“The Creation of Adam”, fresco from 1511 by Michelangelo on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel
“I have my stomach crushed under my chin, my beard pointing to the sky, my brain compressed like a coffin, my chest twisted like that of a harpy. The brush, always above me, drips paint, and my face is like a good floor for drips!”
When a 5-by-4-inch red chalk drawing of a woman’s foot by Michelangelo was sold at auction for $27.2 million (about 25 million euros), on February 5th, far exceeded the US$ 1.5 to US$ 2 million it was expected to reach.
Experts believe that this is a study for the figure of Libyan Sibyla prophetess who appears on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in Rome. Michelangelo painted the iconic frescoes between 1508 and 1512, but first sketched the general composition and details in a series of preparatory drawings. Only about 50 of these drawings have survived to this day.
It was an exciting sale for reasons beyond this impressive value. Kept in private collections for centuries, the drawing only came to light after the owner sent an unsolicited photograph to Christie’s auction house. A drawing expert recognized it as one of the relatively few studies still in existence for the Sistine frescoes.
“It’s not my art”
Art historians know a lot about Michelangelo through the letters and poems he wrote, as well as two biographies published during his lifetime by people close to him — Giorgio Vasari and Ascanio Condivi.
In 1506, Pope Julius II suspended Michelangelo’s sculptural work on a papal tomb in St. Peter’s Basilica, diverting funds intended for the tomb to the renovation of the basilica itself.
Michelangelo responded… by closing his studio. He ordered the workshop assistants to sell what was there, abandoned 90 carts of marble and left Rome, indignant.
In 1508, Julius II and his intermediary, Cardinal Francesco Alidosi, managed to bring him back to Rome with the promise of a payment of 500 ducats and a contract to paint the Sistine. Despite having accepted, the artist began to complain incessantly about the new order.. He wrote to his father that painting “is not my profession” and told the Pope that painting “is not my art”.
Sculpture (not painting): central to its identity
In Condivi’s biography, which Michelangelo approved and helped shape, the artist is said to have abandoned around 1490 the workshop of the painter Domenico Ghirlandaio to train in the Florence sculpture garden of the powerful patron Lorenzo de’ Medici. Michelangelo would later joke that he had become a sculptor when he was still a baby, thanks to the milk of his nurse, the daughter of stonemasons.
In addition to his enthusiasm for sculpture and resentment toward the Sistine—what he called the “tragedy of the tomb”—Michelangelo felt that fresco painting was a work of art. great physical wear.
“I got a goiter from this torture”, he wrote to his friend Giovanni da Pistoia, in an illustrated poem. “My stomach is crushed under my chin, my beard is pointing to the sky, my brain is compressed like a coffin, my chest is twisted like that of a harpy. The brush, always above me, drips paint, and my face is like a floor suitable for drips!”
“My painting is dead”, he concludes. “I’m not in the right place — I’m not a painter.”
A great design
The caricature that accompanies Michelangelo’s poem shows not only a grumpy and restless mind, but also his use of drawing to reflect his inner workings.
The beginning of the 16th century saw the rise of drawingwith Michelangelo in the lead. Instead of serving only to copy or provide models for painting, drawing came to be understood as an intellectual, exploratory and creative exercise of great importance.
Michelangelo’s biographer Vasari famously used the term drawing to designate simultaneously a physical drawing and the “drawing” or general concept of a work, giving the artist an almost divine creative power — this double meaning is reflected in the title of the very popular 2017 exhibition on Michelangelo’s drawings, at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, in New York: “Michelangelo: Divine Draftsman and Designer”.
Michelangelo produced many drawings for the Sistine that reflected the different senses of drawing. There were model sketches, as well as architectural drawings and schematics for organizing the enormous space. And then there were the life-size “cards” that he drew to transfer his designs directly to the ceiling.
The good foot
Michelangelo also made many studies of individual body parts and gestures for the Sistine, including the eyes, hands, and feet. In a drawing for the Sistine ceiling now in the British Museum, several hands—perhaps inspired by his own—are repeated on the right side of the sheet. The feet were especially important to the overall design of the human figure and are situated at the intersection of Michelangelo’s interests in classical art and human anatomy.
O contrastedor classical “counterweight,” was the iconic posture of standing figures in painting and sculpture. It is characterized by the trunk centered on one leg, with the respective foot firmly supported, while the other leg is flexed, with the foot supported on the tip.
O “David” by Michelangelo is in contrapposto, and even today doctors are impressed by the anatomical precision of the muscles and veins in each foot.
The red chalk drawing of the foot sold by Christie’s was probably made from a live model, with Michelangelo showing the elegance of the prophetess Sibylla Líbica through the dramatically arched foot.
In the final fresco, the Sibyl’s body is a kind of elegant machine. The muscles of the outstretched arms, the rotating torso and the toes work together. This small drawing shows how concentrated energy from a single part of the body could contribute to drawing overall view of the enormous fresco.
Although the process of painting the ceiling was arduous, the process of conceiving it through drawing was evidently rewarding for Michelangelo.
Drawing as a central element
Despite the popularity of the Sistine frescoes, Michelangelo rarely returned to painting after completing them. In 1534, Pope Clement VII commissioned “The Last Judgment” for the altar wall of the Sistine Chapel. But only after Clement’s death later that year—and his successor, Paul III, gave Michelangelo the extraordinary title of Chief Architect, Sculptor, and Painter of the Vatican Palace—did the artist begin work on the altar wall.
Although today many people think of the Sistine frescoes or Leonardo da Vinci’s “Mona Lisa,” when they think of the Italian Renaissance, these artists did not see themselves, first and foremost, as painters.
In a famous letter of introduction to the Duke of Milan, Ludovico Sforza, Leonardo describes at length his skills in creating fortifications, infrastructure, and weaponry. It boasts the ability to build bridges, canals, tunnels and catapults. Only after 10 paragraphs does it include a single sentence in which it admits that, in addition, “he can perform sculpture in marble, bronze or clay, and in painting he can do any kind of work as well as any man”.
Like Michelangelo’s, Leonardo’s drawings reveal a voracious mind at work. They explore, rather than simply observe, everything from military machines to human anatomy. In 1563, Michelangelo would be appointed master of the Accademia del Disegno, in Florence, which sought to teach drawing and conception as basic skills necessary for sculpture, architecture and painting.
Apparently, drawing was the art that unified the various dimensions of the “Renaissance Man”.
