Contrapposto (and Michelangelo)

In some previous articles, mention has been made of the concept of 'contrapposto' and it has since seemed that the term itself may need some explaining. The word 'contrapposto' comes from Italian (see Latin contraponere) and, as used in an art-historical sense, means "placed against; opposing or opposite". The term was coined to describe the system of balancing 'weight-on' and 'weight-off' parts of the body - the so-called Canon of Polykleitos - devised by the 5th century BC Greek sculptor and theorist Polykleitos. Polykleitos sought balance and symmetry in sculpture and devised a system for achieving these, which he called his Kanon. This was only one of the developments (note, not improvements) in Greek art away from the conventional static quality of, for instance, Egyptian work. This Greek approach could be seen in the Renaissance in, for example, Donatello's Saint George or in Michelangelo's David, both early works by both artists and relatively static compared with their later pieces. 

The Laocoön, now in the Vatican Museums: a Roman copy (?) of a Hellenistic original, probably in bronze. According to Pliny, it is by Agesander, Athenodoros and Polydorus and is thought to date from between 27 and 68AD. Unearthed in a garden in Rome in 1506, with Michelangelo one of the first to see it.

Contrapposto as a way of composing a figure - in painting and in sculpture - was re-discovered in the Renaissance but was originally a development of Greek and then Roman sculpture, as examples such as the horsemen on the west side of the Parthenon frieze, the Diskobolos, Laocoön, and many other classical works show. With the advent of Byzantine art, and its emphasis on frontality and hierarchy, contrapposto appears to have largely died out. In art history or analysis, the word indicates a representation of, usually, a human figure (but not exclusively: see the horses in Leonardo's Battle of Anghiari), with some parts moving in one direction, and others moving 'contra' or against those ones, in an opposite or opposing direction.

This section, known as the Battle for the Standard, of Leonardo's original fresco was copied in 1603 by Rubens from an earlier print (1553). The original fresco, dating from 1505, is thought to have been destroyed although some believe that traces remain under the later works by Giorgio Vasari, in the Salone dei Cinquecento, in Florence.

Renaissance sculptors, in their search for ever more realism, gradually abandoned the fairly static and emblematic figure (for example, Donatello's St. George from Orsanmichele in Florence), which had its function as symbol of either religious belief or temporal power (or both), and, with the concepts of Humanism and science in mind, began to move towards more complex and, at least initially, more varied compositions of the human figure. This kind of composition was usually used to demonstrate motion, that is, figures not in standing repose, but performing actions involving a change in position as for instance, Leonardo da Vinci's Battle of Anghiari or, Battle for the Standard, 1505, once in the Salone dei Cinquecento, Florence (see image above). Michelangelo, a supreme master of contrapposto, used it as well however, for figures in reclining repose: his four stages of the day - Dawn, Day, Dusk and Night - are all figures in repose or, at most, in languorous movement (in the sense of amorous longing); that is to say, they are not 'action' figures such as were Leonardo's in the Battle of Anghiari 1.

A copy (by Aristotele da Sangallo?) of Michelangelo's Battle of Cascina, based on Michelangelo's own cartoon for the proposed fresco - both now lost. Note the numerous examples of contrapposto.
(Photo: Wikipedia. Public Domain)

Mention might be made here of Michelangelo's own work in the Salone dei Cinquecento, his Battle of Cascina, begun when Leonardo was working on the Battle of Anghiari; both are examples of an event where many figures are caught in sudden activity. In this also-lost work, which we know from Michelangelo's own drawings and contemporary copies (sometimes, copies of copies), contrapposto is, as it were, let loose in various figures and is no clearer than in the lower-central figure, a beautiful typical example (possibly to later reappear, with variations, on the Sistine Ceiling as the Libyan Sibyl).

A long view of Masaccio's Trinity fresco in Santa Maria Novella in Florence.
The photo, by the author, gives some idea of the size of this masterwork, painted about 1427.

A perfect example of the persistence of medieval stasis (that is, a certain static quality) and hierarchy in the early Florentine Renaissance, is Masaccio's Trinity fresco in Santa Maria Novella (Florence). The general composition (without the barrel vault) derives from earlier models and this particular one, showing God the Father supporting the crucified Christ from above and behind, stimulated later artists. All the figures in this large painting are shown as still, there is no present movement although preceding and potential movement or action may be inferred in all the actors; all are shown traditionally - that is to say, without notable use of contrapposto - in profile, fully frontal or turned slightly towards the viewer. Masaccio's more life-like rendering of the weight of bodies and garments, and the physique of the dead Christ, are (seemingly) sudden developments; but his rendering of the space in which this transcendental event occurs, by way of his use of the lately-perfected perspective drawing, adds a revolutionary element to the established iconography, making it therefore, a Renaissance artwork, not possible before that time.

The example of Masaccio's Trinity is a good one because it contains the three principal modes of representing the human figure which were, as described above, in profile, from directly in front, or turned slightly towards or away from the viewer; Giotto, amongst others, including Masaccio in his Tribute Money fresco (Santa Maria del Carmine, Florence), also showed people with their backs to the viewer: a formally subtle method of implying space or strata of action in space. All these modes were of course in use during the Renaissance and after, but the development and use of contrapposto, by Michelangelo in particular, introduced not only more 'realism', but also, more space. His extraordinary sculpture of Day (the Medici Tombs, Florence), has its right shoulder drawn around towards the left, as too its right leg; however, the left leg is drawn over the right, thereby creating an opposing movement - or, the contrapposto. And, just to be sure we didn't miss it, the figure's head is turned to the right, that is, against the direction of the shoulder, and the left arm is pulled around and across the massive back. The whole figure is made as though one were taking two objects joined by a string, and, holding one in each hand, twisting them in opposite directions. This clear opposition of direction is not the same as merely having the body of a figure slightly directed in one direction, but having the head, for instance, turned in another. There is nothing out of the ordinary about such a posture, on the contrary, it's an extremely natural one (for example, Michelangelo's David); by the beginning of the 16th century however, contrapposto implies, very often, extreme or exaggerated opposing movement within the one figure - whether standing or reclining - as in Michelangelo's Day 2.

Day by Michelangelo, a marble sculpture (after 1533: De Tolnay), 
 one part of the Medici Tombs at San Lorenzo in Florence.

Unfortunately, contrapposto became an end in itself so to speak, used gratuitously, and often unsuccessfully, to add drama and life to, especially, 'istoria' - history painting (as Alberti and Vasari would have said) - but also in fact, to show-off the artist's skill in being able to draw the human figure in difficult poses, imitating Michelangelo. Michelangelo himself avoided this particular problem, of gratuitous use, notably in his sculptural work, because nearly all of his statues are single or, at most, double figures. The drama exists in the figure itself and is not related to 'external' narrative 3, thereby avoiding the almost nonsensical use of contrapposto which plagued painting, especially from the middle decades of the 16th century onwards; the visual result occasionally resembled nothing so much as physical discomfort!

It may be argued that even Michelangelo may have got a bit carried away with contrapposto in his painted work, and most obviously so in the Sistine Chapel (both the ceiling and the altar wall frescos), for instance, in the Death of Haman. Nevertheless, the expression of internal struggle, feelings and emotions in flux, conveyed by Michelangelo's contrapposed figures usually succeeds for precisely that reason, that is, that his figures express in their sometimes contorted poses, their 'real' internal ambivalences or contradictory impulses - Michelangelo's own of course! In that sense, contrapposto is analogous to his sometimes divergent and recalcitrant leanings or desires. Contrapposto was as well for him, a means to convey controlled, rhythmic progression of movement, from and through one part of a body to another; in doing this, he was able to involve us as viewers in a more physical way, as it were a more carnal way, in the substantiation he sought in his figures. 

The Renaissance wish to (eventually) obtain increased movement was in direct opposition to earlier static and frontal images; some, such as Piero della Francesca and Domenico Veneziano, notwithstanding their being Renaissance artists, still maintained a high level of stasis - understood as immobility - even when movement was implied (in hand gestures and so on). Ghirlandaio's frescos - also in Santa Maria Novella - indicate just how far Florentine artists had got with their imitation of reality; in some ways, his frescos are the late-15th century equivalent of a (religious) soap opera, dealing as they do with as much of the mundane as he could get into any given image (in stark opposition incidentally to Piero della Francesca's 'reticent' accumulation of detail). But the figures remain static - in spite of Ghirlandaio's extremely beautiful and highly-skilled work - as though the movie camera had stopped rolling, so to say. The so-called terribilità (Vasari) of Michelangelo on the other hand, very different from the ordinariness of humdrum, day-to-day living, is in no small part due to his powerful use of contrapposto which, as already implied, acted as an energetic and life-giving technique for the stone (and equally, for the flat surface) on which he worked, while at the same time, reflecting or expressing his own personal, internal dilemmas.

1 One clear example of figures in action in the work of Michelangelo is his very early Battle of the Centaurs, about 1492 (De Tolnay); in this small, high-relief sculpture kept at the Casa Buonarroti in Florence, Michelangelo has his earliest contrapposto in the standing nude figure in the centre-left, amongst others; although, as remarked elsewhere, in his Virgin of the Stairs, of about the same time, the infant Christ is shown in a typical Michelangelo contrapposto. See also his David-Apollo in the Bargello, his model for a Hercules and Cacus, in the Casa Buonarroti, amongst much else.

2 'Piero della Francesca - The Flagellation' by Marilyn Aronberg Lavin, published by The University of Chicago Press, 1972, 1990: p 75 - referring to "the statue on top of Christ's column": "Its nudity and its pose (a third repetition of the contrapposto) relates to ...".

This art historian was also a spur to write this article: in her extremely detailed analysis of Piero della Francesca's Flagellation, Marilyn Aronberg Lavin made reference to a small gold statue situated on the top of a column in the flagellation part of the painting, citing it as an example of contrapposto. In fact, in the text, she refers several times to Piero's use of contrapposto. The author of this most valuable treatise takes the term 'contrapposto' to refer to any standing position which is not bolt upright and, in the case of the diminutive golden statue, identifies the distribution of the figure's weight onto one leg, causing a sloping of the hip, as a pertinent example. As must be obvious from the present article, the meaning of contrapposto for me is wider: in fact, we are hard-pressed to find any example of contrapposto, as used by me, in the oeuvre of Piero della Francesca; by a 'restricted' definition then, many of his figures are in contrapposto (for example, the Christ in his Baptism). Certain unusual figures of Piero do however fall into the meaning of contrapposto as used in my article: at Arezzo, for instance, in the lunette containing the Death of Adam, a youth seen almost from the back and leaning on a staff, contrasts markedly with the other figures, made in Piero's usual way, and is in contrapposto in the way that later Renaissance artists would make common; another example from the same place, is the white-hatted groom to the left of the scene of the Queen of Sheba in Adoration of the Wood (feet and hips in one direction, chest and head in another).

However, the characteristic of most of his figures being drawn in the modes described above - that is, in profile, from the front, or only slightly turned (occasionally also from behind) - is one of his most important, and helps to explain why Piero holds the particular place he does in the hearts of so many art historians who deal with the Renaissance. Piero is so stimulating and enigmatic because his images are a kind of (deliberate?) bridge between the old world of medieval and Gothic sensibilities (and possibly, as argued elsewhere, even Byzantine) and those of the emerging Renaissance. His ethos is one of 'statement' - subtly and almost bluntly simultaneously - and not one of seduction.

A quick check of various sources will reveal that Aronberg Lavin was adhering to the classical meaning of the term 'contrapposto', which described any redistribution of the weight, from bolt upright, in a standing figure. From that definition, I'm not sure whether the Laocoön would qualify as an example of contrapposto or not! Just as a starting point, many, many painted and sculpted contrapposto figures, including some from the classical period (Greco-Roman), were not standing! Michelangelo made and painted both standing figures and many reclining ones, the latter apparently not warranting the description of 'contrapposto'!

3 Obviously, as in the case of the Medici Tombs, there is an implied narrative of sorts, a symbolic, mythological one, and the four figures representing the stages of the day are consequently related to one another; however, as is usual with Michelangelo, each figure may be read as completely independent and therefore containing within the particular marble block all the necessary elements for its reading or interpretation (not to mention enjoyment!).