Lanzi says that Lorenzo the Magnificent, desirous of encouraging the statuary art, then on the decline in his country, had collected in his gardens many antique marbles, which he committed to the care of Bertoldo. He requested Ghirlandaio to send him a talented young man, to be educated there, and he sent him Michael Angelo, then a youth of sixteen. Lorenzo was so pleased with his genius that he took him into his palace, rather as a relative than a dependent, placing him at the same table with his own sons, with Poliziano and other learned men who graced his residence. During the four years that he remained there, he laid the foundation of all his acquirements.
THE CARTOON OF PISA.
According to Condivi, Michael Angelo devoted twelve years to the study of anatomy, with great injury to his health, and this course “determined his style, his practice, and his glory.” His perfect knowledge of the human body was best shown in his famous Cartoon of the Battle of Pisa, prepared in competition with Leonardo da Vinci, in the saloon of the public palace at Florence. Angelo did not rest satisfied with representing the Florentines, cased in armor, and mingling with their enemies in deadly combat; but choosing the moment of the attack upon the van, while bathing in the river Arno, he seized the opportunity of representing many naked figures, as they rushed to arms from the water, by which he was enabled to introduce a prodigious variety of foreshortenings, and attitudes the most energetic—in a word, the highest perfection of his peculiar excellence. Cellini observes of this work, that “when Michael Angelo painted in the chapel of Julius II., he did not reach half that dignity;” and Vasari says that “all the artists who studied and designed after this cartoon, became eminent.”
This sublime production has perished, and report, though not authenticated, accuses Baccio Bandinelli of having destroyed it, either that others might not derive advantage from its study, or, because of his partiality to Vinci and his hatred to Buonarotti he wished to remove a subject of comparison that might exalt the reputation of the latter above that of the former.
MICHAEL ANGELO’S LAST JUDGMENT.
Lanzi says, “In the succeeding pontificates (to that of Julius II.) Michael Angelo, always occupied in sculpture and architecture, almost wholly abandoned painting, till he was induced by Paul III. to resume the pencil. Clement VII. had conceived the design of employing him in the Sistine chapel, on two other grand historical pictures—the Fall of the Angels, over the gate; and the Last Judgment, in the opposite façade, over the altar. Michael Angelo had composed designs for the Last Judgment, and Paul III. being aware of this, commanded, or rather entreated, him to commence the work; for he went to his house, accompanied by ten Cardinals,—an honor, except in this instance, unknown in the annals of the art.” This sublime work was finished by Michael Angelo in eight years, and was exhibited in 1541. Vasari says that at the suggestion of Fra Sebastiano del Piombo, the Pope desired that it should be painted in oil; but Michael Angelo positively declined to undertake it, except in fresco, saying “that oil painting was an employment only fit for women, or idlers of mean capacity.” Varchio in his funeral oration says, “Such was the delicacy of his taste that no artist could please him; and as in sculpture, every pincer, file, and chisel which he used, was the work of his own hands, so in painting, he prepared his own colors, and did not commit the mixing and other necessary manipulations to mechanics and boys.”
Lanzi says that Michael Angelo must be acknowledged supreme in that peculiar branch of the profession (the nude), at which he aimed in all his works, especially in his Last Judgment. “The subject appeared rather created than selected by him. To a genius so comprehensive, and so skilled in drawing the human figure, no subject could be better adapted than the Resurrection; and to an artist who delighted in the awful, no story more suitable than the day of supernal terrors. He saw Raffaelle preëminent in every other department of the art; he foresaw that in this alone could he expect to be triumphant; and perhaps he indulged the hope that posterity would adjudge the palm to him who excelled all others in the most arduous walk of art.”
“The Last Judgment,” says Lanzi, “was filled with such a profusion of nudity that it was in great danger of being destroyed, from a regard to the decency of the sanctuary. Paul IV. proposed to whitewash it, and was hardly appeased with the correction of its most glaring indelicacies, by some drapery introduced here and there by Daniello da Volterra, on whom the facetious Romans, from this circumstance, conferred the nickname of the Breeches-maker.” Other corrections were proposed by different critics, and some alterations made. Angelo was censured for mixing sacred with profane history; for introducing the angels of revelation with the Stygian ferryman; Christ sitting in judgment, and Minos assigning his proper station to each of the damned. To this profanity, he added satire; in Minos, he portrayed the features of the Master of Ceremonies, who in the hearing of the pope, had pronounced this picture more suitable for a Bagnio than a church; and an officious Cardinal, he placed among the damned, with a fiend dragging him by the testes down to hell.
MICHAEL ANGELO’S COLORING.
The coloring of Michael Angelo has been generally criticised as being too cold and inharmonious, but the best critics now consider that it was admirably adapted to his design. His chief characteristics were grandeur and sublimity, and whatever partook of the sublime and the terrible, he portrayed with a fidelity that intimidates the beholder. It is an error to suppose that he could not color delicately and brilliantly when he chose. During his residence at Florence, he painted an exquisite Leda for Alphonso, Duke of Ferrara. Michael Angelo was so much offended at the manner of one of the courtiers of that prince, who was sent to bring it to Ferrara, that he refused to let him have it, but made it a present to his favorite pupil, Antonio Mini, who carried it to France. Vasari describes it as “a grand picture, painted in distemper, that seemed as if it breathed on the canvass”; and Mariette, in his notes on Condivi, affirms that he saw the picture, and that “Michael Angelo appeared to have forgot his usual style, and approached the tone of Titian.” D’Argenville informs us that the picture was destroyed by fire in the reign of Louis XIII. Lanzi says, “In chiaro-scuro, Michael Angelo had not the skill and delicacy of Correggio; but his paintings in the Vatican have a force and relief much commended by Renfesthein, an eminent connoisseur, who, on passing from the Sistine chapel to the Farnesian gallery, remarked how greatly in this respect the Caracci themselves were eclipsed by Buonarotti.”