Michelangelo at The Met

The Michelangelo exhibit at the Met closed on Monday.  Hopefully you got a chance to see it before it did.  

It was billed as a "once-in-a-lifetime" exhibition, which it was.  That's partially because it was so deep - 133 drawings. 

But also because the drawings are so fragile that the show will not be traveling to other locations as they usually do once an exhibit it put together.  

In fact, usually the other museums that donated to the show get the exhibit next.  In this case there was a long list of mostly private donors.  

And a bunch of the drawings were on loan from Queen Elizabeth.  

This rather bizarre painting - the only painting by Michelangelo in the show, is from the Kimbel in Dallas.  I wonder what the Met promised in return.

The exhibit was crowded of course, even on an weekday in February.  But that didn't stop some people from attempting to sketch.  This was my favorite drawing of the collection - M's lover!  

My favorite room of the show was the one where they displayed pieces that related to the famous Sistine Chapel. 

This one is from the Met's collection - note that he drew a man and then turned it into a woman.  That is fairly typical of M. 

Women were not his strength.  Nor was drawing for that matter.  He was first and foremost a divine sculptor. 

And most of his drawings that I have seen are fragments designed to help him work out specific details for his paintings and sculptures.

This drawing of god's hand was the highlight of the exhibit for me.  I could be wrong.  But the way I see it, he started with the idea on the bottom.  But after sketching it out had a different thought.  So he did the top sketch - which he did not finish - because he didn't need to once he saw that it was working.  Awesome.

What made me want to see the exhibit in the first place was that it included a cartoon.  A cartoon is a full size drawing that is used to transfer the final design to the plaster.  After the drawing is complete, small pin marks are made on the outlines.  Then charcoal is brushed over them to transfer the design.  If you went close enough you could see the pin holes.  

You can also see that this isn't one figure.  The other part of transferring designs to large spaces is that you make a grid on the smaller piece and then enlarge each square.  Again you can actually see the squares.  Mind bogging.  The only other cartoon I have seen was at The National Gallery in London.  That one was of a single figure.  It's amazing that either has survived.

Cheers!

PJ

(c) 2018 PJ Lehrer