Page 267 - Art In The Age Of Exploration (Great Section on Chinese Art Ming Dynasty)

council hall. The choice of black chalk gives
expression to the boldness of attack adopted by
Michelangelo in the Teylers sketches. The changes
in the density of Michelangelo's touch (he may
have moistened the chalk for the deepest shad-
ows), together with discriminating touches of
white heightening, create an extraordinary sense
of plasticity. The sheet has been trimmed and
folded, and is stained and patched, but the damage
has done little to diminish the power of the figure
study on the recto. The verso contains life studies
for the group of Judith and Holofernes in one of
the spandrels of the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel
in Rome, which dates from three or four years
later. Here Michelangelo has roughly blocked out
the main elements of the composition: Judith and
her companion bearing away the severed head on
the left, a chamber with the decapitated corpse of
Holofernes in front of stairs in the center, two
guards who are shortly to discover the body on
the right. There is a slight indication of the
curved shape of the actual pictorial field at the top
of the shaded portion in the center. In the scene
as painted on the ceiling, however, Michelangelo
eliminated the right portion of the composition
and placed a sleeping guard at the left, giving
Judith a more central position and filling the awk-
ward shape more satisfactorily.
M.K.

167
Aristotele da Sangallo
(after Michelangelo)
Florentine, 1481-1551
STUDY OF MICHELANGELO'S CARTOON
FOR THE "BATTLE OF CASCINA"

1542 (based on the lost original of 1504-1505)
oil on panel
3
jS.j x 129 (31 x 5O /4)
recto references: Milanesi 1878; Clausse 1900-1902;
Frey 1909; De Tolnay 1943-1960, 1:209-236; Wilde
1944; Isermeyer 1964; Gould 1966; Hirst 1986;
Bambach Cappel 1987; Bambach Cappel 1990
verso Viscount Coke and the Trustees of the Holkham
Estate, Norfolk

To decorate the great Council Hall, built during
the 14905 in the Palazzo Vecchio, the government
of Florence commissioned two huge murals from
its leading artists, Leonardo da Vinci and Michel-
angelo, each to depict an incident from a famous
Florentine victory (Wilde 1944, Isermeyer 1964).
Leonardo was to illustrate a battle fought against
the Milanese in 1440, and Michelangelo was to
portray the prelude to a battle against the Pisans
in 1364. The involvement of Leonardo, who was to
paint the Battle of Anghiari, is documented from

266 CIRCA 1492