Page 269 - Art In The Age Of Exploration (Great Section on Chinese Art Ming Dynasty)

printed copies of other figures, confirm the essen- l68 Hartt 1971, no. 232). Moreover, the complex ico-
tial accuracy of the grisaille version. nography and restrained sense of tragedy seem
Although there is little reason to think that the Michelangelo difficult to recognize as the product of an artist in
Florentine government would have given Miche- his mid teens. On the other hand, the sense of
langelo the license to choose a battle or an inci- Florentine, 1475-1564 experimental awkwardness in some aspects of the
dent to suit his personal tastes, the subject of the MADONNA OF THE STAIRS poses, particularly in the arrangement of the Vir-
soldiers scrambling to arm themselves after bath- gin's feet, and the rather fussy carving of the
ing was ideally suited to his mastery of the human c. 1495 drapery, support an early date. The Battle of the
figure. The incident occurred on the day before marble Centaurs, though very different in its high relief
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the actual battle, when the Florentines were off 55-5 X 40 X 3.4-2.5 (21% X l$ /4 X ! /8-l) and tempestuous subject, testifies to the remarka-
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guard. Realizing their vulnerability, one of the references: De Tolnay 1943-1960, 1:125-132; ble sophistication of Michelangelo's grasp of both
Florentine leaders, Manno Donati, shouted that Barocchi 1962; Call 1967; Hartt 1969, no. i; form and content in even his earliest works. The
Weil-Garris
the Pisans were attacking. Although Donates cry Hibbard 1985 Posner 1970; Hartt 1971, no. 232; best solution is probably to date the Madonna
was an intentional false alarm, he achieved his early in his career, but a few years later than
aim of making the Florentines ready for what was Ente Casa Buonarroti, Florence 1491. It may well be contemporary with his Angel
to be a successful fight. Donati may be the figure Bearing a Candelabrum for the tomb of Saint
just to the right of center, who lunges forward. Neither Giorgio Vasari in his first Life of the Dominic in San Domenico, Bologna, which shares
The figure in the center may be the commander, artist in 1550 nor Condivi, the writer of the "au- the rather waxy texture of its draperies and which
Galeotto Malatesta, whose act of winding (or thorized" biography of Michelangelo in 1553, was carved in 1495. This date also works well
unwinding) a length of cloth from his head may mentioned this relief, but it was briefly discussed with its possible literary source in Benivieni's
be a punning allusion to his surname. in Vasari's second edition in 1568, and its author- Scala della vita spirituale sopra il nome di
The subject gave Michelangelo an ideal oppor- ship is not in any serious doubt. Vasari's account Maria of 1495.
tunity to take up the theme of nudes in various immediately follows his discussion of the Battle Low reliefs of Madonnas were popular devo-
postures, pioneered by Pollaiuolo (cat. 160), of the Centaurs. tional items for domestic settings in the mid and
developed by Bertoldo (cat. 164), and already late quattrocento. However, Michelangelo has
explored by Michelangelo himself in his Battle of It [the Battle] is held in memory of Michel- looked past his immediate predecessors and back
the Centaurs (Casa Buonarroti, Florence). Com- angelo in his house, as the rare thing it indeed to the revered example of Donatello, who provides
pared to the earlier examples, Michelangelo has is, by Lionardo, his nephew, who not many precedents for the somber emotion, abrupt carv-
attained new levels of complexity in his orches- years ago also had in his house in memory of ing of the background children, and suggestively
tration of variously posed figures on a shallow his uncle a Madonna in low relief in marble, a variable degree of finish. The marks of the claw
stage. In so doing he has managed to sustain a little more than a braccio high, from the hand chisel are not only apparent in the figures of chil-
balance between expressive if rhetorical function of Michelangelo, who, still being a young man dren but also in various aspects of the Virgin's
and self-conscious artistry, though it was to be at this time, wished to replicate the style of flesh and drapery. The warm, honey-colored
the latter characteristic that most impressed the Donatello, which he did to such effect that it patina acquired by the marble nicely enhances
younger generation of artists, who strove in an appears to be by Donatello's hand, except that Michelangelo's own feel for the "living" quality of
academic manner to emulate the celebrated "diffi- more grace and draftsmanship can be discerned the material, which, in other hands, often
culty" of the "master's" figure style. Sangallo's in it. This relief was then given to Duke possesses an unyieldingly stony quality. Although
painting, even if it misses something of the mon- Cosimo [n] Medici who maintains that it is a he has achieved strong effects of monumental
umentality that must have characterized Michel- most singular object, in that there is no low plasticity, the most prominent parts of the relief
angelo's huge drawing, is a fitting homage to relief from his hand other than this sculpture protrude little more than a quarter of an inch
Michelangelo's achievement and provides vivid (Vasari 1568). from the background plane. The flattened area at
testimony to the exemplary status achieved by the back of Christ's head is probably the result of
the cartoon for what for us remains a tragically The dating of the relief is more problematic than abrasion rather than miscalculation on the sculp-
incomplete project. the modern consensus might suggest. It is widely tor's part. Other minor abrasions are visible else-
The paint on Sangallo's panel is presently assumed, following Vasari's association of it with where, particularly in the fingers of Christ's right
covered by layers of discolored varnish, and there the Battle of the Centaurs (Casa Buonarroti, Flor- hand. The top corners of the shallow frame have
is a good deal of dirt in the interstices of the ence), to be one of his earliest works, undertaken also been damaged, more conspicuously on the
impasto. There are also some surface scratches, a while he was in the household of Lorenzo de' right, but the greater part of the surface gives a
few scattered paint losses, and limited areas of Medici, that is to say in or before 1492, when he wonderfully intact sense of Michelangelo's hand
percussive damage. However, the panel as a whole was sixteen or seventeen. However, since as a at work.
is in good condition, in spite of the loss of two very low relief—a relievo schiacciato — it is The iconography is of unprecedented complex-
vertical battens from the rear, and the paint unique in Michelangelo's oeuvre as Vasari recog- ity for a low relief Madonna and Child. The motif
surface is generally well preserved. Sangallo's nized, direct comparisons with other kinds of of the Child suckling, the Virgo lactans, has been
rhythmic and impasted application of oil paint is work should be handled with caution. The motif combined with a prefiguration of the death of
fundamentally unlike Michelangelo's, but his of the sibylline woman seated on a block recalls Christ as conveyed by the sleeping Child's sagging
emphasis upon, the outlining of the contours of the Sistine Ceiling of 1508-1512—both the Sibyls head and limp arm, which allude to the Pieta. The
the figures — often ensuring that a dark contour themselves and the female ancestors of Christ. stone block may be an allusion to Christ as the
appears on a light background and vice versa, The bluntly defined boys in the background also rock on which the Church is to be founded. The
clearly reflects the incisive draftsmanship of the resemble those in the ancestor lunettes of the Sis- five stairs of the background make reference to
original cartoon. M.K. tine Chapel. The motif of Christ's arm tucked the five letters of Maria's name, which Domenico
behind his back may even be compared to the Benivieni, a theologian in Lorenzo de' Medici's
study from the early 1520$ for the back of Night Florence, interpreted in his Scala as meaning that
in the Medici Chapel (Teylers Museum, Haarlem; the Virgin is our stairway between earth and

268 CIRCA 1492