is similar in that there is no severed head or great sword. Bernini however, has made critical use of the sling: as a matter of fact, his whole composition is dependent for its legibility on the presence and active role of the sling (similar to the way the ancient Discobolos of Myron is dependent on the presence of the disk to explain the otherwise odd pose - itself a possible influence for Bernini?).
Whereas however, Bernini, in his incredible Ecstasy of Saint Theresa (c.1644) in Rome, has a composition dependent on only two figures - and a large cloud together with bronze Divine rays - the overall effect is of a scene from a story (as related by the Saint herself!). In many of Michelangelo's works, the isolation of the figures, and particularly in those where there is only one figure, is a kind of 'abstract' isolation. Michelangelo depends on attributes only to a minor degree, if at all. His figures rely very often, for some kind of 'story', on their setting: the David as a symbol of the brave, young republic (or city) of Florence, originally set-up in front of - but not made for - the Palazzo della Signoria ( or, dei Priori, the seat of power in Florence at the time); the Day, Night, Dawn, Dusk, of the Medici Tombs, are symbols of the sleep of death and the Christian belief in rebirth and new life; and so on. If we now consider the Moses, a figure conceived as part of the Tomb of Julius II (now in San Pietro in Vincoli, in Rome) - his attributes reduced to the conventional 'horns' of wisdom or inspiration, and the merest suggestion of the Tablets of the Law - it seems to me that that sculpture could exist with equal force, anywhere. In a certain sense, the fact that it particularly represents Moses is really neither here nor there; what we have is an immensely powerful, and potentially even more powerful figure which we would be just as happy to read simply as that. Equally, the figures of Dawn, Day, Dusk and Night could be almost anywhere and still overwhelm us with their power, their knowledge (both philosophical and [art] formal), their potential for deliberate action: Michelangelo's figures often harbour 'potential' energy or action, a profound, quasi-dormant quality in many of his greatest sculptures (and pictures).
This capacity to be taken 'out of context' and still survive as supreme works of sculpture, of art, is an abstract quality in the sense that I am talking of. Many of Michelangelo's sculpted figures rely on their physical context for their interpretation as 'Christian' subjects, or at least Biblical ones; if that context were different, the interpretation may change, but the physical formal qualities as works of art would not.
This 'abstraction' was carried over into Michelangelo's painting as well, although, it must be admitted, perhaps not to the same extent. His early Doni Madonna (otherwise known as the Doni Tondo; 1503-04?: De Tolnay) and the (attributed) London National Gallery Entombment, both have a narrative setting, even if the so-called Manchester Madonna (also in the National Gallery) does not. Michelangelo's major works in paint, unlike the three pictures just mentioned, are in fresco however - the two Sistine Chapel campaigns and the later Pauline Chapel's Conversion of St Paul and Crucifixion of St Peter: all have the merest suggestion, where necessary, of an appropriate setting (for example, the Temptation of Adam and Eve: the tree, and the serpent), although, even in these works, and especially in the Sistine Ceiling frescos, there are still isolated figures, stupendous examples of his sculptural painting, quite dependent for any justification as anything other than studies of the nude, on their setting. Removed from that setting, they could exist quite happily as extraordinary figure studies - as could, for that matter, many of the figures in the group compositions.
Unlike his great predecessor Masaccio, who set his drama The Tribute Money in, for its time, a quite incredible landscape environment, or his St Peter Healing with his Shadow, in a detailed contemporary urban one (both in Santa Maria del Carmine, in Florence), Michelangelo, when he could, filled his space with numerous other nude or semi-nude figures as, for instance, in the Last Judgement and the two Pauline frescos. Certain of Michelangelo's contemporaries, notably Andrea del Sarto, Pontormo and Rosso Fiorentino, took their cues from his works, including - particularly Pontormo - his 'abstraction': the so-called Deposition or Entombment [4] by Pontormo in Santa Felicita, in Florence, shows how powerful was this rejection of setting; this extraordinary masterwork contains a quite radical accumulation of figures intertwined up and down the length of the panel. It would seem that Pontormo has here, in 1525-28, anticipated Michelangelo's subsequent crowding of numerous figures in the one composition, as seen in the Last Judgement (completed 1541: De Tolnay) and Pauline frescos for example.
Michelangelo's artistic vocabulary, in stone or in paint, was in fact, the human form; he could not have been, it seems, less interested in landscape, or the urban environment. Compared with the pictures of Piero della Francesca for instance - who died when Michelangelo was 17 years old - where figures are placed in realistic settings, either indoors (the Madonna of Senigallia) or outdoors (the Baptism), Michelangelo relied to an extraordinary degree on the force and conviction of his representations of the human body. His early David was originally meant to be placed high up on the Duomo of Florence but, on its completion, was deemed such an appropriate symbol or emblem of the city itself, that it was therefore placed, as mentioned earlier, in front of the Palazzo della Signoria. The forceful and meaningful result of his work on that difficult block of marble [5], and its manifest capacity to 'stand alone', may have induced him to rely, for narrative logic, on nothing other than the supposed subject of any given piece, or at least, to do so whenever possible.
Actually, it is clear from even a casual perusal of his sculpted works, or his drawings (albeit that they may be studies for figures in a more involved composition), that his taste and his intellectual leaning drew him to the isolated figure, especially the male nude, as the sole correspondent to his own psyche. Michelangelo never married, he seems to have preferred to work alone - even if this were not always possible - and he was apparently a kind of isolated, irascible man, a man who preferred his own company much of the time; given this circumstance, his work reflects himself, reflects who and what he was: he would seem to have been, happily for us, quite closely in touch with his personal reality and, perhaps in a sort of reciprocal relationship with his art, endeavoured to manifest that reality in a wholly independent manner. As Pope-Hennessy says at the very beginning of his excellent book on Donatello (1993), "Artists are private people whose identities are hidden in their work, but it is possible, by looking closely ... to establish some of the respects in which his mind and aspirations and the work that he produced differed from those of his contemporaries." Pope-Hennessy was referring of course to Donatello, a very great artist, but his words stand just as well for Michelangelo.
Much about Michelangelo's work is what one would expect of an artist working at that time: the profound interest in the human form (but not exclusively), the equally profound enthusiasm for and knowledge of classical (ancient Roman) art, the move away from the static (a profound quality of Piero della Francesca's painting) to ever more complex movement of the body, the use of perspective and so on; Michelangelo nevertheless, was unusual in his complete lack of interest in landscape as a natural phenomenon (quite unlike Leonardo da Vinci for instance), even less so in its possibilities as 'ambiance' for the setting of drama; he cared just as little for buildings and architecture, especially as they might have pertained to sculpture (in the sense of the Donatello tabernacle in Santa Croce, mentioned above). In the Sistine Chapel of course, fictive architecture plays an important role in the rational organisation of the whole scheme (and, sometimes, in certain episodes, for example, The Punishment of Haman), arguably dictated by the reality of the physical setting as much as by the sequential nature of the narrative he was dealing with. In itself, this general rejection of architecture in his painting and sculpture is extremely interesting, as Michelangelo was as great an architect as he was a painter. His inclusion or use of architecture in the Sistine Ceiling frescos is an anomaly in his fresco work; he did at times design architectural settings for some of his sculptures, as is demonstrated by the Tomb of Julius II for instance; his Medici Tombs were placed in an architectural environment wholly conceived by him - the Medici Chapel - which, however, still allowed the sculptures to 'stand alone'; the actual architecture was not meant to impinge upon or contribute to any given sculpture: it could frame it, house it or support it, but not play any active part in the independent life of a particular piece of stone.
In relation to Piero della Francesca, it could be argued that, like him, Michelangelo still had some, however distant, rapport with 'the Greek manner', that is, with Byzantine art, much decried by 'modern' writers of the 16th century [6]: the invitation to contemplation perceived in both artists and, in Michelangelo's case, especially in his sculpture where the subject is still.
In using the term 'abstract', I can hardly not say something about one of Michelangelo's most abstract, or 'abstracted' pieces, his Rondanini Pietà: it could be said that here we have an early- to mid-20th century work, situated after the development of Abstraction as a Modernist invention. Any number of Modernist sculptors might have made such a piece; but in fact, we have a work which pre-dates Modernism by some 350-odd years! To be fair to Michelangelo's unfinished and much re-thought study, we should not really apply 20th or 21st century criteria to it: rather, while clearly appealing to our 'modern' taste, it further reveals the turbulent state of its creator's mind - not to mention the condition of the Catholic Church and politics more generally. According to various scholars, Michelangelo was assailed by self-doubt as much as by any of the other psychological (and physical) problems he might have had. The fluid state of anxiety and mature self-questioning which is common to many gifted minds, can be seen and felt in this late, troubled and ambiguously uncompleted masterwork.
A postscript on method:
In this essay, I have moved about a bit, up and down the 15th and 16th centuries, and even into the 17th by mentioning Bernini and Caravaggio (and the 5th BC by mentioning Myron); for me, there is no problem with this mode of looking at art as, in my opinion, it is a continuum, not of development however, but of morphology, so to speak. Many styles and periods overlap or are positively contemporaneous - especially in the 20th century for instance. Michelangelo was alive, albeit as a very young man, at the same time as Piero della Francesca (d. 1492), and Andrea del Verrocchio (d. 1488). He was born only nine years after Donatello had died (1466). It is easy to see in the periods immediately before the Renaissance and afterwards, a kind of linear progression, taken by some (Vasari included) to indicate a development, that is, that art 'progresses' from primitive forms to more sophisticated ones; in some instances, this may be true: for example, there appears to be a development or evolution - in the Darwinian sense - from the static, erect and largely immobile Egyptian style, through early Greek, somewhat less static Kouri, to so-called 'classical' Greek art, as may be seen in the already-mentioned work of Myron. In this transition, we appear to see a greater understanding of the human form and its potential for movement. But, particularly with regard to high Egyptian culture, it is equally possible to see, and argue, that they were simply not interested in the kind of expression which we now associate with Greek classicism; when Greek artists began extending the limits of the Kouri type, they were also part of a culture which was significantly different from that of the Egyptians: in other words, they saw the world differently - not least in their interest in movement. And here is where apparent 'development' occurs, but, many factors, including taste, contribute to changes (morphology) in the appearance of works of art. A recent example of the effect of taste on our reading of art works is the almost psychological problem that many have when introduced to coloured and painted ancient marble statues - their original condition in many cases!
Looking at works of art by sliding up and down the periods of history is, to my mind, an extremely instructive way of seeing what artists were up to; history also teaches us that taste, physical circumstances, as well as geography, political and religious matters, all have their influence on what artists do - but not necessarily on what they are capable of doing! In light of this, Michelangelo's work is not better than Donatello's, or Verrocchio's, or Piero della Francesca's - it's different. Michelangelo lived at the time he did and so his work doesn't look Egyptian or even 'classical' Greek: it looks as though it had been produced in the Renaissance! But no two Renaissance artists, particularly the greatest of them, are the same; Michelangelo's work has as much of Michelangelo in it as it has of the Renaissance. Historical periods are definable - more or less! - but the human mind at its best moves freely, and while being affected by the (often subsequently-defined) historical period in which it lives, the power of the individual psyche or character is a constant throughout art history.
[1] This beautiful stone and terracotta Annunciation (1437-40 in high relief is a good example of the difference between the art of many of Michelangelo's predecessors and contemporaries, and Michelangelo's own: not only are the figures of the Virgin and the Angel equipped with their normal attributes, but they are in the conventional poses that this episode requires; however, in addition to this, Donatello has set the scene of Mary's house within an extremely detailed, elaborate and eclectic 'classical' structure - forming what is known as a 'tabernacle' - parts of which are gilded, the whole topped with five little cherubs. The overall effect is that of a decoration, at least as much as of a religious icon to be contemplated as such. Finally, the decorative elements, or their total, take up much more space than the putative subject, that is, the Annunciation.
[2] Many other artists working in Florence just before, and contemporaneously with Michelangelo, such as Luca della Robbia, Verrocchio, Masaccio, Fra Angelico, Filippo Lippi, Filippino Lippi, Benozzo Gozzoli, Ghiberti, and so on, all did this. See, in this regard, Domenico Ghirlandaio's Visitation in Santa Maria Novella (Florence) for both architecture and landscape, as well as 'extras', as narrative support. Andrea del Castagno likewise often provided the narrative setting, but in his Portraits of Famous Men and Women, he allows his subjects to stand alone, although still equipped with some signifying attribute.
[3] The pose of the Christ Child in the Madonna of the Stairs was later, according to De Tolnay, developed in the figure of Giorno (Day), of the Medici Tombs, where the arm coming around and crossing the back are common to both works, separated however by 41 years. See "Michelangelo", by Charles de Tolnay, Princeton University Press, 1975; p205.
[4] Interestingly, several of the figures in Pontormo's Deposition/Entombment in Santa Felicita are nominally clothed, but the artist has in fact painted nude figures in cloth-like colour to give an initial impression of their wearing clothes. A process similar to this can be seen in Michelangelo's statue of the seated Giuliano de' Medici, one of the (clothed) figures of the Medici Tombs: this figure's leather (?) cuirass is effectively the model's actual naked torso, but with armour-like bits attached to give it the initial appearance of being armour. In addition, the almost complete lack of any but the most minimal indication of place in Pontormo's altarpiece is probably due to the influence of Michelangelo.
[5] See my recent article "Michelangelo and Bernini: David".
[6] In his "Lives of the most excellent Painters, Sculptors and Architects" (second edition, 1568), Vasari makes a number of disparaging references to styles of art which we now refer to as Gothic and Byzantine, especially in his Life of Cimabue: "...cioè non nella buona maniera greca antica, ma in quella goffa moderna di que' tempi ... levandole gran parte della maniera goffa loro ..." ("... that is, not in the good antique Greek manner [of 'classical' art], but in that silly [inept, clumsy] modern one of those times [meaning: the time of Cimabue, that is, the mid- to late-13th century] ... [he] removing from it a large part of their clumsy manner .."). This attitude of Vasari's, whether it began with him or was already an established point of view while he was writing, spread and continued long after he had died, in 1574. "Le vite dei più eccellenti pittori, scultori e architetti" by Giorgio Vasari, published first in 1550 and then in a revised edition, in 1568; this edition, consulted here, 2013 by Newton Compton editori s.r.l., Roma.
David by Donatello, c.1430-32, bronze; Bargello Florence
If we now consider Michelangelo's works, from his Battle of the Centaurs and the David, to the Medici Tombs, to the Moses (below) and the various Pietà, we note that all of these are entirely dependent on the human figure, nude or not, to express the eloquence and power of his ideas. In other words, there is no 'setting', no structure or environment, other than that of the site for which a given work was destined, that site, in effect, providing a de facto narrative. A clear contrast in this regard may be seen for instance, in a beautiful 'tabernacle' by Donatello (the Annunciation), on the interior south wall of the church of Santa Croce, in Florence [1]. It is worth pointing out incidentally, that Donatello's so-called 'Pulpits' in San Lorenzo in Florence, or his low reliefs at Padua, are examples of the common practice in 15th and 16th century Italy of providing a more or less complete narrative exposition - often requiring many subsidiary figures - of the story concerned [2].
Moses (c.1516), marble, by Michelangelo
San Pietro in Vincoli, Rome Photo: the author
Doubting Thomas (detail) 1483, by Andrea del Verrocchio, bronze; seen here in the museum above Orsanmichele, in Florence. Photo: the author
In fact, the one time when he did provide a narrative context, or something approximating this, was in one of his two earliest known pieces, both of them today kept at the Casa Buonarroti, in Florence. These are his Madonna of the Stairs (1490-92: De Tolnay) and the Battle of the Centaurs (1492: De Tolnay), both relief sculptures in marble. In the former, even at that early stage, we find Michelangelo's massive forms - especially the back and arm of the Child [3] - but these figures of Mary and the Child are supported by the stairs and three angels; the Battle of the Centaurs, on the other hand, contains numerous figures in high relief, both human and half-human (the Centaurs), although very little else. The subject itself, even if disputed, provides the narrative justification for the work.
The Madonna of the Stairs and the Battle of the Centaurs remained an exception as Michelangelo's career, notwithstanding the several commissions for large-scale, multi-figure monuments - the Tomb of Julius II in Rome for example - for better or worse, saw him produce many single-figure 'compositions' in marble, every one of which is almost completely devoid of narrative support. On some occasions, for example Notte (Night), one of the sculptures for the Medici Tombs, the figure may be equipped with certain 'attributes' which serve to indicate who the sculpture represents: in the case of the Notte, a crescent moon and a star on her diadem, the owl, a mask and a garland. This quantity of attributes, albeit discreet as they are, is exceptional in Michelangelo's oeuvre; and images of the 'Madonna and Child' and the 'Pietà' are self-explanatory to anyone brought up in the Christian tradition. This applies to 'David' as well since merely the title is enough to conjure the Biblical story in people's minds; in fact, unlike other versions of 'David', where there may be a large sword and/or the severed head of Goliath (again Donatello's version, as well as Verrocchio's, or later, Caravaggio's painted version of about 1605-06), Michelangelo's is, to all intents and purposes, a beautiful statue of a naked young man. Even the sling is barely suggested and is certainly not an active element in the composition; Bernini's David (1623) is similar in that there is no severed head or great sword. Bernini however, has made critical use of the sling: as a matter of fact, his whole composition is dependent for its legibility on the presence and active role of the sling (similar to the way the ancient Discobolos of Myron is dependent on the presence of the disk to explain the otherwise odd pose - itself a possible influence for Bernini?).
An ancient marble copy of the original bronze (c.450 BC) Discobolos by Myron, in the Palazzo Massimo alle Terme, Rome. The similarity of the pose of the Discobolos and that of Bernini's David is interesting, to say the least. Photo: the author
Day (Giorno) by Michelangelo, post-1533? (De Tolnay) marble, Medici Chapel, Florence:
note the arm brought around behind the immensely powerful back, part of the 'contro-posto' or 'twisted against itself' pose, the other part of which is the folded legs, with the left leg moving against the direction of the right shoulder
This 'abstraction' was carried over into Michelangelo's painting as well, although, it must be admitted, perhaps not to the same extent. His early Doni Madonna (otherwise known as the Doni Tondo; 1503-04?: De Tolnay) and the (attributed) London National Gallery Entombment, both have a narrative setting, even if the so-called Manchester Madonna (also in the National Gallery) does not. Michelangelo's major works in paint, unlike the three pictures just mentioned, are in fresco however - the two Sistine Chapel campaigns and the later Pauline Chapel's Conversion of St Paul and Crucifixion of St Peter: all have the merest suggestion, where necessary, of an appropriate setting (for example, the Temptation of Adam and Eve: the tree, and the serpent), although, even in these works, and especially in the Sistine Ceiling frescos, there are still isolated figures, stupendous examples of his sculptural painting, quite dependent for any justification as anything other than studies of the nude, on their setting. Removed from that setting, they could exist quite happily as extraordinary figure studies - as could, for that matter, many of the figures in the group compositions.
Unlike his great predecessor Masaccio, who set his drama The Tribute Money in, for its time, a quite incredible landscape environment, or his St Peter Healing with his Shadow, in a detailed contemporary urban one (both in Santa Maria del Carmine, in Florence), Michelangelo, when he could, filled his space with numerous other nude or semi-nude figures as, for instance, in the Last Judgement and the two Pauline frescos. Certain of Michelangelo's contemporaries, notably Andrea del Sarto, Pontormo and Rosso Fiorentino, took their cues from his works, including - particularly Pontormo - his 'abstraction': the so-called Deposition or Entombment [4] by Pontormo in Santa Felicita, in Florence, shows how powerful was this rejection of setting; this extraordinary masterwork contains a quite radical accumulation of figures intertwined up and down the length of the panel. It would seem that Pontormo has here, in 1525-28, anticipated Michelangelo's subsequent crowding of numerous figures in the one composition, as seen in the Last Judgement (completed 1541: De Tolnay) and Pauline frescos for example.
Actually, it is clear from even a casual perusal of his sculpted works, or his drawings (albeit that they may be studies for figures in a more involved composition), that his taste and his intellectual leaning drew him to the isolated figure, especially the male nude, as the sole correspondent to his own psyche. Michelangelo never married, he seems to have preferred to work alone - even if this were not always possible - and he was apparently a kind of isolated, irascible man, a man who preferred his own company much of the time; given this circumstance, his work reflects himself, reflects who and what he was: he would seem to have been, happily for us, quite closely in touch with his personal reality and, perhaps in a sort of reciprocal relationship with his art, endeavoured to manifest that reality in a wholly independent manner. As Pope-Hennessy says at the very beginning of his excellent book on Donatello (1993), "Artists are private people whose identities are hidden in their work, but it is possible, by looking closely ... to establish some of the respects in which his mind and aspirations and the work that he produced differed from those of his contemporaries." Pope-Hennessy was referring of course to Donatello, a very great artist, but his words stand just as well for Michelangelo.
Much about Michelangelo's work is what one would expect of an artist working at that time: the profound interest in the human form (but not exclusively), the equally profound enthusiasm for and knowledge of classical (ancient Roman) art, the move away from the static (a profound quality of Piero della Francesca's painting) to ever more complex movement of the body, the use of perspective and so on; Michelangelo nevertheless, was unusual in his complete lack of interest in landscape as a natural phenomenon (quite unlike Leonardo da Vinci for instance), even less so in its possibilities as 'ambiance' for the setting of drama; he cared just as little for buildings and architecture, especially as they might have pertained to sculpture (in the sense of the Donatello tabernacle in Santa Croce, mentioned above). In the Sistine Chapel of course, fictive architecture plays an important role in the rational organisation of the whole scheme (and, sometimes, in certain episodes, for example, The Punishment of Haman), arguably dictated by the reality of the physical setting as much as by the sequential nature of the narrative he was dealing with. In itself, this general rejection of architecture in his painting and sculpture is extremely interesting, as Michelangelo was as great an architect as he was a painter. His inclusion or use of architecture in the Sistine Ceiling frescos is an anomaly in his fresco work; he did at times design architectural settings for some of his sculptures, as is demonstrated by the Tomb of Julius II for instance; his Medici Tombs were placed in an architectural environment wholly conceived by him - the Medici Chapel - which, however, still allowed the sculptures to 'stand alone'; the actual architecture was not meant to impinge upon or contribute to any given sculpture: it could frame it, house it or support it, but not play any active part in the independent life of a particular piece of stone.
In relation to Piero della Francesca, it could be argued that, like him, Michelangelo still had some, however distant, rapport with 'the Greek manner', that is, with Byzantine art, much decried by 'modern' writers of the 16th century [6]: the invitation to contemplation perceived in both artists and, in Michelangelo's case, especially in his sculpture where the subject is still.
In using the term 'abstract', I can hardly not say something about one of Michelangelo's most abstract, or 'abstracted' pieces, his Rondanini Pietà: it could be said that here we have an early- to mid-20th century work, situated after the development of Abstraction as a Modernist invention. Any number of Modernist sculptors might have made such a piece; but in fact, we have a work which pre-dates Modernism by some 350-odd years! To be fair to Michelangelo's unfinished and much re-thought study, we should not really apply 20th or 21st century criteria to it: rather, while clearly appealing to our 'modern' taste, it further reveals the turbulent state of its creator's mind - not to mention the condition of the Catholic Church and politics more generally. According to various scholars, Michelangelo was assailed by self-doubt as much as by any of the other psychological (and physical) problems he might have had. The fluid state of anxiety and mature self-questioning which is common to many gifted minds, can be seen and felt in this late, troubled and ambiguously uncompleted masterwork.
A postscript on method:
In this essay, I have moved about a bit, up and down the 15th and 16th centuries, and even into the 17th by mentioning Bernini and Caravaggio (and the 5th BC by mentioning Myron); for me, there is no problem with this mode of looking at art as, in my opinion, it is a continuum, not of development however, but of morphology, so to speak. Many styles and periods overlap or are positively contemporaneous - especially in the 20th century for instance. Michelangelo was alive, albeit as a very young man, at the same time as Piero della Francesca (d. 1492), and Andrea del Verrocchio (d. 1488). He was born only nine years after Donatello had died (1466). It is easy to see in the periods immediately before the Renaissance and afterwards, a kind of linear progression, taken by some (Vasari included) to indicate a development, that is, that art 'progresses' from primitive forms to more sophisticated ones; in some instances, this may be true: for example, there appears to be a development or evolution - in the Darwinian sense - from the static, erect and largely immobile Egyptian style, through early Greek, somewhat less static Kouri, to so-called 'classical' Greek art, as may be seen in the already-mentioned work of Myron. In this transition, we appear to see a greater understanding of the human form and its potential for movement. But, particularly with regard to high Egyptian culture, it is equally possible to see, and argue, that they were simply not interested in the kind of expression which we now associate with Greek classicism; when Greek artists began extending the limits of the Kouri type, they were also part of a culture which was significantly different from that of the Egyptians: in other words, they saw the world differently - not least in their interest in movement. And here is where apparent 'development' occurs, but, many factors, including taste, contribute to changes (morphology) in the appearance of works of art. A recent example of the effect of taste on our reading of art works is the almost psychological problem that many have when introduced to coloured and painted ancient marble statues - their original condition in many cases!
Looking at works of art by sliding up and down the periods of history is, to my mind, an extremely instructive way of seeing what artists were up to; history also teaches us that taste, physical circumstances, as well as geography, political and religious matters, all have their influence on what artists do - but not necessarily on what they are capable of doing! In light of this, Michelangelo's work is not better than Donatello's, or Verrocchio's, or Piero della Francesca's - it's different. Michelangelo lived at the time he did and so his work doesn't look Egyptian or even 'classical' Greek: it looks as though it had been produced in the Renaissance! But no two Renaissance artists, particularly the greatest of them, are the same; Michelangelo's work has as much of Michelangelo in it as it has of the Renaissance. Historical periods are definable - more or less! - but the human mind at its best moves freely, and while being affected by the (often subsequently-defined) historical period in which it lives, the power of the individual psyche or character is a constant throughout art history.
[1] This beautiful stone and terracotta Annunciation (1437-40 in high relief is a good example of the difference between the art of many of Michelangelo's predecessors and contemporaries, and Michelangelo's own: not only are the figures of the Virgin and the Angel equipped with their normal attributes, but they are in the conventional poses that this episode requires; however, in addition to this, Donatello has set the scene of Mary's house within an extremely detailed, elaborate and eclectic 'classical' structure - forming what is known as a 'tabernacle' - parts of which are gilded, the whole topped with five little cherubs. The overall effect is that of a decoration, at least as much as of a religious icon to be contemplated as such. Finally, the decorative elements, or their total, take up much more space than the putative subject, that is, the Annunciation.
[2] Many other artists working in Florence just before, and contemporaneously with Michelangelo, such as Luca della Robbia, Verrocchio, Masaccio, Fra Angelico, Filippo Lippi, Filippino Lippi, Benozzo Gozzoli, Ghiberti, and so on, all did this. See, in this regard, Domenico Ghirlandaio's Visitation in Santa Maria Novella (Florence) for both architecture and landscape, as well as 'extras', as narrative support. Andrea del Castagno likewise often provided the narrative setting, but in his Portraits of Famous Men and Women, he allows his subjects to stand alone, although still equipped with some signifying attribute.
[3] The pose of the Christ Child in the Madonna of the Stairs was later, according to De Tolnay, developed in the figure of Giorno (Day), of the Medici Tombs, where the arm coming around and crossing the back are common to both works, separated however by 41 years. See "Michelangelo", by Charles de Tolnay, Princeton University Press, 1975; p205.
[4] Interestingly, several of the figures in Pontormo's Deposition/Entombment in Santa Felicita are nominally clothed, but the artist has in fact painted nude figures in cloth-like colour to give an initial impression of their wearing clothes. A process similar to this can be seen in Michelangelo's statue of the seated Giuliano de' Medici, one of the (clothed) figures of the Medici Tombs: this figure's leather (?) cuirass is effectively the model's actual naked torso, but with armour-like bits attached to give it the initial appearance of being armour. In addition, the almost complete lack of any but the most minimal indication of place in Pontormo's altarpiece is probably due to the influence of Michelangelo.
[5] See my recent article "Michelangelo and Bernini: David".
[6] In his "Lives of the most excellent Painters, Sculptors and Architects" (second edition, 1568), Vasari makes a number of disparaging references to styles of art which we now refer to as Gothic and Byzantine, especially in his Life of Cimabue: "...cioè non nella buona maniera greca antica, ma in quella goffa moderna di que' tempi ... levandole gran parte della maniera goffa loro ..." ("... that is, not in the good antique Greek manner [of 'classical' art], but in that silly [inept, clumsy] modern one of those times [meaning: the time of Cimabue, that is, the mid- to late-13th century] ... [he] removing from it a large part of their clumsy manner .."). This attitude of Vasari's, whether it began with him or was already an established point of view while he was writing, spread and continued long after he had died, in 1574. "Le vite dei più eccellenti pittori, scultori e architetti" by Giorgio Vasari, published first in 1550 and then in a revised edition, in 1568; this edition, consulted here, 2013 by Newton Compton editori s.r.l., Roma.
Another example of your great teaching ability Clive, another of your gifts. This academic article is accessible to any reader, as a fascinating story, at least in part because of your complete, confident ,loving, grasp of the topic but also because of your engaging , richly documented, narrative style .
ReplyDeleteToo generous Carol! So glad you enjoyed it.
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