Christian Art and Iconography Guide: Michelangelo

The fabulous rputation that has gathered about Michelangelo serves often to obscure his personality,and biographies frequently suffer from this fault.Howard Hibbard has preferred to go back to original sources to explain an universal output which defies a facile classification.It is a happy chance that there exist many first-hand documents,for we have nearly 500 letters of Michelangelo's writing, and some 300 poems,frequently autobiographical in nature.There are also the drawings and sketches,often depicting the progress in the creation of the paintings and the sculptures.Thanks to a completely novel viewpoint,solidly butressed by these documents,the author has succeeded in bringing the real personality of Michelangelo to life,and shows him as being closer to our times,more "modern",than is generally realised. A wealth of illustration,carefully chosen,underlines and supports Howard Hibbard's thesis,and makes this book both a reference work and a prestigious artbook.

In the first comprehensive attempt to study the relationships between the Bruges Madonna and the Piccolomini Altar,Mr. Mancusi-Ungaro advances the theory that Michelangelo had hoped to offer the Madonna as an alternative in the plan for the Piccolomini Altar,but succumbed to the temptation of a larger payment from the Mouscron,a firm of Flemish merchants.The idea that the Madonna was intended to replace three figures specified in the first contract has been suggested before,but the author is the first to document completely,with English translations,the relationship of the two works.Also, by using relevant entries from the account books of the Balducci brothers,Michelangelo's bankers in Rome and his personal friends,the author has been able to clear up discrepancies in amounts and dates of transactions.

In "Michelangelo and hi art",John Furse provides a strightforward and perceptive introduction to the work of the greatest of all Florentine artists,Michelangelo di Lodovico di Buonarroti.

This is the only edition containing illustrations of all the master's works apart from the drawings. Many photographs are being used for the first time and many more have not appeared in earlier Phaidon books on Michelangelo. This new volume is designed to satisfy both the general art-lover and the student. The fine quality of the reproductions and the beauty of the details will be appreciated by those who merely need a more accessible proof of Michelangelo's greatness as a creator; while for those concerned with the problems inherent in his works, there is a concise text in which the opinions of all the leading scholars are surveyed and a commentary with bibliographical notes is also provided. In all respects, therefore, we feel that we are justified in presenting this volume as an indispensable and standard work on one of the greatest masters of all times.

The whole development of Michelangelo's art closely reflects the evolution of his character and convictions:this accounts for its extraordinary homogeneity.But,partly because of the styleless immediacy of the unfinished works,it nevertheless has a timeless and universal quality.To its changing character the history of art owes not only the supreme consummation of the Italian Renaissance,but also an extension of the expressive language of painting,sculpture and architechture that is not remotely anticipated by the Renaissance and only seldom as fully exploited since.

Professor Valerio Mariani, of the University of Naples,is a well-known authority on Michelangelo.He has written a text that accounts fully for the circumstances of Michelangelo's great paintings,and interprets these vast works for the reader in many ways.He has added a chronology and bibliography for the reader's convenience,and includes full-page illustrations of the artist's drawings,many in color,that enrich our comprehension of Michelangelo's lasting genius.

A fresh perspective on one of the world's most famous statues - Michelangelo's marble David of 1501-04 - emerges from this study by a noted art historian.To give insight into how the colossal statue was conceived, Charles Seymour, Jr., reconstructs the state of mind of the young Michelangelo, and the complex, fascinating texture of his times. The reader is taken by easy steps from an introduction to Florentine thought and its symbolism in Renaissance sculpture, through a detailed analysis of the documentary evidence surrounding the statue's commissioning in the fifteenth century, to an evaluation of its meaning to Michelangelo. An underlying theme is the importance of a public art that expresses civic ideals, not only for Renaissance Italy but potentially for our own times.

This book presents the dramatic story behind the creation of one of the greatest sculptural masterpieces of all time-Michelangelo's inspired solution to the technical problems pesented by his evolutionary concept of the Pieta,his difficulty in obtaining the block of flawless white Carrara marble,the privations he suffered while working on it, and its secret midnight installation in St.Peter's.

The awe with wich the men of the Renaissance regarded Michelangelo has indeed a mythical ring.Thus had mortals been perturbed by the visits of gods in times to which the imagination of the Renaissance liked to look back.Long before Michelangelo painted the terrors of the "Last Judgement",Sebastiano could write about his "terribilita".It appeared in "Bacchus" and the cartoon of the "Bathing Soldiers no less clearly than in the "Creation" scenes of the Sistine ceiling or in the "Moses".It had nothing to do with expression if one takes the word in its ordinary sense.A tragic,a pathetic feeling is found in most of Michelangelo's works,yet the cartoon in which such sentiment is almost absent impressed the young generation of Florentine artists at least as deeply asany preceding work.They called it divine-the word was not so worn out then as in Vasari's time.In every line the cartoon gave a feeling of finality,as inevitable as fate;was it in this sense that Sebastiano used the expression terribilita?The awe which Michelangelo's art undoubtedly inspired would then have been the tribune due an artist who had penetrated more deeply into the structure of Nature than even Leonardo or Raphael.

Since Vatican II, many a Catholic worshiper has wondered, "What in heaven's name is going on?" Although it has been 30 years since such rumblings began, the cumulative effect on the rubrics has dislodged and depressed as many as have been encouraged and stimulated. Thomas Day laments the loss of soul in the music and style of Catholic services, and the changes in church interiors, as well. Indiscriminate abolishment of spoken and musical Latin has created a trend of turgid, unknown hymns that the community seldom welcomes. Costly and often unnecessary changes in church interiors--such as slanting pews and the replacement of baptistries with large pools--are just some of the cultural shocks that have been promulgated. Day believes that ethnic chauvinism--whether African American or Irish or Polish--should not wipe out the culture of centuries. Changes have affected not only doctrine but the beauty of worship itself. Day's book is an eloquent plea for that art and soul necessary to sustain beauty.

The 167 Pietas illustrated here reveal a diversity that will surprise those for whom Michelangelo's Pieta has become an overpowering icon.Most intriguing are the inventive portrayals o the Virgin's emotional state; often she is viewed as caught up in the horror of the moment,but she is also shown praying or even gazing into the distance,as if contemplating comforting memories or the reunion to come.Her demeanor ranges from youthful innocence-the Purity that Time cannot age-to careworn maturity-Our Lady of Sorrows.There are further variations caused by regional differences in style,facial features,and clothing.
All of these characteristics are examined in depth in five chapters,each devoted to a particular French region.The author has arranged the sculptures within each chapter according to their relationship with each other and in sequences that suggest the evolution o the style.In addition to photographs,which include details and comparisons with other sculptures,each chapter has a map locating the Pietas under discussion.The sixth chapter summarizes the influences that flowed back and forth across France until a national style emerged,in response to the Italian Renaissance,and caused the regional variations to disappear.
The catalogue provides summary information about more than 1,250 Pietas,which are arranged alphabetically by location.

In seven authoritative essays,"The Sistine Chapel" examines the many new discoveries made possible by the restoration. A look at Rome during the Renaissance by Andre Chastel places Michelangelo's images in the Sistine Chapel in historical context. John Shearman traces the history of the Sistine Chapel, focusing on its functional and ceremonial purposes and the roles of the papal rulers. John O'malley helps us to understand the significance of the artist's work as an expression of Christian theology. Pierluigi Vecchi recounts how The Last Judgement mural came to be painted some twenty years after the completion of the lunettes and ceiling. Armed with new evidence from the restoration, Michael Hirst sheds new light on the surviving fragments of Michelangelo's sketchbook from this period. Fabrizio Mancinelli relate how the restoration has provided definitive answers to unsolved problems such as the type of scaffolding designed and used by Michelangelo. Remnants of the original scaffolding were uncovered during the restoration of the lunettes and were not only used as the foundation for the new scaffolding, but provide positive proof that Michelangelo did not paint the ceiling lying on his back but rather standing up. Gianluigi Colalucci describes in detail the hands-on methods used to clean the frescoes. "The Sistine Chapel" is a record of this enormous undertaking,truly a labor-of-love, whose profound impact on the history of art will be enjoyed and revered for many generations to come.

"It would be difficult to exaggerate the value of the present volume,or even,in a short review,to enumerate its outstanding virtues.Every conceivable aspect of the Sistine murals,every problem connected with the paintings and the life of their creator,is analyzed and discussed with reference to the ceiling as a whole."-Thomas Craven,in New York Herald Tribune.

"Michelangelo and The Pope's Ceiling" recounts the fascinating story of the four extraordinary years he spent laboring over the twelve thousand square feet of the vast ceiling while the power politics and personal rivalries that abounded in Rome swirled around him.Contrary to legend,he neither worked alone nor on his back:He and his hand-picked assistants stood bending backward on a special scaffold he designed for the purpose.Battling against ill health,financial difficulties,domestic and family problems,and the pope's impatience,Michelangelo created scenes-including The Creation,The Temptation,and The Flood-so beautiful that,when they were unveiled in 1512,they stunned onlookers.In the end,he produced one of the greatest masterpieces of all time,about which Giorgio Vasari,in his Lives of the Artists,wrote,"There is no other work to compare with this for excellence,nor could there be"

In this book, the overwhelming beauty of the Sistine Ceiling frescoes is captured in nearly three hundred photographs taken by Takashi Okamura. The reader can pore over views of the entire Ceiling, individual panels showing such scenes as the Creation of Adam and the Deluge,and detail after gorgeous detail of prophets, sibyls, nudes, and other stunning figures. Accompanying the photographs are nine authoritative essays by an international group of scholars and other experts who examine a wide variety of issues raised by the restoration: the fresco-painting techniques Michelangelo employed; his use of color to create three dimensional form; the question of work done by assistants; the role of drawings and a study of Michelangelo's drafting techniques; the meaning of the images and the expressive ability of the many poses the figures assume. Also included are a chapter on the construction of the Chapel, which incorporates new information gained during the cleaning, and one on the restoration, currently underway, of Michelangelo's "Last Judgement".

Though many art historians opposed the restoration,believing that Michelangelo was a somber artist who worked in dark and muted colors,the endeavor pesents frescoes that are gloriously vivid,setting the chapel aglow with their brilliance.In addition,they provide new insights about Michelangelo's brushtroke techniques,and add more informaation to a centuries-old debate over how he worked with the wet plaster surface of the frescoes.
Written with Gianluigi Colalucci, the technical overseer of the restoration,the text provides an intimate understanding of this masterpiece of Renaissance art.It explains the various forensic studies carried out in the course of the project,the pragmatic concerns of the restoration,and the many problems of historical approach that were confronted.This volume,including remarkable new pictures of the Chapel frescoes,belongs in the libraries of every art historian and student of the Italian Renaissance.