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The Strange Case of the Young Michelangelo

2013; Boston University; Volume: 21; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1353/arn.2013.0022

2327-6436

Paul Barolsky,

History of Medicine Studies

The Strange Case of the Young Michelangelo PAUL BAROLSKY Over half a millennium after Michelangelo achieved great fame and glory, the early development of the artist who fashioned such monumental works as the statue of David, the Sistine ceiling decoration, and the dome of St. Peter’s still remains something of a mystery.1 Although Michelangelo might have been active as early as the late 1480s, when he was with Ghirlandaio, it was not until after he worked under the patronage of the Medici and after he travelled, in 1496, to Rome—where he carved his spectacular Bacchus, followed by his even more amazing Pietà a few years later—that he achieved a kind of unprecedented distinction. We might even go so far as to say that it was only then, in the mid-to-late nineties, that Michelangelo became the “Michelangelo” who would come to be so widely admired—indeed, regarded with awe. The artist who, in the first eight to ten years of his activity, painted or carved a variety of works attributed to him either by his sixteenth-century biographers or by modern scholars does not appear by any stretch of the imagination to be extraordinary . He was no child prodigy. Even when Lorenzo il Magnifico was said to have discovered Michelangelo working on the marble head of a Faun in the Medici gardens—he was around fifteen at the time—praise was qualified. Lorenzo did not simply marvel at the work but rather he marveled how remarkable the work was for one so young. You could say that Michelangelo showed great promise. We might see in one of Michelangelo’s first works a facial expression, posture, or other feature that makes us think ahead to his later greater works; or vice versa, something in the later works recalls an aspect of the early. No matter. arion 21.1 spring/summer 2013 Those pieces of Michelangelo’s early years are aesthetically unexceptional. They take on special interest mostly because they are seen as the efforts of an artist who developed into greatness. Had Michelangelo died at the age of twenty in 1495, he would be forgotten today or overlooked. The twenty-year-old Michelangelo was a minor figure in the history of art. No matter which combination of works is attributed to the young artist (and there is plenty of controversy), none of these works can be seen as great art. And in truth, it does not appear that Michelangelo enthusiasts have ever seriously made the case that any of the early works attributed are major works, whatever their other, limited virtues might be. Moreover , as I’ve adverted, the matter of attribution is unsettled. When we talk about these early works, we are considering the following: the copy of Schongauer’s Temptation of Saint Anthony in the Kimbell Art Museum; the Madonna of the Steps and the Battle of the Lapiths and the Centaurs (both in the Casa Buonarroti); the unfinished Madonna and Child with Saint John and Angels in the National Gallery in London; the Archer from the Cultural Services Building of the French Embassy in New York; the cluster of figures (an angel, Saint Proculus, and Saint Petronius) in the Basilica of San Domenico in Bologna; and the Crucifix in Santo Spirito in Florence. There is no point in considering here the lost works attributed to Michelangelo by his sixteenth-century biographers , since we do not know very much about them: for example, the Cupid that was buried in Rome and was good enough to trick people into believing it was an ancient work. Besides, it is hard to argue that a skillful forgery is a masterpiece , especially since it is a copy, not an original design. Further, in dealing with Michelangelo’s early works, I will offer a few suggestions that will hint at my predisposition to accept or reject an attribution. But such suggestions are by no means conclusive, and so I remain in many cases in a state of dubitation. the strange case of the young michelangelo 104 Three works loosely associated with Michelangelo in the past have recently received a great deal of attention: the Saint Anthony in Texas, the...