The tiny space accessible via the New Sacristy in the Museum of the Medici Chapels contains charcoal drawings attributed to Buonarroti and will be open on an experimental basis to small groups of visitors until March 30, 2024.
Tag Archives: Michelangelo
International Art: Apollo Magazine – September 2023
Inside this issue
Museum Tour: Accademia Gallery, Florence, Italy
The Galleria dell’Accademia di Firenze, or “Gallery of the Academy of Florence”, is an art museum in Florence, Italy. It is best known as the home of Michelangelo‘s sculpture David. It also has other sculptures by Michelangelo and a large collection of paintings by Florentine artists, mostly from the period 1300–1600, the Trecento to the Late Renaissance. It is smaller and more specialized than the Uffizi, the main art museum in Florence. It adjoins the Accademia di Belle Arti or academy of fine arts of Florence, but despite the name has no other connection with it.
Art: Michelangelo’s Sculpture ‘David’ & The Republic Of Florence
Michelangelo, David, 1501–04, marble, 17 feet high (The Galleria dell’Accademia, Florence), a conversation with Dr. Steven Zucker and Dr. Beth Harris.
This astonishing Renaissance sculpture was created between 1501 and 1504. It is a 14.0 ft marble statue depicting the Biblical hero David, represented as a standing male nude. Originally commissioned by the Opera del Duomo for the Cathedral of Florence, it was meant to be one of a series of large statues to be positioned in the niches of the cathedral’s tribunes, way up at about 80mt from the ground. Michelangelo was asked by the consuls of the Board to complete an unfinished project begun in 1464 by Agostino di Duccio and later carried on by Antonio Rossellino in 1475. Both sculptors had in the end rejected an enormous block of marble due to the presence of too many “taroli”, or imperfections, which may have threatened the stability of such a huge statue. This block of marble of exceptional dimensions remained therefore neglected for 25 years, lying within the courtyard of the Opera del Duomo (Vestry Board).
History: “The Unchained Art Of The Renaissance”
Waldemar Januszczak challenges the traditional notion of the Renaissance having fixed origins in Italy and showcases the ingenuity in both technique and ideas behind great artists such as Van Eyck, Memling, Van der Weyden, Cranach, Riemenschneider and Durer.
Giorgio Vasari, (born July 30, 1511, Arezzo [Italy]—died June 27, 1574, Florence), Italian painter, architect, and writer who is best known for his important biographies of Italian Renaissance artists.
Top Art History Podcasts: “Michelangelo’s Drawings – Mind Of The Master”
Michelangelo is among the most influential and impressive artists of the Italian High Renaissance. His lifelike sculptures and powerful paintings are some of the most recognizable works in Western art history. He also drew prolifically, making sketch after sketch of figures in slightly varying poses, focusing on form and gesture.
However, remarkably few of these drawings remain today, many of them burned by the artist himself, others lost or damaged over the centuries.
A recent exhibition at the J. Paul Getty Museum, Michelangelo: Mind of the Master, brought together more than two dozen of Michelangelo’s surviving drawings—including designs for the Sistine Chapel ceiling and The Last Judgment—to shed light on the artist’s creativity and working method. In this episode, co-curators of this exhibition, Julian Brooks and Edina Adam, discuss the master and what we can learn from his works on paper.
For images, transcripts, and more, visit getty.edu/podcasts.
Art Curator: “Why Did Michelangelo Use Red Chalk?” (Getty Museum)
From The Iris (Getty Museum – April 17, 2020):
To work out the details of all the figures in pen and ink would have been extremely labor-intensive, and sharpening quills and mixing inks would’ve added an additional distraction. Drawing in chalk necessitated great skill, but it also allowed Michelangelo a flexibility. He could create subtle tonal variations by applying more or less pressure onto the chalk or by wetting it. The red chalk also provided an immediate mid-tone on the paper and could be easily blended when modeling and shading forms. Being a naturally occurring material that was available to artists in sticks that could be sharpened as desired, it was also convenient and portable.
During his lifetime, Michelangelo likely produced tens of thousands of drawings. But being protective of his ideas, and to give an impression of effortless genius, he destroyed many of them. Today only about 600 drawings by the Renaissance artist survive. A Getty exhibition highlighted 28 of them, giving viewers a window into Michelangelo’s artistic process. “He used drawings to record his observations, to explore certain ideas, to further develop these ideas, to reconsider them entirely,” said Assistant Curator Edina Adam.
The exhibition included a relatively high number of drawings in red chalk, which prompted the question: Why did Michelangelo use this particular drawing material?
Art History Videos: “Michelangelo – Mind Of The Master” (The Getty)
Take a visual journey into the mind of Michelangelo, a painter, sculptor, architect, draftsman, and one of the most creative and influential artists in the history of Western art. See how he used drawings to create, explore, and prepare for some of his most famous works of art. Produced for the J. Paul Getty Museum’s exhibition, “Michelangelo: Mind of the Master.” https://www.getty.edu/art/exhibitions…
Exhibitions: Press Preview Of “Michelangelo – Mind Of The Master” (The Getty)
A film by Eric Minh Swenson.
Michelangelo was one of the most creative and influential artists in the history of Western art. This exhibition explores the full range of his work as a painter, sculptor, and architect through more than two dozen of his extraordinary drawings, including designs for celebrated projects such as the Sistine Chapel ceiling, the Medici Chapel tombs, and The Last Judgment. These studies and sketches enable us to witness Michelangelo at work, and to experience firsthand his boundless creativity and his pioneering representation of the human form.
This exhibition has been organized by the Teylers Museum, Haarlem in collaboration with the J. Paul Getty Museum and The Cleveland Museum of Art. It is supported by an indemnity from the Federal Council on the Arts and the Humanities.
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