Estelle M. Hurll - Michelangelo

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[Illustration: MICHELANGELO BUONAROTTI (ATTRIBUTED TO BUGIARDINI)
_Uffizi Gallery, Florence_]

The Riverside Art Series

MICHELANGELO

A COLLECTION OF FIFTEEN PICTURES
AND A PORTRAIT OF THE MASTER
WITH INTRODUCTION AND
INTERPRETATION

BY

ESTELLE M. HURLL

BOSTON AND NEW YORK
HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY

The Riverside Press, Cambridge
1900

COPYRIGHT, 1900, BY HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO.

PREFACE

In making a collection of prints from the works of Michelangelo, it is
impossible to secure any wide variety, either in subject or method of
treatment. We are dealing here with a master whose import is always
serious, and whose artistic individuality is strongly impressed on all
his works, either in sculpture or painting. Our selections represent
his best work in both arts. These are arranged, not in chronological
order, but in a way which will lead the student from the subjects most
familiar and easily understood to those which are more abstract and
difficult.

ESTELLE M. HURLL.
NEW BEDFORD, MASS.
January, 1900.

CONTENTS AND LIST OF PICTURES

PORTRAIT OF MICHELANGELO. ATTRIBUTED TO BUGIARDINI.
_Frontispiece._

INTRODUCTION

I. ON MICHELANGELO'S CHARACTER AS AN ARTIST
II. ON BOOKS OF REFERENCE
III. HISTORICAL DIRECTORY OF THE WORKS OF ART IN THIS COLLECTION
IV. COLLATERAL READINGS FROM LITERATURE
V. OUTLINE TABLE OF THE PRINCIPAL EVENTS IN MICHELANGELO'S LIFE
VI. SOME OF MICHELANGELO'S FAMOUS ITALIAN CONTEMPORARIES

I. MADONNA AND CHILD
II. DAVID
III. CUPID
IV. MOSES
V. THE HOLY FAMILY
VI. THE PIETA
VII. CHRIST TRIUMPHANT
VIII. THE CREATION OF MAN
IX. JEREMIAH
X. DANIEL
XI. THE DELPHIC SIBYL
XII. THE CUMAEAN SIBYL
XIII. LORENZO DE' MEDICI
XIV. TOMB OF GIULIANO DE' MEDICI
XV. CENTRAL FIGURES FROM THE LAST JUDGMENT
XVI. PORTRAIT OF MICHELANGELO (_See Frontispiece_)

PRONOUNCING VOCABULARY OF PROPER NAMES AND FOREIGN WORDS

NOTE: All the pictures with the exception of the Cupid were
made from photographs by Fratelli Alinari. The Cupid was photographed
from the statue in the South Kensington Museum, London.

INTRODUCTION

I. ON MICHELANGELO'S CHARACTER AS AN ARTIST.

Michelangelo's place in the world of art is altogether unique. His
supremacy is acknowledged by all, but is understood by a few only. In
the presence of his works none can stand unimpressed, yet few dare to
claim any intimate knowledge of his art. The quality so vividly
described in the Italian word _terribilita_ is his predominant trait.
He is one to awe rather than to attract, to overwhelm rather than to
delight. The spectator must needs exclaim with humility, "Such
knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high, I cannot attain unto
it." Yet while Michelangelo can never be a popular artist in the
ordinary sense of the word, the powerful influence which he exercises
seems constantly increasing. Year by year there are more who, drawn by
the strange fascination of his genius, seek to read the meaning of his
art.

His subjects are all profoundly serious in intention. Life was no
holiday to this strenuous spirit; it was a stern conflict with the
powers of darkness in which such heroes as David and Moses were
needed. Like the old Hebrew prophets, the artist poured out his soul
in a vehement protest against evil, and a stirring call to
righteousness.

Considered both as a sculptor and a painter, Michelangelo's one
vehicle of expression was the human body. His works are "form-poems,"
through which he uttered his message to mankind. As he writes in one
of his own sonnets,

"Nor hath God deigned to show himself elsewhere
More clearly than in human forms sublime."

In his art, says the critic Symonds, "a well-shaped hand, or throat,
or head, a neck superbly poised on an athletic chest, the sway of the
trunk above the hips, the starting of the muscles on the flank, the
tendons of the ankle, the outline of the shoulder when the arm is
raised, the backward bending of the loins, the curves of a woman's
breast, the contours of a body careless in repose or strained for
action, were all words pregnant with profoundest meaning, whereby fit
utterance might be given to thoughts that raise man near to God."

Learning his first lessons in art of the Greeks, he soon possessed
himself of the great principles of classic sculpture. Then he boldly
struck out his own path; his was a spirit to lead, not to follow. With
the subtle Greek sense of line and form, he united an entirely new
motif. In contrast to the ideal of repose which was the leading canon
of the Greeks, his chosen ideal was one of action. Moreover, he
invariably fixed upon some decisive moment in the action he had to
represent, a moment which suggests both the one preceding and the one
following, and which gives us the whole story in epitome. Thus in the
David we see preparation, aim, and action. It was a far cry from the
elegant calm of the Greek god to the restless energy of this rugged
youth.

Even with seated figures he followed the same principle. Moses and the
Duke Giuliano are ready to rise to their feet if need be. In his
frescoes we again find the same motif,--Adam rising to his feet in
obedience to the Creator's summons, and Christ the Judge sweeping
asunder the multitudes.

In his love of action and his passion for the human form lay the
elements of his art most easily lending themselves to exaggeration.
That the master did indeed permit himself to be carried beyond due
limits in these matters is seen by comparing the grandeur of the
Sistine ceiling with the mannerisms of the Last Judgment. The interval
between was "the time of his best technical and spiritual
creativeness," when he produced the statues of the Sacristy of S.
Lorenzo.

It was characteristic of Michelangelo's impetuous nature to spend his
enthusiasm upon the early stages of his work, and leave it unfinished.
This unfinished effect of many of his marbles seems to bring us in
closer touch with his methods as a sculptor. Nor is a rough surface
here and there inharmonious with the rugged character of his
conceptions. Moreover, as a critic[1] has pointed out, the polished
and rough portions enhance each other, giving a variety in the light
and shadow which is pictorial in effect.

[Footnote 1: See notes on the Life of Michelangelo Buonarotti in the
Blashfield-Hopkins edition of Vasari.]

To a man of Michelangelo's austere temperament, intensely masculine in
his predilections, the beauty of womanhood was not fully revealed. His
sibyls can scarcely be counted as women; they belong to a world of
their own, neither human nor divine. It was only in his few Madonnas
that we can trace his feminine ideal, an ideal noble and dignified,
rather than beautiful. The Madonna of the bas-relief is proud rather
than tender, the Virgin of the Pieta is grand rather than lovely.
These were works of his youth. Later in life, when he had known the
blessing of a good woman's friendship, he developed a new ideal in the
gentle and delicate womanhood of the Virgin of the Last Judgment.

Michelangelo has been compared to two great masters of dissimilar
arts, Milton and Beethoven. There are striking points of similarity
in the men themselves, in stern uprightness of character, in scorn of
the low and trivial, in lofty idealism. The art of all three is too
far above the common level to be popular; it requires too much
thinking to attract the superficial. In poetry, in music, and in
sculpture, all three utter the profoundest truths of human experience,
expressed in grand and solemn harmonies.

II. ON BOOKS OF REFERENCE.

The original materials for the study of Michelangelo's life and work
are the two biographies by his contemporaries, Vasari and Condivi.
Vasari's was the first of these (1550), and like the other portions of
his "Lives of the Painters" contained many inaccuracies. It was to
correct these that Condivi published his little book a few years
later. This rival effort aroused Vasari's wrath, and after
Michelangelo's death he issued an enlarged edition of his own book,
unscrupulously incorporating all that was valuable in Condivi's work,
and adding thereto many reminiscences of the master's life. The fame
of Vasari's monumental work caused Condivi's little book to be
entirely forgotten for long years, and it has been one of the tasks of
modern scholarship to restore it to its true place. Even now, however,
there is no available form of Condivi's biography for American
readers, though Vasari's "Lives" in Mrs. Foster's translation is found
in most libraries. The latest edition of Vasari, published in 1897,
contains annotations by Mr. and Mrs. E.H. Blashfield, and A.A.
Hopkins, which correct all the statements in the light of recent
authorities.

Far more valuable even than the early biographies is the mass of
existing documents of the Buonarotti family, including contracts,
letters, poems, and memoranda, and containing data for a full and
exact biography of the master. Unfortunately, however, this great
storehouse of material has been for all these centuries a sealed
treasure, given up only little by little, to successive generations of
scholars. When Hermann Grimm wrote his celebrated "Life of Michael
Angelo" (in 1860), the only original material accessible to him was
the collection of letters in the British Museum. His volumes are still
read with interest and profit, though it is to be regretted that they
should be reprinted without any editorial comments to connect formerly
received opinions with later conclusions. John S. Harford's "Life of
Michael Angelo Buonarotti" was published at about the same time as
Grimm's work, that is, in 1857. It was in two volumes, and contained
translations of many of Michelangelo's poems, as well as material
about Savonarola, Vittoria Colonna, and Raphael. The work is found in
the older libraries, and is well worth studying, as the latter portion
is still valuable for all that refers to the architecture of St.
Peter's.

Signor Gotti's "Vita," in 1875, was the first to profit to any
considerable degree by documentary researches. The conclusions of this
book are best known to the English-reading public through Charles
Heath Wilson's "Life and Works of Michelangelo Buonarotti" (1876 and
1881), consisting of compilations from Gotti, to which are added
original investigations of the Sistine frescoes, which are very
valuable.

More privileged than any of his predecessors was John Addington
Symonds, who, by special favor of the Italian government, was allowed
to examine the Buonarotti collection in Florence, so long debarred to
others. His "Life of Michelangelo Buonarotti" is therefore unique in
being, as the sub-title announces, "based on studies in the archives
of the Buonarotti family at Florence." It was published in 1893 in two
large, finely illustrated volumes, and is taken as the latest
authoritative word on the subject, a word singularly independent of
others' conclusions, and influenced by an artistic and literary nature
of rare sensitiveness.

To those who wish briefer notices of Michelangelo's life and work than
any of these full biographies are recommended the chapters on
Michelangelo in Kugler's "Handbook of the Italian Schools," in Mrs.
Jameson's "Memoirs of the Italian Painters," in Frank Preston
Stearns's "Midsummer of Italian Art," in Mrs. Oliphant's "Makers of
Florence," and in Symonds's volume on "Fine Arts" in the series
"Renaissance in Italy."

To understand more fully the character of the man Michelangelo, the
student should read his sonnets. There is a complete collection
translated by J.A. Symonds, while both Wordsworth and Longfellow have
translated a few.

The life of Michelangelo has furnished material for two long poems by
American writers,--Longfellow's drama, and the poem by Stuart Sterne.
The former, which is annotated, is a well-balanced study of the great
artist's career and ideals.

III. HISTORICAL DIRECTORY OF THE WORKS OF ART IN THIS COLLECTION.

_Portrait frontispiece._ An oil painting in The Hall of the Portraits
of Old Masters, Uffizi Gallery, Florence. The authorship of the
painting is not certainly known. Symonds says that "it may perhaps be
ascribed with some show of probability to Bugiardini." Bugiardini was a
friend of Michelangelo's youth and a fellow student in the gardens of
the Medici. That later in life he painted a portrait of his
distinguished friend we know from Vasari. Vasari tells us that the
portrait showed a peculiarity in the right eye, and this fact lends
probability to the identification of the Uffizi portrait with
Bugiardini's work.

1. _Madonna and Child_, an unfinished bas-relief medallion, made,
according to Vasari, during Michelangelo's residence in Florence in
1501-1505. It was made for Bartolommeo Pitti. It is now in the
National Museum (Bargello), Florence.

2. _David_, a statue made from a block of Carrara marble which had
been spoiled by an unskilled sculptor. After it had lain useless in
Florence for a century, a sculptor applied to the board of works of
the cathedral for permission to use it. The board consulted
Michelangelo and offered him the marble. He undertook to cut from it a
single figure which would exactly use the block. The contract to make
the statue of David was drawn up in 1501, and the statue was completed
in 1504. Forty men were employed four days to remove it from the
cathedral works to the Piazza della Signoria, where it was placed on
the platform of the palace (Palazzo Vecchio), remaining in the open
air more than three centuries. The weather was beginning to injure it,
and it was removed in 1873 to the Academy of Fine Arts in Florence,
where it now stands.

3. _Cupid._ Symonds gives the following account of the statue in the
"Life of Michelangelo," published in 1893: "Discovered some forty
years ago, hidden away in the cellars of the Gualfonda (Ruccellai)
Gardens, Florence, by Professor Milanesi and the famous Florentine
sculptor, Santarelli. On a cursory examination they both declared it
to be a genuine Michelangelo. The left arm was broken, the right hand
damaged, and the hair had never received the sculptor's final touches.
Santarelli restored the arm, and the Cupid passed by purchase into the
possession of the English nation." It is now in the Museum of South
Kensington.

4. _Moses_, a statue on the tomb commemorative of Julius II.,[2] in
the church of S. Pietro in Vincoli, Rome. At the beginning of
Michelangelo's connection with Julius II., he made plans for a
magnificent monumental tomb for this pope, to be ornamented with more
than forty statues and to be of great size (34-1/2 x 23 feet). The
fickleness of the Pope caused a continual series of disappointments in
the progress of the work, which was finally abandoned for the frescoes
of the Sistine Chapel. After the death of the Pope, his executors were
even less zealous for the completion of the tomb. A succession of
contracts were made and broken, each one reducing the size and
importance of the design. The artist was continually in demand for
other work. Finally, in 1542, to leave him free for the services of
the Pope, the completion of the tomb was put into other hands. The
statue of Moses, with those of Rachel and Leah, is all that
Michelangelo contributed to a work which had occupied his thoughts for
nearly forty years. The setting of the Moses is in every way
exceedingly unfavorable to a proper appreciation of the work.

[Footnote 2: The Pope, Julius II., is buried at St. Peter's.]

5. _Holy Family_, an oil painting belonging to the Florentine period
1501-1505, and painted for Angelo Doni. It is now in the Uffizi
Gallery, Florence.

6. _The Pieta_, a marble group executed by the order of the Cardinal
di San Dionigi according to a contract drawn up August 28, 1498. It
was placed in the old basilica of St. Peter's (Rome), in a chapel
dedicated to Our Lady of the Fever (Madonna della Febbre). In the
present church of St. Peter's it occupies a side chapel, to which it
gives its name, where it is placed so high that it is impossible to
see it well, and where its beauty is disfigured by the bronze cherubs
fastened above, holding a crown over the Virgin's head.

7. _Christ Triumphant_, a marble statue ordered by Bernardo Cencio (a
canon of St. Peter's), Mario Scappuci, and Metello Varj dei Porcari
for the church of S. Maria sopra Minerva, Rome, where it still stands.
The deed was executed in 1514, specifying that the statue should be of
marble, "life sized, naked, erect, with a cross in his arms." It
appears from Michelangelo's correspondence that the work was finished
by apprentices, first by Pietro Urbano, who did so badly that he was
discharged and replaced by Federigo Frizzi. It was completed in 1521,
when Michelangelo offered to make a new statue if it was not
satisfactory. Varj, however, declared that the sculptor had "already
made what could not be surpassed and was incomparable," so the statue
was placed in position.

8-12. _The Creation of Man, Jeremiah, Daniel, The Delphic Sibyl, the
Cumaean Sibyl_, frescoes on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, Rome,
begun in 1508 at the order of the Pope Julius II. Michelangelo
undertook the work reluctantly, as sculpture was his chosen art. The
architect Bramante first made a scaffolding for the work, so clumsily
constructed that Michelangelo replaced it by one of his own invention.
Several Florentine painters were engaged as assistants, but, failing
to satisfy the painter, returned. Julius II. often visited the chapel
during the work, climbing to the scaffolding to see how it progressed.
Impatient to see it, he gave orders to have the ceiling uncovered when
but half finished. The first uncovering took place November 1, 1509.
The work was completed October, 1512.

13-14. _Lorenzo de' Medici_, _Tomb of Giuliano de' Medici_, marble
tombs first projected in 1520 or 1521, during the pontificate of Leo
X. (formerly Giovanni de' Medici). The order was renewed by Clement
VII., another Medici pope, in 1523. The work was carried on
intermittently a number of years during which occurred the revolution,
siege, and recapture of Florence. From 1530-1533 Michelangelo carried
them to the point of completion in which they are now seen: they were
never fully finished. The identity of the tombs was long a matter of
doubt. Though Vasari had called the helmeted figure Lorenzo and the
other Giuliano, there were critics, notably Grimm, who took the
opposite view. In 1875 the sarcophagus of the helmeted figure was
opened and evidence found proving it to be unquestionably the tomb of
Lorenzo, as Vasari had said. Both tombs remain as originally placed in
the new sacristy of the church of San Lorenzo, Florence.

15. _Central Figures of the Last Judgment_, a fresco painting on the
wall of the Sistine Chapel, executed by the order of the Pope Paul
III., who in 1535 appointed Michelangelo chief architect, sculptor,
and painter at the Vatican. The work occupied several years and was
completed in 1541.

IV. COLLATERAL READINGS FROM LITERATURE.

IN CONNECTION WITH THE SEVERAL WORKS HERE REPRESENTED.

The Madonna and Child and the Holy Family:--

The Latin hymn, Mater Speciosa, by Jacobus de Benedictis,
translated by Dr. Neale.

David:--

Arthur Penrhyn Stanley. History of the Jewish Church, Part
II. Lectures XXII.-XXV.: David.

Robert Browning. Poem, Saul.

Psalm Twenty-three.

Cupid:--

Richard Crashaw. Poem, Cupid's Cryer; out of the Greek.

Edmund Gosse. Poem, Cupido Crucifixus.

Moses:--

Arthur Penrhyn Stanley. History of the Jewish Church, Part
I, Lectures V.-VIII.: Moses.

Mrs. A.D.T. Whitney. The Open Mystery: A Reading of the
Mosaic Story, Part IV.

The Song of Moses: Deuteronomy, chapter xxxii.

The Prayer of Moses: Psalm Ninety.

Cecil Frances Alexander. Poem, The Burial of Moses.

Sonnet on the statue of Moses by Giovanni Battista Felice
Zappi, translated by J.A. Symonds (in Life of Michelangelo
Buonarotti).

The Pieta:--

Latin hymn, Stabat Mater, by Jacobus de Benedictis,
translated by Lord Lindsay, by General Dix or by Dr. Coles.

Christ Triumphant:--

Henryk Sienkiewicz. Quo Vadis, chapter lxix.

Frescoes of the Sistine Chapel, general impressions:--

Symonds. Renaissance in Italy, volume on the Fine Arts,
chapter viii.: Life of Michael Angelo.

Taine. Italy, book iii., chapter ix.: Michael Angelo.

Andersen. The Improvisatore, chapter xii.: Allegri's
Miserere, in the Sistine Chapel.

The Creation of Man:--

Milton. Paradise Lost, book VIII., lines 500-528.

Jeremiah:--

Lucy Larcom. Poem, The Weeping Prophet.

Daniel:--

Sir Edwin Arnold. Poem, The Feast of Belshazzar.

The Delphic Sibyl:--

Lord Houghton. Delphi, a poem included in Longfellow's
collection of Poems of Places, volume on Greece.

The Cumaean Sibyl:--

Virgil. AEneid, sixth book, translated by C.P. Cranch or by
John Conington.

The Medicean Tombs, general impressions:--

Symonds. The Renaissance in Italy, volume on the Fine Arts,
chapter viii.: Life of Michael Angelo.

Taine. Italy, book iii., chapter v.: The Florentine School
of Art.

Mrs. Oliphant. The Makers of Florence, chapter xv.: Michael
Angelo.

Rogers. Italy: poem on Florence.

Lorenzo de' Medici:--

Milton. Il Penseroso.

Tomb of Giuliano de' Medici:--

Charles Algernon Swinburne. Poem, In San Lorenzo.

The Last Judgment:--

The Latin hymn, Dies Irae, by Thomas de Celano, translated
by General John E. Dix.

Alexander Dumas. Les Trois Maitres: Description of Last
Judgment, translated by Esther Singleton in the compilation
Great Pictures described by Great Writers.

The portrait of Michelangelo:--

C.P. Cranch. Michael Angelo Buonarotti, a poem read at a
celebration of the 400th anniversary of his birth, included
in Longfellow's collection of Poems of Places, volume on
Italy.

V. OUTLINE TABLE OF THE PRINCIPAL EVENTS IN MICHELANGELO'S LIFE.

(_Based on Symonds' Life of Michelangelo Buonarotti, to which the
accompanying notes on pages refer._)

1475. Born at Caprese, March 6 (p. 4).

1488. Apprenticed to Domenico and David Ghirlandajo, April 1 (p. 12).

1489-1492. Under the patronage of Lorenzo the Magnificent, in the
Casa Medici (p. 23).

1494, 1495. In Bologna, work on the tomb of St. Dominick (pp. 47, 48).

1495. Return to Florence, the Sleeping Cupid (pp. 50-52).

1496-1498. In Rome:--
The Bacchus (p. 58).
The South Kensington Cupid (p. 62).
The Pieta (p. 69).

1500. A second visit to Rome (p. 80).

1501-1505. In Florence (p. 87).

1504. Statue of David (p. 96) taken from workshop, May 14;
arrived at Piazza Signoria, May 18;
set in place, June 8.

Commissioned in August to prepare cartoons for decoration of Hall in
Palazzo Vecchio, on wall opposite to that assigned to Leonardo da
Vinci (p. 119).

1505. Arrival in Rome to work under patronage of the Pope
Julius II. (p. 126).

Preparations begun for work on tomb of Julius and trip to Carrara to
select marbles (p. 129).

1506. His angry flight from Rome (p. 155).

Visit in Florence and completion of competitive cartoon (Battle of Pisa)
for Palazzo Vecchio (p. 161).

Reconciliation with the Pope at Bologna, November (p. 186).

1506-1508. Residence in Bologna, and statue of Julius II.
(pp. 187 and 195).

1508. Return to Florence, March (p. 197).

Thence to Rome by order of Julius II. (p. 198).

Frescoes of the Sistine Chapel begun (p. 206).

1509. First uncovering of the Sistine Chapel ceiling, showing frescoes
in the central space (pp. 209, 211).

1512. Sistine frescoes completed, October (p. 217).

1513. Death of Michelangelo's patron, Julius II., Feb. 21.

New contract for tomb, dated May 6 (p. 302).

1514. Contract for life size marble statue of Christ. Date of deed,
June 14 (p. 305).

1516. Reduced plan for tomb of Julius II. (p. 320).

Visit to Carrara to quarry marble.

Suspension of work on tomb to make facade of church of S. Lorenzo
(Florence) for Pope Leo X. (p. 323).

1518. Contract for facade of S. Lorenzo, Jan. 19 (p. 328).

1518, 1519. To and from Florence and Carrara for marble (pp. 331, 339,
341, 342).

1520. Facade of S. Lorenzo abandoned (p. 349).

1521. Work begun on tombs in sacristy of S. Lorenzo (p. 357).

Statue of Christ finished (pp. 306, 359).

Death of Michelangelo's patron, Leo X., Dec. 1.

1523. Fresh beginning of project of the Medicean tombs in sacristy of
S. Lorenzo (p. 372).

1524. Vasari's apprenticeship with Michelangelo (p. 389).

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