Something about this painting is reminiscent of the way I(and I'm sure many others) would paint my comic-book heroes at around that age, albeit perhaps lacking some of Michelangelo's talents and skills.
This painting makes me feel like the bible was pretty much a comic book to the adolescent Michelangelo, and I like that thought. He later went on to paint the ceiling of a huge temple dedicated to his equivalent of Charles Xavier.
He hated painting the Sistine Chapel ceiling because he saw himself primarily as a sculptor. You can read some of the graphic language he used to describe his perspective of having to do it. Also, he was constantly in pain and would go temporarily blind from holding his head in certain positions for hours at a time.
my father made reading The Agony and The Ecstasy a requirement to go to Italy when I was a sophomore in high school. It's a thick tome, but a great read if you're a curious kid.
as the others said Michelangelo hated doing that painting. He's a very tragic, albeit heroic to me, man. I'd recommend that book if you're at all fascinated by him.
It seems like we do know the year it was painted fairly reliably, but we don't know that it was Michelangelo specifically that painted it (the article exudes more confidence that I would give based on the inherent uncertainty of these identifications).
Do they mean that he grabbed a paintbrush one day and painted this out of the blue? Or does "painting" here mean "specifically painted on a canvas" or whatever?
>... it became "the only painting by Michelangelo located anywhere in the Americas, and also just one of four easel paintings attributed to him throughout his entire career," during most of which he disparaged oil painting itself.
It is less obvious than you think. Obvious to you and me, perhaps. But a significant portion of the population genuinely believes that you are born with the talent to just do this like it's nothing, or born with the talent to be a piano prodigy, etc, and as a result never bother to apply themselves, even though with the wealth of educational resources available today anyone[1] could make paintings of this quality if they were to put in the effort to learn. I think that article headlines that reinforce this popular misconception are rather damaging.
[1] Given the level of pedantry on this site, I suppose I should say "almost anyone", since a small minority of people with severe disabilities may not be able to.
Cmon, even famous virtuosos still have to go through a period of being children without fine motor control.
I won’t argue about the obviousness as that’s a tarpit of comparing each others social circles, but let say it’s reasonable to assuming this wasn’t his first ever brush stroke to touch canvas.
What a crazy coincidence... I had not been to the Kimbell art musesum that is only about 20 minutes away from me in many years. We had a family outing this weekend to go see the Torlonia Collection exhibit there and this painting was just sitting there in their permanent collection! I even got to listen to the guided tour group that happened to be at that painting as I was walking by.
I am by no means an expert art historian but I'm not sure I 100% follow the logic of their conclusion.
"pentimenti, or correction marks, a common indication that “a painting is not a copy, but an original work created with artistic freedom.”"
How often are they analyzing copies made by 12 year old. Is a 12 year old more likely to have made errors or drifted from the source during the process of the copy? Could the corrections be attempts to bring the painting closer to its source, because it wasnt close enough?
there's a cool background to Dali's Temptation of St. Anthony.
In 1946, 11 surrealist painters were asked to submit a painting to be used in a film (Albert Lewin's "The Private Affairs of Bel Ami"). Among the contestants were Max Ernst (who won), Leonora Carrington, Dalì, Stanley Spencer, Dorothea Tanning. Among the judges was Marcel Duchamp. The painting is then shown in color - the only color scene in an otherwise black and white movie.
I think the reason why they specifically wanted the temptation of Saint Anthony had to do with censorship, but sadly I can't remember the details
At this point in his life, Michaelangelo was probably apprenticed to Ghirlandaio. This wasn't a freeform doodle, but likely something of a homework assignment. It was common for young artists to be given famous works to copy, or common religious scenes to remake.
It's just a reflection of his education. Even today, many children are raised with religious education that includes stories of demons attacking people. Kids love scary stuff; monsters, battle, etc.
It makes me wonder what his home environment was like where he could put such detail into a painting. Something like that isn't made in an afternoon or weekend; and it definitely requires parents to provide resources and moral support.
In modern representations, I think you'd be hard-pressed to find red-dude-with-horns. Seems like we shifted towards hot-dude-with-something-off (Lucifer series, Good Omens), when we do see red-dude-with-horns I feel like it's meant to be somewhat ironic/on-the-nose (south park, preacher).
Hehe, not that that hard pressed. IMDB has a whole horned-demon category keyword: https://m.imdb.com/search/title/?keywords=horned-demon&explo.... And those results don’t even include South Park, nor Hellboy. If I Google image search for “Satan” I get nothing but red horned demons for pages.
There have always been wolf-in-sheep’s-clothing stories about The Devil too, it’s just a separate category.
12 years old is pretty old for a kid. I remember trying to reason through my grandparents’ religious beliefs at or before age 9, and they had taught me about lots of different demons, gods, etc.
Most of human history we didn't have electronic distraction devices and we have one Michelangelo; the answer is probably not as many as the question implies.
Children today are expected to go to school and get a well rounded education. They don’t start specializing as apprentice to some master at an early age
I don't think there is that significant amount of artists that do not draw because entertainment. Artist communities online are doing pretty fine. There might not be enough money for all of them, but drawing is still popular enough hobby.
Also consider the tools and materials available today. I don't know much about Michelangelo, but I imagine people's opportunity for sheer iteration (due to availability of qualitys pens, pappers, ink etc) is magnitudes higher (and cheaper) today.
I also didn't expect that, but then I realized that's the work of a teenage boy with a catholic education!
Teenage boys love badass, edgy stuff. And what's badass and edgy in Catholicism? Demons! As for the art style, it is the style that was popular at the time.
In a sense, it is not so different from today's kids drawing scenes inspired from their favorite comic. Of course, the painting here shows incredible talent, he is Michelangelo after all, but that doesn't make him less of a kid.
Not his first painting. Nobody picks up a brush for the first time and paints like that. Not an original work either. Just a practice masterstudy, one of many many many he'd made up to that point I'm sure.
It's impressive that he did it at 12, but like you said, he had years of focused practice under his belt before he did this one. Anyone can do this level of work - they just need to actually learn it. It doesn't require someone be born with talent.
Articles like this contribute towards the gatekeeping feeling people get about the arts in my opinion.
This painting makes me feel like the bible was pretty much a comic book to the adolescent Michelangelo, and I like that thought. He later went on to paint the ceiling of a huge temple dedicated to his equivalent of Charles Xavier.
I bet that felt pretty cool for him =)
as the others said Michelangelo hated doing that painting. He's a very tragic, albeit heroic to me, man. I'd recommend that book if you're at all fascinated by him.
https://www.dutchfinepaintings.com/michelangelos-sistine-cha...
Still impressive of course, but remember that it's not straightforward to compare how things are today with other time periods.
All of that misses the forest for the trees, which is he did it at an incredibly young age!
[1] Given the level of pedantry on this site, I suppose I should say "almost anyone", since a small minority of people with severe disabilities may not be able to.
I won’t argue about the obviousness as that’s a tarpit of comparing each others social circles, but let say it’s reasonable to assuming this wasn’t his first ever brush stroke to touch canvas.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Temptation_of_St_Anthony_(...
"pentimenti, or correction marks, a common indication that “a painting is not a copy, but an original work created with artistic freedom.”"
How often are they analyzing copies made by 12 year old. Is a 12 year old more likely to have made errors or drifted from the source during the process of the copy? Could the corrections be attempts to bring the painting closer to its source, because it wasnt close enough?
In 1946, 11 surrealist painters were asked to submit a painting to be used in a film (Albert Lewin's "The Private Affairs of Bel Ami"). Among the contestants were Max Ernst (who won), Leonora Carrington, Dalì, Stanley Spencer, Dorothea Tanning. Among the judges was Marcel Duchamp. The painting is then shown in color - the only color scene in an otherwise black and white movie.
I think the reason why they specifically wanted the temptation of Saint Anthony had to do with censorship, but sadly I can't remember the details
There have always been wolf-in-sheep’s-clothing stories about The Devil too, it’s just a separate category.
Movies, video games, music.
Teenage boys love badass, edgy stuff. And what's badass and edgy in Catholicism? Demons! As for the art style, it is the style that was popular at the time.
In a sense, it is not so different from today's kids drawing scenes inspired from their favorite comic. Of course, the painting here shows incredible talent, he is Michelangelo after all, but that doesn't make him less of a kid.
Without anyone wanting to buy this and spend resources on that, finding claims to proof the contrary might be a quite futile task.
The whole board of the Museum is non-experts. Nobody has any interest in devaluing that expense.
In that era even attributing works definively to a single artist and not a school or workshop just feels a bit off.
https://kimbellart.org/content/nuestro-kimbell
absurdly well citing reddit comment on the provenance:
https://www.reddit.com/r/museum/comments/x6k3mm/comment/in89...
Articles like this contribute towards the gatekeeping feeling people get about the arts in my opinion.