Art Eyewitness Essay: The Etruscans and Ancient Art

The Etruscans and Ancient Art
An Art Eyewitness Essay, Part I

By Ed Voves

The word "mysterious" is often used to describe the Etruscans. These ancient people, who lived in central Italy, certainly offer many features of their way of life and religion which are difficult to interpret or explain. Yet, there is nothing essentially "mysterious" about the Etruscans.

The Etruscans were not an Indo-European people as were the Greek and Romans. They emerged, as a group of prosperous city-states at the end of the "Dark Age" following the fall of the Bronze Age civilizations, 1200-900 B.C.

Basing their power and wealth on huge reserves of iron ore and copper, the Etruscans traded readily with the Greeks and the Phoenicians. Masters at adaptation, as we will discuss, the Etruscans borrowed artistic motifs when these struck their fancy, rejected those that didn't and maintained a distinctive cultural style for almost five hundred years, 750 to 300 B.C.

Appliqué depicting the Sun God Usil, 500–475 B.C. © Getty Museum 

Unlike other non-Indo-Europeans, such as the Finns and Hungarians, the Etruscan language has yet to be traced to its origins. But the same is true of the Basques, another non-Indo-European people. There is no link, however, between the Basques and the Etruscans, further heightening the "mystery" of the latter.

One of the truly perplexing aspects about the Etruscans is the scarcity of museum exhibitions dealing with their remarkable civilization. In 1985, cultural officials in Italy proclaimed the "Year of the Etruscans." A full-slate of exhibitions was organized but, to the best of my knowledge, none traveled to the United States. Although I have been on the lookout for a major exhibit on the Etruscans over the last decade or more, I have yet to spot one.

I have done a good bit of reading about the Etruscans, notably Michael Grant's authoritative 1980 account. But there is no substitute for looking at art!

Fortunately, several museums in the U.S. have magnificent collections of Etruscan art and artifacts. It was at the Museum of Fine Arts (MFA) in Boston that I first encountered the Etruscans in 1986. Since then, visits to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the University of Pennsylvania Museum and several other art collections have enabled me to study the rise of the Etruscans and their "fall" to the power of Rome.

In the autumn of 1986, I made a brief trip to Boston to see some friends. I decided to visit the MFA to view their great collection of European paintings only to discover that the European wing was being renovated. This left me with time to explore the rest of the museum but once I entered the galleries for ancient art, I stayed there for the rest of the day.

Etruscan sarcophagi from the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston © MFA Boston

There I discovered the Etruscans. Two burial structures - sarcophagi - gripped my imagination - and have never let go. 

These stone coffins testify to the Etruscan focus on death and the afterlife. Discovered during the 1840's, both had been created for members of the same family. The sarcophagus on the right (above) is inscribed with the names "Thanchvil Tarnai and her husband Larth Tetnies, son of Arnth Tetnies and Ramtha Vishnai." Scholars believe that the couple on the older, less-finely sculpted, sarcophagus are the named parents, Arnth Tetnies and Ramtha Vishnai.

Deciphering Etruscan writing is no small feat, as I will briefly comment on below. However important, these details about the powerful Tetnies clan are less significant than the overwhelming sensation of sharing in the spiritual lives of people long dead. This was very palpable to me, when I found myself in their "presence" back in 1986.

What is portrayed on each sarcophagus lid is the "eternal embrace." Here we see two human beings who shared life and love during their distant era. They are united in death but also in everlasting life. It is worth noting that the equality in the relative size, husband and wife, reflects the fact that women in Etruscan society enjoyed social freedoms far beyond those of their counterparts in Athens during the late fourth to early third century B.C.

Etruscan Bronze Chariot, 6th century B.C © Metropolitan Museum of Art

A similar "stand-out" Etruscan experience comes by way of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The Monteleone Chariot has been a fixture of the Met since 1903 and I never cease to marvel at it during my many visits to that wonderful museum.

The Monteleone Chariot was made early in the sixth century B.C., at the height of Etruscan power. The Etruscans were formidable warriors, but generally fought on foot. Chariots were used for ceremonies and celebrations of war victories. However, the era of the chariot's construction also witnessed the first stirring of Rome. Rising in revolt, the Romans cast out their Etruscan king, Tarquinius, in 507 B.C. Etruscan victory parades were to diminish in number as the Republic of Rome grew in power.

The bronze metalwork of the chariot was mounted on a wooden frame. Except for a tell-tale fragment of oak, none of the timber survived the long centuries during which the chariot rested in an underground tomb. Unearthed by accident in 1902, it was quickly purchased by Italian art dealers. The first director of the Metropolitan Museum, Luigi de Cesnola, was a well-connected archaeologist and he bought the chariot  - legally - before the Italian government could intervene.

Detail of Etruscan Bronze Chariot © Metropolitan Museum of Art

This spectacular bronze vehicle is decorated with scenes from the life of the Greek hero, Achilles. The front of the chariot car shows Achilles receiving a new set of armor, helmet and shield from his mother Thetis. With this battle gear, Achilles will fight his famous duel with the Trojan hero, Hektor. 

The artistic style of the chariot's Achilles motifs is an almost pure example of Greek-Archaic era art. Some scholars have speculated that the chariot might have been made in one of the Greek colonies of southern Italy and then sold or sent as a gift to the Etruscans. However, the Etruscans greatly favored the Archaic style in their own art, so much so that they retained it even after the Greeks had innovated more natural and humanistic representation during the fifth century B.C.

Bronze Statuette of a Young Woman, 6th century B.C. 

© Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Etruscans borrowed widely from the Greek merchants and city-state builders in southern Italy and Sicily. The Etruscans also maintained close trading and cultural relationships with the Phoenicians, so much that their ethnic origins have been frequently - and  mistakenly - traced to the Middle East. Yet, the Etruscans'  basic attitudes to life and the after-life, society and eternity, were formed long before the interaction with seafarers from Greece and the Phoenician city-states began in earnest during the seventh century B.C. 

Of the Etruscans, Michael Grant wrote:

They were temperamentally different from the Greeks, and in consequence had different needs and customs... Far from requiring the delineations of the human body, whether idealized or realistic, the Etruscans' own conception of art involved highly formalized, dream-like patterns, and sometimes, grotesquely caricatured exaggerations and elongations. The balances and proportions, the clear frameworks and logical formal principles that were the essential features of Attic classicism held no interest for them at all.

The Etruscans also adapted the Greek alphabet for their unique language. Since the Greeks had done the same, borrowing the Phoenician lettering system, this cultural transfer does not denote a failure on the part of the Etruscans to innovate or create for themselves.

Terracotta Vase in the Shape of a Cockerel, ca. 650–600 B.C.

 © Metropolitan Museum of Art

One of the most delightful - and significant - Etruscan artifacts in the Met's collection is a small vase, inscribed with the twenty-six letters of the Etruscan alphabet. It almost certainly was an ink bottle since the head acts as a stopper and could be attached to the bird’s body by a cord. The missing tail, curving downward to form a third foot, would have kept the ink bottle from tipping over.

Detail of Terracotta Vase in the Shape of a Cockerel

© Metropolitan Museum of Art

When the Etruscans adapted the Greek alphabet for their own use, the process followed the same pattern as their incorporation of elements of Greek art. The Etruscans found writing a key tool in managing their expanding trade with Greek and Phoenician merchants and with their Latin neighbors and subjects. Literacy, likewise, was valued for its uses in religious practices, the Etruscans being notably devoted to the rituals and traditions honoring their gods.

This emphasis on putting their faith into practice may account for the large number of "speaking objects" which record the names of Etruscans in association with specific artifacts. These inscriptions are likely to have been written, painted or incised on objects of value to record the names of donors of gifts to Etruscan temples. 

Terracotta inscribed Alabastron, ca. 600 B.C. © Metropolitan Museum

 

Alternatively, inscribing one's name on a precious commodity like the perfume vessel or alabastron (above) might also signify that it was a high-status present (or bribe) to an influential person who might need to be reminded who the gift was "speaking" for. In the case of this alabasteron from the Met's collection, it is incised on the rim with the words "I am the gift of Licinius Hirsunaie."

The Etruscan alphabet undoubtedly played a large role in the transactions of a collaborative religious "league' or council which was held once a year at a sacred site called the Fanum Voltumnae. 

The Etruscans, however, never developed any comparable degree of political unity. The individual Etruscan city-states made alliances with the Greeks and with the Phoenicians, based in Carthage, but seldom cooperated among themselves. In 396 B.C., the Roman Republic launched a devastating assault on Veii, one of the leading Etruscan cities. Despite the fact that the Romans had been besieging Veii for years, none of the other Etruscan city-states made any effort to assist Veii. The destruction of Veii marked the first great military victory of Rome - and the eventual downfall of Etruscan civilization.

This lack of political unity among the Etruscans is reflected in the lack of evidence that they composed sophisticated works of history or philosophy as did the Greeks and Romans. Nothing of their literature, such as it was, has survived - only a mass of inscriptions, most of which are still undeciphered.

Long after the Etruscan city states fell under the hegemony of Rome, the Emperor Claudius (10 B.C.-54 A.D) wrote a twenty-volume history of the Etruscans but sadly it was not preserved. Had this tome by Claudius survived, it would likely have included a sermon or two reproving the Etruscans for their love of the "good life." 

The Etruscans did indulge themselves in golden jewelry and prestige imported goods from Greece and the Middle East. They became supremely gifted goldsmiths themselves, making it often difficult to tell if spectacular works such as the golden bracelet (below) were imported or made in an Etruscan workshop. 

Gold Votive Bracelet, ca. 675 B.C.-650 B.C. © British Museum

This bracelet, one of a pair in the collection of the British Museum, is a classic example of the "orientalizing" influence of the Phoenicians on the Etruscans, and the Greeks, too, which  occurred during the seventh century B.C. Close inspection of the bracelet shows designs of a "Master of Animals" flanked by lions  and three women, each grasping a tree-like plant. These motifs are clearly of Phoenician or Syrian origin but the bracelet could well have been made by an Etruscan craftsman.

Detail of Gold Votive Bracelet, ca. 675 B.C.-650 B.C. © British Museum

We have vivid evidence of the Etruscan love of the "good life" in the spectacular tomb paintings which have been preserved. These rare surviving paintings show how the Etruscans viewed life after death as a continuation of the delights of this life.

"Tomb of the Leopards," Tarquina, Univ.of Michigan Art Images 

Depictions of feasting and revelry on the walls of Etruscan tombs appealed mightily to modern-day writers and artists. So too, did the Etruscans' quirky, unconventional rejection of "Golden-age" Greek classicism. D.H. Lawrence wrote that "if you love the odd spontaneous forms that are never to be standardized, go to the Etruscans,"

Alberto Giacometti was certainly one of the premier twentieth century artists who heeded Lawrence's advice. Giacometti closely studied ancient art, as was noted in the major retrospective held at the Guggenheim Museum in 2018. The elongation of such Etruscan works as the third century bronze now called "Shadow of the Evening" was such an influence on Giacometti's signature figures that it might seem too obvious to merit commentary here.

 (Top) "Shadow of the Evening" Statue, Volterra, 3rd century B.C.

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2018) Alberto Giacometti's The Chariot, 1950

The close artistic affinity of Giacometti's The Chariot for "Shadow of the Evening" should not distract us from grasping the creative process displayed in both. Each of these works confirms Lawrence's appraisal of the Etruscan rejection of "standardization" in favor of an art aesthetic of their own.  And just as Etruscan artists adapted Greek and Phoenician art to suit their practice, so did Giacometti respond to the Etruscans. The result in both cases was a strikingly unusual and appealing work of art.

The Etruscan achievement in the visual arts is too vast to be properly treated in a short essay like this. I plan to follow with further essays, focusing on aspects of Etruscan art such as their masterful Bucchero pottery which was popular throughout the ancient world. 

For the present, let us conclude with Michael Grant's assessment of Etruscan art:

Uninterested in the classical principles of propriety, they went all out to capture the instant, unrepeatable visual flash... In a world of overpowering divine forces, what had gone before or would come after did not interest their artists. Instead, they expressed the world of their imaginings by inconsequential improvisations, characterized by force and fantasy and charm.

***

Text: Copyright of Ed Voves. Original Photo: Anne Lloyd. All rights reserved                                                                                           

Images courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Introductory Image:

Terracotta Statue of a Young Woman, late 4th century B.C. Terracotta H. 29 /7/16 (74.8 cm) Metropolitan Museum of Art. purchased with Rogers Fund, 1916. #16:141 © The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Appliqué depicting the Sun God Usil, 500–475 B.C. Bronze: 20.7 × 16.5 cm, 1340 g (8 1/8 × 6 1/2 in., 2.9542 lb.). Getty Museum # 2017.126 © The J. Paul Getty Museum, Villa Collection, Malibu, California

Sarcophagus and Lid with Portraits of Husband and Wife, from Vulci, late 4th–early 3rd century B.C. Volcanic tuff stone: Height : 88 cm (34 5/8 in.); width: 73 cm (28 3/4 in.); length: 210 cm (82 11/16 in.). Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Museum purchase with funds by exchange from a Gift of Mr. & Mrs. Cornelius C. Vermeule III. #1975.799

Sarcophagus and Lid with Husband and Wife, from Vulci, 350–300 B.C. Travertine stone: Height: 93.3 cm.(36 3/4 in.); width: 117.4 cm. (46 1/4 in.); length: 213.8 cm  (84 3/16 in.) Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Museum purchase with funds donated by Mrs. Gardner Brewer & by contribution & the Benjamin Pierce Cheney Donation. #86.145a-b

Etruscan Bronze Chariot inlaid with Ivory, 2nd quarter of the 6th century B.C. Bronze, ivory: H. 51 9/16 in. (130.9 cm), length of pole 82 1/4 in. (209 cm). Metropolitan Museum of Art. purchased with Rogers Fund, 1903. #:03.23.1 © The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Bronze Statuette of a Young Woman, late 6th century B.C. Bronze: H. 11 9/16 in. (29.4 cm). Metropolitan Museum of Art. Gift of J. Pierpont Morgan, 1917. #17.190.2066 © Metropolitan Museum of Art

Terracotta Vase in the Shape of a Cockerel, ca. 650–600 B.C. Terracotta bucchero ware: H. 4 1/16 in. (10.31 cm). Metropolitan Museum of Art. Fletcher Fund, 1924. #24.97.21a,b   © The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Detail of Terracotta Vase in the Shape of a Cockerel, showing the Etruscan alphabet. © The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Terracotta inscribed Alabastron (perfume vase), ca. 600 B.C. Terracotta: H. 5 5/16 in. (13.5 cm) Metropolitan Museum of Art. Fletcher Fund, 1926.  #26.60.94

Gold votive bracelet, ca. 675  B.C.-650 B.C. One of Pair, likely found in Palestrina,Italy, Galeassi Tomb.  Gold -  granulation, embossed, stamped: Length: 18.50 centimetres (excl. head and clasp); Weight: 419 grammes; Width: 5.60 centimetres.British Museum. #1872,0604.699 and #1872.6-4.700. © The Trustees of the British Museum

Detail of Gold votive bracelet, ca. 675  B.C.-650 B.C., showing designs of a "Master of Animals" flanked by lions  and three women, each grasping a tree-like plant

"Tomb of the Leopards," detail of banqueting scene, Tarquinia, Italy. University of Michigan Art Images for College Teaching. #ETR 108.  

Etruscan Statue (Modern name - "Ombra della sera" or "Shadow of the Evening"), 3rd century B.C. Bronze: 57.5 cm (about 22.6 inches) Guarnacci Museum of Volterra https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f5/Ombra_della_Sera_Volterra.jpg

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2018) Alberto Giacometti's The Chariot, 1950. Bronze on wood base: 65 3/4 x 27 3/16 x 27 3/16 inches (167x 69 x 69 cm) 

Michelangelo: Divine Draftsman and Designer at the Metropolitan Museum of Art

Michelangelo: Divine Draftsman and Designer

Metropolitan Museum of Art
November 13, 2017–February 12, 2018

Reviewed by Ed Voves

Michelangelo: Divine Draftsman and Designer joins a long list of landmark exhibitions at Metropolitan Museum of Art. These exhibits do far more than just present great works of art for us to enjoy.  New insights, sometimes revolutionary in their implications, emerge from the Met exhibitions.

Many of these exhibits, like Michelangelo: Divine Draftsman and Designer, appeared in the Tisch Galleries on the second floor of the Met. I have been privileged to see quite of few of them over the years and to review the more recent ones in Art Eyewitness.

To name but a few: Byzantium: Faith and Power (2004), Impressionism, Fashion, and Modernity (2013) and Ancient Egypt Transformed: The MIddle Kingdom (2015). These brilliant exhibits transformed the Tisch Galleries into portals to the past and to the living essence of art. 

Michelangelo: Divine Draftsman and Designer does no less.  However, the exhibit curator, Dr. Carmen Bambach, faced a seemingly impossible obstacle which her colleagues generally do not encounter. Michelangelo's greatest masterpieces do not travel.

David, "Il Gigante," cannot be loaned to museums like the Metropolitan. Nor can The Pieta - though it was sent over from the Vatican for the 1964 New York World's Fair.To view the statue, art lovers stood on a conveyor-belt like the moving walkway between the East and West buildings of the National Gallery in Washington, D.C. That permitted about a 45 second look at The Pieta.

With Michelangelo's "greatest hits" off-limits, Dr. Bambach focused on what was available. In an epic eight year quest, she secured the loan of several smaller sculptures, a very good copy of The Last Judgement, much reduced in scale, a splendid selection of Michelangelo's drawings and a number of contrasting art works by other Renaissance artists.Two hundred pieces of art are on view, the greatest number of works by Michelangelo ever presented in a single exhibition.

Michelangelo, Three Labours of Hercules, 1530–33

Royal Collection Trust © Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, 2017

With these drawings - and a "special effects" masterstroke - Dr. Bambach has curated a comprehensive and readily comprehensible introduction to the life of Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475-1564).

Michelangelo is known to have burned many of his drawings toward the end of his life and was only prevented from destroying more by the art historian, Giorgio Vasari. But the great Florentine would have approved of an exhibition which emphasizes the importance of disegno or drawing. Disegno was the foundation of Michelangelo's art and life.

“Draw Antonio," Michelangelo wrote to his studio assistant, Antonia Mini. "Draw and don't waste time.” 

Mini did not waste any time selling the trove of drawings that Michelangelo had given him to inspire his practice of disegno. Deeply in debt, Mini sold the drawings, ironically insuring that they would survive to bear witness to Michelangelo's rise to greatness.

Michelangelo learned the basics of art in the workshop of Domenico Ghirlandaio (1448/49–1494). Several of Ghirlandaio's sketches are on view in the opening gallery, along with early efforts by Michelangelo. Ghirlandaio was a master of the fresco technique in painting and the main thrust of his desegno was to prepare the images to be painted in his frescoes.

Michelangelo must have profited by working with Ghirlandaio but he claimed to have taught himself art.There is some truth to that claim as Michelangelo's drawings have a sustained power and insight that Ghirlandaio's seldom match. 

Michelangelo, Portrait of Andrea Quaratesi, 1532

Michelangelo's Portrait of Andrea Quaratesi, created in black chalk in 1532, is one of the finest Renaissance character studies, matching the best of Hans Holbein's similar works. 

After a bit more than a year,1488-89, Michelangelo left Ghirlandaio's studio to survey the art collection of Lorenzo da Medici. Il Magnifico had created a sculpture garden at the Medici palace in Florence. Michelangelo was permitted to sketch the antiquities and then try his hand at sculpture.
  
In a famous encounter, Lorenzo da Medici commented favorably on the small sculpture of an aged satyr that Michelangelo had made. He noted, with wry humor, that the mythological creature would not likely have had a full set of teeth, as Michelangelo had depicted. The thirteen-year-old artist took a file and chipped away one of the satyr's teeth. Il Magnifico was so impressed that he invited Michelangelo to join his court.

Michelangelo's apprenticeship was over.

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2017) Michelangelo’s Study of Adam & Eve after Masaccio

The young Michelangelo also spent a lot of time in the Brancacci Chapel in Florence, sketching the frescoes created by the tragically short-lived Masaccio (1401-1428). Michelangelo's copy in red chalk of Masaccio's Expulsion from the Garden of Eden adheres closely to Masaccio but we can glimpse the beginnings of his version of this fabled event, immortalized on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.

Lorenzo da Medici died in 1492 and within a few, short years, the searing drama of Masaccio's fresco was repeated in the lives of countless people in Italy, including Michelangelo. The French invasion of 1494 and the wave of puritanical religious fervor under Savanorola led to the fall of the Medici. The fragile political framework of the Italian city-states, especially Florence, never recovered, though the cultural awakening of the  Renaissance continued. 

Michelangelo found himself without a patron, a refugee from the lost Medici paradise. He  sought work first in Bologna and then in Rome under the revived power of the Papacy. 
Michelangelo  took with him an impressive portfolio of artistic skills. But his years with the Medici gifted him with a philosophical treasure of equal value: the Neo-Platonic philosophy of Pico della Mirandola (1463-1494). 

Pico's teaching emphasized human dignity, the ability of individuals to shape their own destiny and the ideal of perfection as goal. Human beings could thus worship their Divine Creator with deeds, as well as prayers.

Michelangelo, Il Sogno (The Dream), 1530's

Michelangelo's The Dream, from the collection of the Courtauld Gallery in London, illustrates Pico's philosophy in action. A young man, perfect in bodily form, listens to the word of God, transmitted by an angelic trumpeter. The young man grasps the globe, while behind him rages scenes of cruelty, violence, lust and greed.

The symbolism in The Dream invites speculation and interpretation. Some commentators believe that the idealized youth is grappling with melancholy, as well as resisting temptation. The drawing was created in the early 1530's, following the terrible Sack of Rome in 1527 by the mercenary troops of Emperor Charles V.  It was certainly a depressing period in Italian history.

The Dream was probably part of a group of presentation drawings which Michelangelo made as gifts for Tommaso de’ Cavalieri. A young Roman nobleman, Tommaso de’ Cavalieri was also the recipient of Michelangelo's passionate friendship. Quaratesi likely was, as well. 

Michelangelo's homoerotic yearnings for these young nobles is quite evident. Yet the degree to which this passion was physically pursued will never be known. Michelangelo's private life, extremely limited by his obsessive work ethic, left him little time for self-indulgence. 

Michelangelo was a devout Christian and during his later years was a member of the religious circle inspired by the reform-minded poet, Vittoria Collona. Michelangelo was a close friend of Collona, for whom he created a powerful depiction of the Pieta, very different from the famous statue he had carved decades before.

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2017), Michelangelo's Pieta, ca. 1540 

Throughout his life, Michelangelo labored to create visual images testifying to the glory of God. This was done  chiefly through depictions of the male nude, including those of the dead Christ in his mother's arms. For Michelangelo, the youthful male body represented the epitome of God's creative handiwork.

This was such a far-reaching ideal that Michelangelo extended it to the way he portrayed women. A number of cultural historians, including Camille Paglia in her book, Sexual Personae, maintain that Michelangelo used male models for female characters in his paintings. Looking on his painted panel of the Holy Family called the Doni Tondo, the lithe, athletic body of the Virgin Mary certainly lends weight to that argument.

The Doni Tondo is not in the Metropolitan Museum exhibition but confirmation of this theory can be found in one of the the Met's own treasures, Michelangelo's Studies for the Libyan Sibyl which he painted on the Sistine Ceiling. The rippling arm muscles, the broad shoulders and ramrod straight spinal column are matched by the strength of character of the Libyan Sibyl's face. 

Michelangelo, Studies for the Libyan Sibyl, c.1510–11

It should not it be forgotten that the finished version of the Libyan Sibyl is holding a massive volume, a Wisdom Book. The Libyan Sibyl represents the incarnation of mind/body perfection possible to a person, male or female, who is devoted to God's truth.

The incomparable physique of the Libyan Sibyl sketch is also evident in a preparatory study made around 1504 for the famous, now lost, cartoon for the Battle of Cascina fresco. Looking at Male Back with a Flag, one is struck by the obvious fact that Michelangelo retained much of his sculptor's technique even when he sketched and painted.

 Anne Lloyd, Photo (2017), Detail of Michelangelo's Male Back with a Flag, c. 1504. 

That was especially true of the Sistine Chapel frescoes. Unlike the Battle of Cascina, the cosmic drama of the Book of Genesis was carried through to completion. With skill and audacity to match Michelangelo, the Metropolitan has replicated the fabled Sistine Chapel ceiling with a lighted photo version above the Tisch galleries. The scale, though reduced, approximates the experience of looking at the original in Rome.

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2017) Gallery view of Michelangelo: Divine Draftsman & Designer

The effect of being able to study Michelangelo's studies for the figures of the Sistine ceiling and then to look above you at the wondrous copy is enlightening in a way that no close study of the many fine books dealing with the Sistine frescoes can ever be. 

The sheer brilliance of the Metropolitan exhibit enables you to look at the original study for the Cumaean Sybyl, check it against the dazzling overhead display and thus progressively see how the image was incorporated into the whole design of the Sistine Chapel fresco.

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2017) Detail of Michelangelo' s Study of the Cumaean Sibyl (top),

followed by details of Metropolitan Museum reproductions of the Cumaean Sibyl

Even straining your neck to look at the original in the Vatican does not allow you to do that. My wife, Anne, an accomplished artist herself, described the effect. 

"I finally get the Sistine Chapel," Anne said. 

The sensational impact of the re-imagined Sistine Chapel is reinforced by the presence of a sculpture group in the very next gallery. To see a Michelangelo statute in the United States is a rare treat. There are two in this group, along with contrasting portrait busts, one from ancient Rome and another of Julius Caesar by Andrea Ferrucci (1465-1526). 

.Anne Lloyd, Photo (2017) Gallery view of the Michelangelo: Divine Draftsman and Designer exhibit, Michelangelo's David/Apollo at left.

The standing sculpture, David/Apollo, begun around 1530, was never completed by the overworked Michelangelo. As a result, this non-finito work is impossible to identify as either David or Apollo. 

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2017) Gallery view of the Michelangelo: Divine Draftsman and Designer exhibit, Michelangelo's Brutus at center.

That's not case with the bust of Brutus. Sculpted in 1539, Brutus exerts a living presence. Here unquestionably is the portrait of a noble Roman. This forceful evocation of Caesar's assassin also points to the power-politics of Michelangelo's era.

Michelangelo was a supporter of the Republic of Florence, which had been suppressed by one of the Medici successors to Lorenzo the Magnificent. This was the brutal Duke Alessandro, assassinated in 1537 by his cousin, Lorenzino da Medici. Lorenzino was motivated by Republican sentiments similar to Michelangelo's. Alessandro's death, alas, did not lead to the restoration of the Florentine Republic. Michelangelo may have left his bust of Brutus unfinished in silent protest to the passing of Florence's republican tradition.

It is incredible to think that when Michelangelo stopped working on Brutus in 1539, he had a quarter of a century of life before him. Could he not have finished the bust of Brutus?

The obvious answer to this question is provided by the Metropolitan exhibit which cogently outlines his later epic works: the Last Judgment fresco and the architectural design of the basilica of St. Peter's. Michelangelo might cease working on a statue like Brutus but he never stopped working.

There is another reason, I believe, that many of the statues from his later years remained non-finito. Michelangelo was motivated by spiritual impulses that compelled him to work to the point that Spirit, God's spirit, was satisfied and then to move on. It was a case of God's will be done rather than Michelangelo's.

Michelangelo composed a beautiful poem, a madrigal, around 1534. These verses, translated by the great Renaissance scholar, Creighton Gilbert, confirm that Michelangelo certainly believed that he was obeying God's will.

Beautiful things are the longing of my eyes,                                                                  Just as it is my soul’s to be secure,                                                                                  But they’ve no other power                                                                                              That lifts to Heaven, but staring at all those.                                                                    A shining glory falls                                                                                                          From furthest stars above,                                                                                              Toward them our wish it pulls,                                                                                        And here we call it love.                                                                                                Kind heart can never have,                                                                                                To enamor and fire it, and to counsel,                                                                            More than a face with eyes that they resemble.

If my interpretation of this madrigal is correct, Michelangelo believed that God's face, with eyes that resemble stars, watched over his creative achievements. It was not Michelangelo's "kind heart" but heavenly inspiration that impelled him to attempt and to achieve the impossible.

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2017) The Metropolitan Museum reproduction of the Sistine Chapel ceiling, with Michelangelo's Creation of Adam at center. 

Any person fortunate to visit Michelangelo: Divine Draftsman and Designer at the Metropolitan is likely come to the same conclusion. The evidence is overwhelming.

***
Text: Copyright of Ed Voves, all rights reserved    

Madrigal by Michelangelo Buonarroti, c.1534. Translated by Creighton Gilbert in Complete Poems and Selected Letters of Michelangelo, Princeton University Press, 1980, first edition published by Random House, 1963.

Images courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and Anne Lloyd

Introductory Image:
Anne Lloyd, Photo (2017) Daniele da Volterra's Portrait of Michelangelo Buonarroti, ca. 1544, oil on wood, 34 3/4 x 25 1/4 in. (88.3 x 64.1 cm) Metropolitan Museum of Art

Michelangelo Buonarroti (Italian, 1475–1564) Three Labours of Hercules, 1530–33. Drawing, red chalk; 10 11/16 x 16 5/8 in. (27.2 x 42.2 cm) ROYAL COLLECTION TRUST / © HER MAJESTY QUEEN ELIZABETH II 2017, www.royalcollection.org.uk.

Michelangelo Buonarroti (Italian, 1475–1564) Portrait of Andrea Quaratesi, 1532.

Drawing, black chalk; 16 3/16 x 11 ½ in. (41.1 x 29.2 cm) The British Museum, London

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2017) Photo of Michelangelo’s Study of Adam and Eve after The Expulsion from Paradise fresco by Masaccio, c. 1503-04. Red chalk. Musée du Louvre, Department des arts Graphiques, Paris (3897 recto)

Michelangelo Buonarroti (Italian, 1475–1564) Il Sogno (The Dream), 1530's. Black chalk. Sheet: 15 5/16 × 10 15/16 in. (38.9 × 27.8 cm) Sheet: 15 5/16 × 10 15/16 in. (38.9 × 27.8 cm) London, Courtauld Gallery, Prince Gate Bequest (1978) inv. D 1978.PG.424

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2017) Michelangelo's Pieta, ca. 1540, Black chalk,  28.9 x 18.9 cm (11 3/8 x 7 7/16 in. Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. 1.2.o.16


Michelangelo Buonarroti (Italian,1475–1564) Studies for the Libyan Sibyl (recto), Ca. 1510–11. Red chalk, with small accents of white chalk. Sheet: 11 3/8 x 8 7/16 in. (28.9 x 21.4 cm) The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Purchase, Joseph Pulitzer Bequest, 1924. 24.197.2


Anne Lloyd, Photo (2017), Detail of Michelangelo's Male Back with a Flag, c. 1504.  Albertina, Vienna.123v

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2017) Gallery view of Michelangelo: Divine Draftsman & Designer.

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2017) Detail of Michelangelo' s Study of the Cumaean Sibyl and the Metropolitan Museum of Art's reproductions of the Cumaean Sibyl on the Sistine Chapel ceiling at the Michelangelo: Divine Draftsman and Designer exhibit.

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2017) Gallery view of the Michelangelo: Divine Draftsman and Designer exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, showing Michelangelo's David/Apollo (C. 1530) and Brutus (1539), Marble Portrait of Emperor of Caracalla, Third Century A.D., and Andrea Ferrucci's Julius Caesar (c.1512-14) 

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2017) Gallery view of the Michelangelo: Divine Draftsman and Designer exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Michelangelo's Brutus, center.

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2017) Gallery view of Michelangelo: Divine Draftsman and Designer, showing the Metropolitan Museum reproduction of the Sistine Chapel ceiling, with Michelanglo's Creation of Adam at center.