Michelangelo’s awful painting
I was shocked when I first saw this. It is supposed to be a woman. No amount of spin will convince me. If it was a one off I might forgive him but it wasn't.
posted by Robert at 2:27 pm
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
I was shocked when I first saw this. It is supposed to be a woman. No amount of spin will convince me. If it was a one off I might forgive him but it wasn't.
About Me
- Name: Robert
- Location: South and West, United Kingdom
Sculptor. I enjoy my work, realising commissions and creating new projects of my own. Website- https://robertmileham.com/
Previous Posts
- Michelangelo
- Decadent Art and Sculpture
- Felix-Maurice Charpentier, 'Flours Que Amavo'
- Childhood Sweethearts
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8 Comments:
Wow, you have a lot of blogs. You make lovely and amazing sculptures! Hello from California! :)
A crone can be a frightening, nightmarish creature, Robert -- and the Sybil was the crone of crones.
Pray that you never have to meet her!
I am on very unsure ground here Chris, but this ‘delightful lady’ is more of a stone mason than keeper of the Sibylline books, who was one of several women who had the power to deliver prophecies of the gods in the ancient world. You suggest this one was a witch, sorceress, ugly old hag or crone, which I would be advised to avoid.
Mich here seems to think she may have been on hormone replacement therapy and a muscle building programme, she might be useful to have on one's own side but I take your point!
Robert, I am laughing my head off at "hormone replacement therapy"!! Hilarious!
But, Robert, everything changes and Michelangelo, if he were a painter today (which I doubt) wouldn't paint the same way he did then. Nor are the “masses” the same—not that he painted for them anyway. That Sybil which you call ugly was not meant to look like a cute little girl. You might as well say that the Cathedral of Cologne is ugly because it doesn't look like your clean and simple garage—both of them “buildings”, admittedly. (Well, I don't like that comparison much either.) Let's say it was her design, her posture, her colors that were meant to please in some a priori way; her face and proportions were, yes, meant to be “monstrous”. She represents the dread world of the Divine.
I have to say that you keep me thinking all the time about pretty and beautiful and taste. I would almost never choose as my favorites the works you highlight here, but I think many of them are pretty, cute, charming, sexy. There's a very blurry line between that girl in your Decadent Art post and a PlayGirl of the Month. I find myself trying to see through the thin muslin she's wearing instead of minding its folds or her posture. She makes me dream, but what dreams! She is a sheik's fantasy, is what she is—that smile, that wiggle. I forget about aesthetics. She belongs to this world, to time. The beautiful is “disinterested”, timeless, deep, quiet.
You are right 100swallow, not quite all I find beautiful, are pretty, cute, charming, or sexy.
http://bp2.blogger.com/_GeXjfiz-1ww/RoUergO9zVI/AAAAAAAAA1Q/oquFS-vgNpI/s1600-h/S-72a.jpg
http://bp1.blogger.com/_GeXjfiz-1ww/RoUacQO9zEI/AAAAAAAAAzI/Bc7179Waslw/s1600-h/S-261c.jpg
http://bp2.blogger.com/_GeXjfiz-1ww/R3vQzuijQ7I/AAAAAAAABUA/LfuosH7qGE8/s1600-h/S0001615_a.jpg
and I will post a picture of an African warrior standing on one leg which I think especially good too, but yes you are right
'Let other pens dwell on guilt and misery'
I posted the Decadent girl up in response to Chris’s quote from Mr Taft who was a bit unkind about Felix-Maurice Charpentier’s work.
I have always admired Munch’s work (kept in galleries) but had labelled him as Expressionist, (The Scream etc) apparently he was also a “Decadent Artist” which to me is a bit confusing but then all labels for Art can sometimes be confusing!
Do you think then that Michelangelo is being Expressionist here?
Thinking about it again I think Titian and Tintoretto were able to depict a female form better that Michelangelo, he has absolutely no excuse at all.
He was depicting a platonic ideal rather than the visual truth of "woman". It's meant to be an expression of monumentality, tensed in motion. It's 'sublime', not 'beautiful'-- like a Beethoven symphony rather than a skipping, graceful Mozart trio (which would be closer to Raphael, in this analogy).
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