Leonardo arrived in Rome three days after his uncle's death. He had some difficulty in fulfilling Michelangelo's wish to be buried in his native town, as the Romans, who had conferred the citizenship on the artist, would not allow his body to be removed. At last the remains were smuggled out of Rome in a bale of merchandise and conveyed to Florence, where they were buried with great pomp and solemnity in the church of Santa Croce. For some unaccountable reason the group of the Pietà which Michelangelo had intended for his monument, was not placed over his tomb. The present very ugly monument was designed by Vasari at Leonardo's request. It bears the following inscription:
D. O. M.Michaeli AngeloBONAROTIOVetusta . Simoniorum . FamiliaSculptori . Pictori . et . ArchitectoFama . Omnibus . notissimoLeonardus . patruo . Amantiss . et . de . se . optime . meritoTranslatis . Roma . ejus . ossibus . atque . in . hoc . temploMajorum . suorum . sepulcro . conditisCohortante. Seren. Cosmo. Med. Magno. Etrur. Duce. p. c.Ann. Sal. M. D. LXXVixit. Ann. LXXXVIII. M. XI. D. XV.
Other monuments to Michelangelo exist in the church of the Santissimi Apostoli at Rome, and on the hill of San Miniato, overlooking Florence, which he so bravely defended. But the noblest monument of Michelangelo the artist are his undying works, and the highest praise of Michelangelo the man and the Christian is contained in these simple words of a contemporary, Scipione Ammirato, "During the ninety years of his life, and in spite of numberless temptations, Michelangelo never did or said anything that was not pure and great."
In the history of Art, Michelangelo stands isolated, a colossal figure looming terrible and majestic, a Titan towering far above the sons of men. Yet his was an age of giants. When Michelangelo came before the world the glorious tide of the Renaissance was still rising; sculpture and architecture had been brought to an unprecedented degree of excellence by such men as Lorenzo Ghiberti, Donatello and Brunelleschi, and following in Masaccio's footsteps, a host of great painters had successfully striven to renovate and perfect their art until it culminated in a Raphael. Leonardo da Vinci was already famous before Michelangelo had touched chisel or brush, but neither Leonardo's encyclopaedic achievements nor Raphael's meteorlike career can be regarded as the ultimate expression, the high-water mark of the Italian Renaissance.
In Michelangelo we behold the giant embodiment of the true spirit of that wonderful period, the synthesis of its various forms of beauty and perfection, the final manifestation of its aesthetic possibilities. When Art first shook off the trammels of mediaevalism, she was content to worship at the shrine of Truth; with Botticelli and Leonardo she passed into vague regions of poetry. Raphael touched a more human note, often soaring to sublime harmonies: with Michelangelo the Renaissance reached its fullest development, attaining to a spiritual height, an almost superhuman loftiness hitherto undreamt of. Other men had excelled in painting, in sculpture, or in architecture before him, but Michelangelo was the first to attain perfection in every branch of Art, and such was his strong creative individuality that he left nothing to which he applied himself at the same stage where he had found it, bringing every manifestation of Art to the highest degree of perfection of which it was capable, and crowning all with that glorious aureola of spiritual grandeur which is the most awe-inspiring characteristic of his works.
We have said that Michelangelo stands alone. Of other artists it is 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 hisBattle 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 theSleeping 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; theBacchus, hardly inferior to theDancing 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 magnificentignudiof 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 elsewhereMore 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 hisLast 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 thesubjecton 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 theHoly Familyand by his powerful but utterly unconventional treatment of the angels and saints in theLast 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 thePietÃwhich 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 concettoCh' un marmo solo in se' non circoscrivaCol suo soverchio; e solo a quello arrivaLa mano che ubbidisce all' intelletto.
Even such colossal works as theDavidwere 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.
CENTRAL GROUP OF THE LAST JUDGEMENT.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. TheHoly Family, now in the Uffizi, for instance, differs but little in treatment and composition, from the two marbletondiin the Bargello, and in the Royal Academy, and from what we know of the famousCartoon 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 theHoly 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 theMadonna and Childin the Buonarroti Collection and theSt. Johnin the Berlin Museum, bear evident traces of Donatello's influence; in theBattle of the CentaursandLapithaethe young artist already asserts his powerful individuality, and theBacchusshows how thoroughly he had become imbued with the spirit of antique art. It was not until he carved the deeply religious group of thePietÃthat he revealed his spiritual personality, while in theDavidwe are first confronted with thatterribilitawhich 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 theLast 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 theOrlandoand that of theAminta—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.
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 thePortraitnow 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 ofThe PietÃ, 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 absoluteabandonof death quite so pathetically as Michelangelo has done in thisDead 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 toThe PietÃ, 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.
THE PIETÀ.THE PIETÀ.
TheDavid, 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 hisPietÃhad 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 wordterribilitÃby his contemporaries, would have been replaced by the sombre majesty of theMoses, or the despairing expression of conquered, impotent strength which is the key-note to such works as the Medicean Tombs, the Louvre Captives, and theLast Judgment. Critics casting about for an artistic derivation of Michelangelo's earlier works maintain that theDavid'sface 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.
ThetondorepresentingThe Holy Family, now in the Tribuna of the Uffizi, is doubly interesting as a work of art and as an instance of Michelangelo's fearless originality. It was painted about the year 1503 for that Florentine merchant prince, Angelo Doni, who sat for his portrait to the divine Raphael. Although Signorelli had once before introduced nude figures as a decorative element in a Madonna and Child which he painted for Lorenzo de' Medici (and it is possible that Michelangelo saw this picture), no other artist of the Renaissance had ever dared to interpret a sacred subject such as the Holy Family in so Pagan a spirit. An ancient Greek would quite naturally have supposed the beautiful group in the foreground to represent Juno playing with the infant Bacchus, only wondering, perhaps, why the artist had neglected to place a garland of vine leaves and clustering grapes round the Wine God's curly head. St. Joseph might easily be taken for a momentarily uxorious Jupiter or for a sober Silenus, and the nude shepherds idling in the background place the scene in a pleasant corner of Arcadia, while a grinning little Faun does duty for St. John the Baptist.
Nevertheless there is not the slightest hint at irreverence; it is merely a Pagan translation, by a master hand, of an oft-repeated Christian theme, a transposition as beautiful and as harmonious in its way as the original score. Indeed, Vasari tells us that Michelangelo painted this strikingly originaltondomerely "to show his skill," and the magnificent modelling and foreshortening of the Madonna's arms, the masterful composition, and the wonderfully accurate drawing more than achieve his object. As to the colouring, he entirely disregarded it in his sculptor's pride. He might as well have carved this remarkable work in marble. Before painting the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, Michelangelo appeared to be wilfully colour-blind, as if afraid that painting would wile him away from the sister art, to which he had plighted his troth.
There is very little doubt that the original design of theCreation of Manwas inspired in Michelangelo by one of the antique gems which he admired as a boy in Lorenzo de' Medici's collection. A similar origin may be assigned to the group of Judith and her maid, also in the Sistine Chapel, to several of the Athletes, and to the Leda and the Swan which he painted for the Duke of Ferrara. But this magnificent recumbent figure of Adam far surpasses anything in ancient as well as in modern art, and is indeed a worthy centre round which the remaining stupendous compositions appear to gravitate like planets round the sun. It is here, more than in any other of his works, that we can appreciate Michelangelo's wonderful gift of interpreting the highest and most inaccessible themes in a simple yet imposing manner. Resting heavily on the curved surface of the globe, his powerful limbs and finely modelled flesh clearly outlined against the indigo blue of the sky and the solemn lines of the landscape, Adam gives one the impression of a huge primeval being instinct with strength which he is as yet unable to understand or to use, and just awaking into life, a divine spark of which he receives from the Deity. Michelangelo's conception of God the Father, as an old but powerful and majestic figure, has ever since remained the only possible pictorial symbol of so lofty a subject.
THE HOLY FAMILY.THE HOLY FAMILY.
Apart from its great artistic merit, a pathetic interest attaches to the statue ofMosesbecause it represents the last act of that tragedy of the tomb which darkened the greater part of Michelangelo's life, and influenced his art more than any other circumstance of his eventful career.
The leader and law-giver of the Hebrews is seated in an attitude of thought and wisdom, holding under his right arm the tables of the law, and supporting his chin with his left hand, like one tired and full of cares. His beard escapes in long waves between the fingers of his right hand. The hands and strong bare arms of theMosesare magnificent, beyond comparison the finest ever modelled by Michelangelo. The expression of the face is one of commanding power and almost fierce energy, a face capable of inspiring terror rather than love, a veritable embodiment of the cruel, uncompromising Hebrew legislation. The powerful, massive form is clearly apparent beneath the beautiful folds of the draperies, for here, as in all Michelangelo's clothed figures, whether in painting or in sculpture, dress does not hide but almost enhances the shape and beauty of the body. "This statue alone," exclaimed the Cardinal of Mantua, when he saw the finished work, "is enough to honour the memory of Pope Julius."
THE MOSES.THE MOSES.
In the Medicean tombs Michelangelo may be said to have equalled if not surpassed the masterpieces of ancient sculpture. We have selected the tomb of Lorenzo de' Medici for our illustration, as the statues which adorn it, symbolizingEveningandDawn, although conceived in the same spirit of profound melancholy, are, if possible, even more beautiful than the Day and Night of Giuliano's tomb.Eveningis represented by an old man, brooding and dejected, but hardly less powerful and muscular than the giant Day. It is evident that he is not suffering from bodily fatigue, but that he is sinking under the weight of some unbearable, irremediable calamity.
The virginDawnis perhaps the most beautiful female figure of modern or of ancient art. She is represented as only half awake and almost unable to rise from her couch, while there is a suggestion of ineffable bitterness in the expression of the face with its half-closed eyes wearily greeting another day of sorrow. The powerful yet graceful limbs are magnificently modelled, and the whole figure may be regarded as the perfection of the female form, redeemed from any breath of sensuality by a commanding loftiness of expression, such as the Greeks gave to the statues of their goddesses.
Michelangelo'sLast Judgmentis a work of so colossal a nature that it would be impossible to give even a remote idea of the whole composition in this unpretentious little book. We have therefore selected for our illustration the central group representing Christ the Judge, a dread figure enthroned on clouds, with hand upraised in an attitude of stern command, surrounded by the Blessed, who press round the Son of God with eager, frightened looks and gestures, as if hardly secure of their final salvation in that terrible day of retribution, "cum vix Justus sit securus." Nestling timorously close to her Son, half sitting, half crouching, with head averted, as if to avoid seeing the coming wrath, and arms crossed on her bosom, is the Mother of God, a wonderfully sweet and pathetic figure, full of pity and sorrow for the condemned souls, and contrasting strangely with the inexorable Judge rising in his stern majesty to pronounce sentence on the frightened, shuddering mass of humanity. The action of the Judge, and indeed every part of the composition, forcibly remind us of theLast Judgmentin the Campo Santo of Pisa, but there is not a figure or a detail in the whole of this colossal work which does not bear the imprint of that powerful originality and that wonderful gift to express the most varied emotion and to interpret the loftiest themes, which were the principal characteristics of Michelangelo's genius.
AUSTRIA-HUNGARY
VIENNA, ALBERTINA GALLERY.
Several drawings and sketches.
BELGIUM
BRUGES, CHURCH OF ST. BAVON.
Marble group of Virgin and Child. (Executed at Carrara in 1506 for two Flemish merchants.)
BRITISH ISLES
LONDON, NATIONAL GALLERY.
No. 790, Entombment. Unfinished painting on wood. (Between 1501-1504.)
ROYAL ACADEMY, DIPLOMA GALLERY.
Madonna and Child. Tondo bas-relief (1501-1504).
LONDON, BRITISH MUSEUM.
Several drawings.
OXFORD, TAYLOR COLLECTION.
Drawings.
FRANCE
PARIS, LOUVRE.
Two colossal statues of Captives, originally intended for the tomb of Julius II. (1513).
Numerous drawings, including Head of Faun.
LILLE, MUSÉE WICAR.
Drawings.
GERMANY
BERLIN MUSEUM.
Statue of youthful St. John the Baptist (about 1495).
WEIMAR MUSEUM.
Drawings and studies for the Last Judgment.
HOLLAND
HAARLEM, TEYLER MUSEUM.
Many important drawings.
ITALY
BOLOGNA, CHURCH OF SAN DOMENICO.
Statue of kneeling Angel (1494).
FLORENCE, ACCADEMIA.
Colossal statue of David (1501-1504).
Statue of St. Matthew (unfinished).
BUONARROTI COLLECTION.
Madonna and Child (bas-relief), 1489-1492.
Fight between Centaurs and Lapithae (bas-relief), 1489-1492.
Numerous sketches, studies, architectural drawings and three hundred autograph letters.
DUOMO.
Unfinished group representing "The Deposition from the Cross."
MUSEO NAZIONALE.
Statue of Bacchus (executed in 1497 for Jacopo Galli).
Dying Adonis (1501-1504).
Apollo (unfinished statue, executed in 1530 for Baccio Valori).
Victory (group intended for Julius II.'s Tomb, 1521).
Bust of Brutus (1544?).
CHURCH OF SAN LORENZO.
Medicean Tombs (begun 1521).
New Sacristy and Library of San Lorenzo.
UFFIZI GALLERY.
The Holy Family (tondo in oil-colours, painted for Angelo Doni in 1503).
Numerous drawings, includingThe Resurrection of Lazarus,Prudence, theLast Judgment.
BOBOLI GARDENS.
Four Slaves (unfinished statues).
ROME, ST. PETER'S.
Group of La Pietà (1499).
CHURCH OF SANTA MARIA SOPRA MINERVA.
Statue of the Saviour (1521).
CHURCH OF SAN PIETRO IN VINCOLI.
Tomb of Julius II. and statue of Moses (completed 1545).
VATICAN, SISTINE CHAPEL.
The Creation and Fall of Man (1508-1512). }} Frescos.The Last Judgment (1535-1541). }
PAULINE CHAPEL.
The Conversion of St. Paul. } Frescoes} (1542-49).The Martyrdom of St. Peter. }
CHISWICK PRESS: PRINTED BY CHARLES WHITTINGHAM AND CO.TOOKS COURT, CHANCERY LANE, LONDON.