Alzofon Art Institute

Museum Notes

Michelangelo, Medici Chapel & Accademia

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Transcript from notebook

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"Medici Chapel -- Sick, but there I was. The point of these studies was to examine the flow across features, the integration of clothing with pose -- the shapes.
"The heads and hands of some of the male figures were 'unfinished' so you could examine the 'hatching' chisel marks. In the male figures, the finish of the marble softly revealed last traces of this hatch. The females were hard polished.

"Michelangelo's work DOES stand out, even among great art. Donatello's lovely David and Giambologna's Mercury are a sight to behold -- totally captivating, alluring, seductive. But, while Michelangelo's works don't do this at all, they demonstrate a complex simplicity executed in perfect creation -- certainty -- it carries across.

"At any view, the flow from part to part is there. The extremeness of pose does not overtake the unity of form, as other artists' works do so often. The relationships are continuous, unbroken. Not that there isn't variety. There is great variety -- multi-layered variety. But as outrageous as the concepts get (and they DO get outrageous), there is unity. The undercurrent of design is there.

"Went to the Accademia where Michelangelo's David is. David is impressive by scale. It is delicately featured and a fine work in balance and simplicity. The size is what makes it great.

"The unfinished carvings (also at the Accademia) of course, reveal something of his approach. The features seem to begin developing while the whole is much too wide. He must have slowly recut the features until right."

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More Notes:

Early Titian

First Day in Rome,
or...Travel Is a Painful Ordeal

Rubens

Leonardo da Vinci

Bouguereau at the Haggin

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Also in the Idea Library:

Explanatory Comments

Study Collection

*Proposals

*Under Construction

This site last updated: May 15, 1996