easy to trace the aesthetic derivation, but he is the product of no
school, the result of no external influence. Michelangelo, the most
perfect emanation of the Renaissance, came before an astonished world
like Minerva leaping from the head of Jove, all armed and beautiful
in her strength and wisdom.
Although he lived in an age when tradition was almost an artistic
canon, and when the pupil felt in duty bound to follow his master's
methods, even his early works reveal a singular originality and
freedom from all imitative tendencies. Take for instance his _Battle
of the Centaurs and Lapithae_, which he carved when working under
Bertoldo at the court of Lorenzo the Magnificent: it has nothing in
common with the school of Donatello, but is instinct with the spirit
of antique art, showing that the young sculptor derived infinitely
more profit from the close study of the antique masterpieces which
Lorenzo had collected in the gardens of San Marco than from
Bertoldo's precepts. That he succeeded in mastering the style and
manner of the ancients to perfection is proved by such works as the
_Sleeping Cupid_, now unfortunately lost, but which was bought by
Cardinal Riario as an antique, and was the cause of Michelangelo's
first coming to Rome; the _Bacchus_, hardly inferior to the _Dancing
Faun of the Capitol_, and the beautiful statues of the Medicean
tombs, which might easily be mistaken for the work of a Greek chisel.
It is certain that during the first years of his long sojourn in Rome
he gave himself up enthusiastically to the study of its ancient
monuments and works of art. When the famous group of the Laocoon was
discovered in 1506, Michelangelo greeted it as a "miracle of art,"
affirming that the only statue worthy of being compared with it was
the torso of Hercules, which he was never tired of drawing, and
evidently had before his mind when painting the magnificent _ignudi_
of the Sistine Chapel. In the Wicar Museum at Lille there are
several copies by Michelangelo of various decorative motives in the
Baths of Titus, showing how deeply he studied ancient art even in
minor details. But he was far from being a servile imitator; indeed
his powerful originality is never so strikingly manifest as in those
of his masterpieces which appear to be conceived in a purely
classical spirit.
Although deeply religious, even to the point of regarding his art,
especially during the latter part of his life, more as a devotional
exercise than as a stepping-stone to glory, Michelangelo had one
essential point in common with Pagan artists, namely, a boundless and
reverent cult for beauty in all its forms, and especially in its
highest and most wonderful manifestation, the human frame. "He loved
the beauty of the human body," says Condivi, "as one who best
understands it, and likewise every beautiful thing--a beautiful
horse, a beautiful dog, a beautiful country, a beautiful plant, and
every place and thing beautiful and rare after its kind, admiring
them all with a marvellous love; thus choosing beauty in nature as
the bees gather honey from the flowers, and using it afterwards in
his works." In one of his sonnets Michelangelo thus expressed his
highest idea of beauty--man created in the image of God:
Nor hath God deigned to show Himself elsewhere
More clearly than in human forms sublime,
Which, since they image Him, alone I love.[1]
[1] J. A. Symonds, "The Sonnets of Michelangelo and Campanella," n.
lvi. p. 90.
It is certain that he studied anatomy far more deeply than any of his
contemporaries, not excluding Leonardo da Vinci, and devoted so much
time to dissecting that "it turned his stomach so that he could
neither eat nor drink with benefit. Nevertheless," adds Condivi, "he
did not give up until he was so learned and rich in such knowledge
that he intended to write a treatise on the movements of the human
body, its aspect, and concerning the bones, with an ingenious theory
of his own, devised after long practice."
Michelangelo has been accused by some critics, not wholly without
reason, of having somewhat ostentatiously availed himself of his
anatomical knowledge. In some figures of his _Last Judgment_, for
instance, the muscular masses, the bones and tendons and other
anatomical details are hardly concealed by the skin, as if he had
painted from the _subject_ on the dissecting-table rather than from
the living model. The result is undoubtedly striking and terrible,
and we may even hazard the conjecture that the master purposely
exaggerated his efforts in a picture representing the final
resuscitation of the flesh, the awesome reconstruction and starting
back into life of bodies long since reduced to dust. This
"stupendous defect," if such it may be called, is far more apparent
in Michelangelo's frescoes than in his works of sculpture.
Having taken the human frame as the highest possible standard of
beauty, Michelangelo made use of it in all his works not only as the
principal theme, but as a decorative element. The ceiling of the
Sistine Chapel, with its magnificent nude Athletes and allegorical
figures, is the apotheosis of the human frame as the noblest means of
decoration. By introducing nude figures in his tondo of the _Holy
Family_ and by his powerful but utterly unconventional treatment of
the angels and saints in the _Last Judgment_, Michelangelo once more
affirmed his faith in the beauty and purity of the "human form
divine" as a decorative element of religious art. He went even
further, for in a letter to Cardinal Ridolfo da Carpi, which he wrote
when engaged on the construction of St. Peter's, Michelangelo hazards
the strange theory that the study of the human figure is
indispensable not only to sculptors and painters, but to architects
as well: "For it is very certain that the members of architecture
depend upon the members of man. Who is not a good master of the
figure, and especially of anatomy, cannot understand it."
Michelangelo's system of working was as powerful and original as his
art. Before he began a statue he could already discern the finished
masterpiece lurking within the rough-hewn block of marble, which he
would attack with reckless assurance, great splinters flying in all
directions as he feverishly cut away the waste stone, and saw the
figure spring slowly into life under his magic chisel. A
contemporary, writing in 1550, when Michelangelo, then seventy-five
years of age, was carving the _Pietà_ which he intended for his tomb,
thus describes the master at his work: "I have seen him, although
over seventy years of age and no longer strong, cut away more
splinters from a block of very hard marble in fifteen minutes than
three young men could have done in a couple of hours, and with such
fierce recklessness that I thought the whole work must fall to
pieces. For he knocked off splinters the size of a hand, following
the line of his figures so closely, that the slightest mistake would
have irreparably spoilt the whole group."
In one of his finest sonnets Michelangelo mentions this wonderful
gift of the true artist to penetrate dull marble and to perceive, as
through a veil, the perfect work of art within:
Non ha l' ottimo artista alcun concetto
Ch' un marmo solo in se' non circoscriva
Col suo soverchio; e solo a quello arriva
La mano che ubbidisce all' intelletto.
Even such colossal works as the _David_ were carved by Michelangelo
directly from the marble, without previously modelling a full-size
clay figure. In none of his finished masterpieces, however, is it
possible to observe Michelangelo's methods better than in the
unfinished statue of Saint Matthew, now in the Academy, Florence,
which, although little more than a rough-hewn block of marble,
already reveals all the power and beauty of the perfect work of art.
When quarrying marble at Carrara for the façade of San Lorenzo, he
could tell to a nicety the exact measurements of the blocks required,
although he had not yet prepared a model or even accurate drawings to
guide him in his work. The whole monument was already complete, even
to its minor details, in his mind.
Michelangelo followed the same strenuous methods in painting. We
have seen that the first part of his most colossal work, the vault of
the Sistine Chapel, comprising three hundred and ninety-four figures,
the majority ten feet high, was begun on May 10th, 1508, and finished
on November 1st, 1509. Indeed, as Michelangelo may be said to have
only commenced work in earnest about the beginning of January 1509,
after dismissing his incapable assistants, it is far more probable
that the stupendous fresco was painted in two hundred and thirty-four
days, at the rate of more than one figure a day. The artist could
only paint on the plaster while it was wet, so that it is easy to
tell in how many days he finished the larger figures by observing the
divisions of the separate days' plasterings. For instance, Sir C.
Holroyd, whose judgment is thoroughly to be depended upon, maintains
that "one of the largest and most prominent figures, as well as one
of the finest and most finished, the Adam in the Creation of Man, was
painted in three sittings only. The lines of the junctions of the
plaster may be seen in a photograph; one is along the collar bone,
and one across the junction of the body and the thighs. There is
also a division all round the figure, an inch or so from the outline,
so we know that the beautiful and highly finished head and neck were
painted in one day; the stupendous torso and arms in another; and the
huge legs, finished in every detail, in a third. Such power of work
and of finish is utterly inconceivable to any artist of to-day."
Michelangelo rightly attributed his capacity for rapid and finished
work to the great pains he had taken in thoroughly mastering the
difficult art of drawing. There is a sketch in the British Museum
with the following piece of advice in Michelangelo's own hand, to his
pupil, Antonio Mini:
_Disegna Antonio, disegna Antonio, disegna, e non perder tempo._
Draw Antonio, draw Antonio, draw, and do not lose time.
[Illustration: CENTRAL GROUP OF THE LAST JUDGEMENT.]
Like Donatello, he used to say to his pupils: "I give you the whole
art of sculpture when I tell you--_draw_!"
Although it would be difficult to decide whether he excelled most in
painting or in sculpture, Michelangelo, with singular modesty,
persisted in regarding himself as exclusively a sculptor. Even when
engaged on his greatest pictorial works, such as the frescoes of the
Sistine Chapel, he invariably signed his letters with the words:
Michelangelo, Scultore. It is, therefore, not surprising that his
paintings, and more especially his earlier works, were conceived in a
purely sculptorial spirit, and carried out according to the methods
of his favourite art. The _Holy Family_, now in the Uffizi, for
instance, differs but little in treatment and composition, from the
two marble _tondi_ in the Bargello, and in the Royal Academy, and
from what we know of the famous _Cartoon of Pisa_, it is evident that
Michelangelo, when composing that famous masterpiece, was influenced
by the antique bas-reliefs, representing battle scenes, which he had
seen and admired during his first visit to Rome.
That he did not consider himself a painter is further shown by his
utter disregard for colour, so apparent in his earlier paintings,
such as the _Holy Family_. But in the Sistine Chapel he ceases to
regard perfection of form as all sufficient, and the sculptor
suddenly becomes the greatest colour-painter of any age. For in
these stupendous frescoes, remarkable for their imposing, yet
extremely simple colour scheme, Michelangelo has succeeded in making
colour serve a higher purpose than that of merely clothing his
inspiration with beautiful tints. Colour is no longer an accessory,
but an integral factor as important as the mighty figures, the inner
meaning of which it helps to bear out, and the result of as much
thought and care. In no other work of art has such perfect harmony
of form and colour ever been attained.
Michelangelo was so entirely absorbed in his art, to the exclusion of
every other thought or passion, that it is possible to trace in his
works not only the gradual development of his genius, but also the
vicissitudes of his long and stormy career. Of his youthful works
only two, the bas-relief of the _Madonna and Child_ in the Buonarroti
Collection and the _St. John_ in the Berlin Museum, bear evident
traces of Donatello's influence; in the _Battle of the Centaurs_ and
_Lapithae_ the young artist already asserts his powerful
individuality, and the _Bacchus_ shows how thoroughly he had become
imbued with the spirit of antique art. It was not until he carved
the deeply religious group of the _Pietà_ that he revealed his
spiritual personality, while in the _David_ we are first confronted
with that _terribilita_ which is the most striking characteristic of
his subsequent works. All Michelangelo's masterpieces, whether of
sculpture or painting, are instinct with power and strength, like
combatants in some fierce, mysterious battle; but whereas the
youthful David appears to breathe forth a triumphant defiance, his
later conceptions, such as the brooding athletes of the Sistine
Chapel, the Louvre captives writhing in their bonds, the sombre
giants of the Medicean tombs, and the terror-stricken figures of the
_Last Judgment_, appear to be weighed down and overshadowed by the
consciousness of inevitable doom. What was formerly a brave,
fearless fight becomes a hopeless struggle of Titans against Fate.
Sublimity of conception, grandeur of form, and breadth of manner are
the elements of Michelangelo's style. As painter, as sculptor, as
architect he attempted--and above any other man succeeded--to unite
magnificence of plan and endless variety of subordinate parts with
the utmost simplicity and breadth.
His line is uniformly grand; character and beauty are admitted only
as far as they can be made subservient to grandeur. The child, the
female, even meanness and deformity, are by him indiscriminately
stamped with grandeur. A beggar rises from his hand the patriarch of
poverty; the hump of his dwarf is impressed with dignity; his women
are moulds of generations; his infants teem with the man; his men are
a race of giants. In that sublime circle of the Sistine Chapel which
exhibits the origin, the progress and the final dispensations of
theocracy, he may be regarded as the inventor of Epic painting.
Among the glorious titles which have borne the name of Michelangelo
to so high a pitch of celebrity, the least popular is that derived
from the composition of his poetical works. The best judges,
however, regard these productions with profound esteem. For
Michelangelo lived during the "golden age" of the Lingua Toscana, and
among the poets who filled the interval between the publication of
the _Orlando_ and that of the _Aminta_--first, in order of date, of
the poems of Torquato Tasso--not one has raised himself above, nor,
perhaps, to the level of Michelangelo.
Michelangelo's architectural works reveal the same characteristics
which excite our admiration when contemplating his paintings or his
marbles, namely, simplicity and grandeur. Although he always
protested that architecture, like painting, was not his profession,
he stood head and shoulders above Bramante or any other architect of
his time, and the majestic cupola of the greatest temple in
Christendom is a sufficient proof of his genius.
Although Michelangelo left no school in the narrower sense of the
word, his influence upon art, and, what is even more important, on
the minds of men, has undoubtedly been greater than that of any other
master, and successive generations will agree with an illustrious
contemporary, Ariosto, in proclaiming him
Michel, più che mortal, Angel divino.
OUR ILLUSTRATIONS
It is difficult to grasp all the sublime significance of
Michelangelo's works, even when we find ourselves face to face with
the actual masterpieces, such as the frescoes of the Sistine Chapel
or the beautiful statues which adorn the Medicean tombs.
To attempt an accurate description of his principal works within the
narrow limits at our disposal would be indeed a hopeless task,
especially as the size of these pictures will only allow of their
conveying a somewhat remote idea of the grandeur and awe-inspiring
dignity which are the principal characteristics of Michelangelo's art.
In selecting the following eight illustrations, we have endeavoured
not only to give an idea of Michelangelo's gradual artistic
development, but also to throw some light on his powerful and most
interesting personality. Although the _Portrait_ now in the Capitol
Museum is in many respects inferior to the one in the Uffizi, and has
even fewer claims to the honour of being regarded as by the master's
own hand, we have selected it because it tallies perfectly with the
descriptions which Michelangelo's contemporaries, and more especially
Condivi and Vasari, have left us of the master's rugged and
expressive features. There is an aspect of profound melancholy,
almost of discouragement, in the wan face, disfigured by the
flattened nose; the eyes are sunk deep under the massive and somewhat
slanting brow, and the whole picture has an indescribably mournful,
hopeless expression. It was probably painted when Michelangelo was
about fifty-five years of age, and the tragedy of the tomb was
causing him bitter grief and disappointment. In the Uffizi portrait
the most interesting feature is the hand, strangely resembling an
eagle's talon and immediately giving the impression of strong
individuality and creative power, which were Michelangelo's most
striking characteristics.
It has been rightly observed that nothing closes the fifteenth
century so fitly as the magnificent marble group of _The Pietà_,
which, although carved by Michelangelo in 1498, already prophesied
the power of sixteenth-century art. Numerous other artists had
already been attracted by the pathetic theme of the Virgin Mother
mourning over her dead Son, their principal aim, however, being
almost invariably to convey as forcibly as possible to the beholder
the grief and despair of the bereaved Mother. With characteristic
originality Michelangelo departed from the traditional manner,
successfully endeavouring to give the theme a simpler but far more
dignified and lofty interpretation. The Madonna is seated on the
stone upon which the Cross is erected, with her dead Son on her lap.
Her beautiful face is not contracted with grief, but wears an
expression of sublime peace and resignation, and the graceful head
reclines slightly on her right shoulder, as if pitying Heaven had
sent sleep to temper the extremity of her grief, and sweet dreams of
the past, when the Virgin Mother fondled her Infant Son, had
mercifully cancelled the horrible vision of the Redeemer's lifeless
body now lying on her lap.
Michelangelo's contemporaries criticised the figure of the Madonna,
remarking that the Mother is far too young compared with the Son.
"One day," writes Condivi, "as I was talking to Michelangelo of this
objection, 'Do you not know,' he said, 'that chaste women retain
their fresh looks much longer than those who are not chaste? And I
tell you, moreover, that such freshness and flower of youth, besides
being maintained in her by natural causes, it may possibly be that it
was ordained by the Divine Power to prove to the world the virginity
and perpetual purity of the Mother. It was not necessary in the Son,
but rather the contrary, wishing to show that the Son of God took
upon himself a true human body subject to all the ills of man,
excepting only sin. Do not wonder then that I have, for all these
reasons, made the most Holy Virgin, Mother of God, a great deal
younger in comparison with her Son than she is usually represented.
To the Son I have allotted His full age.'" This grave theological
statement gives us an interesting insight into Michelangelo's pious
and meditative character, showing how earnestly he took his art and
how reverently he thought out every detail, especially when
interpreting some religious theme.
The figure of the dead Redeemer is, if possible, even more admirable
than that of the Mother. "He is of so great and so rare a beauty,"
exclaims Condivi, "that no one beholds it but is moved to pity. A
figure truly worthy of the humanity which belonged to the Son of
God." No other sculptor has ever succeeded in giving marble the
absolute _abandon_ of death quite so pathetically as Michelangelo has
done in this _Dead Christ_. Here it was that his profound knowledge
of anatomy, and the long hours spent over the dissecting table at
Santo Spirito, first stood him in good stead. In the Albertina
Gallery at Vienna there is a magnificent study of a subject placed in
almost exactly the same position as the Dead Christ, which the
sculptor evidently transferred to _The Pietà_, if indeed he did not
make the sketch expressly for this group. Although Michelangelo
always professed to be a sculptor and nothing else, he shows all a
true painter's sensitive appreciation of light and shade in this
work, having so arranged the graceful, but somewhat complicated folds
of the Madonna's draperies, as to form a comparatively dark
background which enhances the whiteness of the lifeless body lying on
her lap.
To students of Michelangelo's art this work is especially interesting
as it shows the master equally free from the influence of his
Florentine predecessors, and from that of the antique. Michelangelo
was conscious of the merit and of the originality of this group, for
it is the only one which he considered worthy of bearing his great
name.
[Illustration: THE PIETÀ.]
The _David_, now in the Accademia at Florence, inaugurates the series
of Michelangelo's colossal statues. It will be remembered that the
master undertook to utilize a huge block of marble already rough-hewn
by an unskilful sculptor, and that he succeeded in hewing this
magnificent statue, without adding any other piece at all, so exactly
to the size that the old surface of the marble may still be seen on
the top of the head and in the base. What most surprises the modern
artist when studying not only this, but all Michelangelo's colossal
works, both in painting and in sculpture, is the perfect finish of
every detail. The fearless eyes, the shapely ear, the firm set
mouth, the powerful hand nervously grasping the death-dealing
missile, could not have been more carefully modelled in a statuette,
and casts of each individual limb are still set before students to
copy and admire in every studio of the world.
In 1501, when Michelangelo began this work, he was still free and
unfettered, justly proud of the fame which his _Pietà_ had brought
him, and with the world literally at his feet. This young giant
boldly taking aim at an unknown but formidable enemy, might well be
regarded as an allegorical representation of the artist himself, on
the eve of grappling with his fate. It may be taken for certain that
a quarter of a century later he would have interpreted the same theme
very differently, and would perhaps have given us David the King, or
David the Psalmist and the Prophet, instead of this magnificent
embodiment of conscious power and hope. The fierce frown, the
expression of strenuous force victoriously struggling against
overwhelming odds, all those characteristics, in short, which have
been summed up in the word _terribilità_ by his contemporaries, would
have been replaced by the sombre majesty of the _Moses_, or the
despairing expression of conquered, impotent strength which is the
key-note to such works as the Medicean Tombs, the Louvre Captives,
and the _Last Judgment_. Critics casting about for an artistic
derivation of Michelangelo's earlier works maintain that the
_David's_ face bears a resemblance to the features of Donatello's
Saint George in Or San Michele, but the type is far more virile and
energetic, recalling, if anything, the masterpieces of ancient art.