Anecdotes of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors and Architects, and Curiosities of Art (Vol. 1 of 3)Spooner, Shearjashub
History
Anecdotes of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors and Architects, and Curiosities of Art (Vol. 1 of 3)
Spooner, Shearjashub
Art -- Anecdotes; Artists -- Anecdotes
“The Last Judgment,” says Lanzi, “was filled with such a profusion of
nudity that it was in great danger of being destroyed, from a regard to
the decency of the sanctuary. Paul IV. proposed to whitewash it, and was
hardly appeased with the correction of its most glaring indelicacies, by
some drapery introduced here and there by Daniello da Volterra, on whom
the facetious Romans, from this circumstance, conferred the nickname of
the _Breeches-maker_.” Other corrections were proposed by different
critics, and some alterations made. Angelo was censured for mixing
sacred with profane history; for introducing the angels of revelation
with the Stygian ferryman; Christ sitting in judgment, and Minos
assigning his proper station to each of the damned. To this profanity,
he added satire; in Minos, he portrayed the features of the Master of
Ceremonies, who in the hearing of the pope, had pronounced this picture
more suitable for a Bagnio than a church; and an officious Cardinal, he
placed among the damned, with a fiend dragging him by the testes down to
hell.
MICHAEL ANGELO’S COLORING.
The coloring of Michael Angelo has been generally criticised as being
too cold and inharmonious, but the best critics now consider that it was
admirably adapted to his design. His chief characteristics were grandeur
and sublimity, and whatever partook of the sublime and the terrible, he
portrayed with a fidelity that intimidates the beholder. It is an error
to suppose that he could not color delicately and brilliantly when he
chose. During his residence at Florence, he painted an exquisite Leda
for Alphonso, Duke of Ferrara. Michael Angelo was so much offended at
the manner of one of the courtiers of that prince, who was sent to bring
it to Ferrara, that he refused to let him have it, but made it a present
to his favorite pupil, Antonio Mini, who carried it to France. Vasari
describes it as “a grand picture, painted in distemper, that seemed as
if it breathed on the canvass”; and Mariette, in his notes on Condivi,
affirms that he saw the picture, and that “Michael Angelo appeared to
have forgot his usual style, and approached the tone of Titian.”
D’Argenville informs us that the picture was destroyed by fire in the
reign of Louis XIII. Lanzi says, “In chiaro-scuro, Michael Angelo had
not the skill and delicacy of Correggio; but his paintings in the
Vatican have a force and relief much commended by Renfesthein, an
eminent connoisseur, who, on passing from the Sistine chapel to the
Farnesian gallery, remarked how greatly in this respect the Caracci
themselves were eclipsed by Buonarotti.”
MICHAEL ANGELO’S GRACE.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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