Wednesday, March 18, 2009

The Mighty Michelangelo

Head of David.

The Right Hand of David.

The Left Hand of Christ.

Head of Bacchus.

The infant Christ.


Image of Eve.

Head of Adam.

Detail from The Crucifiction of Saint Peter.

Michelangelo's self-portrait at the age of about 80.


Michelangelo's stone mason's mark.

Another gem from the Joanne Waxman Library discount shelf at MECA. Michelangelo: Paintings, Sculptures, Architecture, by Ludwig Goldscheider, hard cover, for $4. And for $1, I bought The Renaissance Artist at Work: From Pisano to Titian, by Bruce Cole. A very enjoyable read. An excerpt:
All of these people lived in a world physically, intellectually, and spiritually different from our own. Their very perception of reality was radically different from ours...
They did not believe in the idea of progress, nor did they see the world in evolutionary or psychoanalytic terms. The theories and ideas of Darwin, Freud, Newton and Einstein - which so condition all our thinking - were unknown to them. Magic, mystery, and the supernatural will of God were woven into the fabric of everyday life for those who inhabited the cities of the Renaissance.

3 comments:

Susan Beauchemin said...

Like living in a dream world or a dream time as in how the indigenous people of Australia referred to their past.

the 6 o'clock stitch said...

What a treasure. It's so nice to meet you.

Warm wishes...
The 6 O'Clock Stitch

Don Gray said...

Cole expresses very well what I have felt intuitively, when looking at paintings by Renaissance and pre-Renaissance artists in museums. The longer I study them, the more I realize I could never enter their world. You sense a world view and thought processes that are so different from our own.