Michelangelo

18 May 2015

Still-lifes by Peale and Core [from the Archives]

Names are important in art. The American master Charles Willson Peale (1741-1827) had three sons who became painters: Rembrandt, Raphaelle [sic] and Titian. His fourth son was Rubens. Raphaelle is thought to be America’s first still-life painter

20 Nov 2014

Actual size of Michelangelo’s figures

How large are Michelangelo's figures on the Sistine ceiling? Visitors find it difficult to tell from the chapel floor because they are so far away. It was not until I saw the photograph at right that I realized their true size. Jonah's thigh is

26 May 2014 | 1 Comments

Magic from Matisse and Michelangelo

What does Matisse’s figure from Dance II (1910) have to do with Michelangelo’s St Peter from the Last Judgment (1534-41). More than you might think. Bear with me. Both are nude against a blue sky, facing us and facing left; both look a littl

17 Jul 2013 | 1 Comments

Michelangelo Rocks in The Battle of Cascina (1504)

This post explains additional obervations not included in the original article here on Michelangelo’s The Battle of Cascina, a 1504 cartoon for a never-completed mural in the civic heart of Florence. It is one of the most celebrated and influe

07 Oct 2012 | 7 Comments

Michelangelo’s Skull

In the three-part article on Michelangelo's Art Through Michelangelo's Eyes (2005) I argue that Michelangelo's Last Judgment is a scene inside the artist's mind with many of the figures formed into a giant view of his poetic hero, Dante Alighier

14 Jun 2012

“Sir, rejoice with me, I have become God.”

The Inner Tradition in Christianity, the idea that Scripture and Christ’s teachings are allegorical in nature, is so little known that its impact on art has not been properly addressed. Those following the tradition know that God, as described

02 Apr 2012

Villard de Honnecourt’s Commentary on Life and God

Vassily Kandinsky was not just thinking of his own abstract works when he wrote that: "The greatest mistake one can make is to believe that Art is the reproduction of Nature."1 He was referring to all Art. I agree, as many of you know, but I arg

01 Apr 2012

Eureka! My Last Judgement on Michelangelo’s

Eureka!

For years I have struggled with the meaning of Michelangelo’s Last Judgment. The essay “Michelangelo’s Art Through Michelangelo’s Eyes” explains my overall understanding of the Sistine ceiling and the altar wall on whi

09 Feb 2012

The Artist as Creative God

The idea within esoteric Christianity that God is our innermost self, the universal self that we all share, has inspired many Western artists over the centuries to depict themselves as God in the process of creation. The ceiling of the Sistine C

23 Nov 2011

Rembrandt’s Hand

We have already seen (in Donatello’s Davids and Goliaths) that Donatello identified with both David and Goliath. Both his giants (in the marble and bronze versions) have double vision, out-sight and insight, the two forms conveyed by one eye o

20 Oct 2011

Picasso’s Eyeball

Yesterday I asked if anyone knew of a link between Manet’s Absinthe Drinker and Picasso’s Blue Period paintings. There are several. They both use Marcantonio Raimondi’s Portrait of Raphael, a small engraving, as their source; both were pai

03 Oct 2011

Being in the Image and Text

In many religious images on this site I have shown how the artist both illustrates their effort to unite with God and their own difficulties in creating the image itself. Paul Jay, a literary critic, found something similar in St. Augustine Conf

01 Oct 2011

Quotation of the Week #3

“In painting, the idea is an image that the intellect of the painter has to see with interior eyes in the greatest silence and secrecy.”1

Michelangelo Buonarotti (1475-1564)

18 Sep 2011

Christ’s Private Chamber

The Inner Tradition on which our theory of art depends is widespread, constant and ever-changing. All major artists are in one way or another influenced by some version of it. Aldous Huxley called it the “Perennial Philosophy”, ident

11 Sep 2011

The Kimbell Gets a Surprise

Nicolas Poussin’s Sacrament of the Ordination (1640's) is one of the masterpieces of Western art. I wrote about it last year when it failed to sell at auction. Now the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth, Texas has acquired it for $24 m

02 Sep 2011

Art Bulletin’s Bumper Issue

This month’s Art Bulletin, the magazine of the U.S. College Art Association, is a bumper issue as far as we are all concerned. One article by Michael Lobel reveals how John Sloan, a member of the Ashcan School in early twentieth-century Americ

25 Aug 2011

Michelangelo’s Battle with Stone

One of Michelangelo’s earliest sculptures, Battle of the Lapiths and Centaurs, depicts a battle scene in which stones are hurled between the combatants. Barolsky noted that the choice of stones as a weapon was not specified by the classical po

15 May 2011

Wisdom and Leonardo’s Self-Portrait

One of the mysteries surrounding Leonardo’s so-called self-portrait (above center) is that it only emerged in the early nineteenth century. It was then decreed to be a self-portrait based on its likeness to the frontispiece portrait of Leonard

18 Mar 2011

Face Fusion is Everywhere

For years I’ve been rattling on about face fusion to demonstrate that portraits by true artists are not what they seem. Many are not accurate depictions but a fusion of features from different faces, often the artist’s own. Salvador Dali, fo

15 Feb 2011

Recent Reading

If anyone noticed the reduced activity on the site over the past ten days, forgive me. I was on a beach where, in between downpours, I got the chance to catch up on some reading. Three books in particular are worth recommending:

John Sp

18 Dec 2010

Artists

EPPH - Every Painter Paints Himself