“Drawings bring you closer to
the artist than any other art form,” says eminent Michelangelo scholar, Dr. John
T. Spike, assistant director at The College of William & Mary’s Muscarelle
Museum of Art. “You can see what he’s thinking, how his mind works. In a
drawing we see the artist’s thoughts as they come to him and he puts them down
on paper in pen and ink, or chalk.” Spike is also curator of “Michelangelo:
Sacred and Profane: Masterpieces from the Casa Buonarroti,” on view at the
Muscarelle through April 14, 2013.
The 26 drawings on display, which include studies for
paintings as well as architectural plans and sketches, are from the Casa Buonarroti in
Florence, which houses the world’s largest collection of Michelangelo drawings.
This important exhibition will be traveling on to the Boston
Museum of Fine Arts after it closes in Williamsburg.
Within the broad
selection of subjects and techniques featured in the current exhibition
displaying Michelangelo’s extraordinary talent, the winsome “Cleopatra” and the
Madonna of “The Madonna and Child,” on either end of the profane and sacred
spectrum, present his ideal of feminine beauty. In the latter, the simply
staggering rendering of the infant Christ’s flesh and musculature is one of the
highlights of the show. Contrasting to the careful execution of these two works
are a number of quick sketches that capture Michelangelo’s sure-handed brio,
including the marvelous “Study for the Leg of
the Christ Child for the ‘Doni Tondo.’”
The architectural
drawings reveal not only Michelangelo’s revolutionary design ideas, but are
also perfect embodiments of the Renaissance in their unity of science and art.
So, his human figures divulge Michelangelo’s intimate familiarity with anatomy,
and a drawing like the “Ground Plan of a Bastion for a City Gate,” where it
appears that he’s exploring the trajectory of potential missiles directed at
the structure, is both a complex diagram of the angles of attack as well as
a design for the bastion.
Other
architectural sketches of note include the plan for the church of San Giovanni
dei Fiorentini in Rome (a beautiful geometric image composed of solids and
voids), as well as several perspectives of the famous Mannerist steps from
Florence’s Laurentian Library and a what-might-have-been drawing of the
remarkable, but never-built, triangular-shaped “Pichola Libreria”—the “little
library,” which would have formed a sanctum sanctorum inside the larger
Laurentian. Spike argues this proposed building would have been Michelangelo’s
bricks and mortar embodiment of enlightenment.
Whether
architectural or figurative, Michelangelo commonly “recycled” old sketches and
writing, filling in blank areas with additional drawing, which creates the
layered effect of a palimpsest, (originally a reused piece of parchment that
has writing added onto its surface from which earlier writing has been scraped
off but is still visible).
The
drawings are displayed under low light, for conservation reasons, and with
minimal labels in order to invite their contemplation. For further exploration, there’s an
accompanying illustrated catalogue, which features an essay by Spike (who is a
scholar of philosophy as well as art history) in which he discusses with exceptional
insight Michelangelo’s inner philosophy.
For something that
began as an afterthought, the Muscarelle Museum of Art has developed
a sterling reputation. The seed of what would
grow into the museum was planted in the 1970s when a visitor to The College
pointed out to then President Thomas A. Graves a painting by Georgia O’Keeffe
hanging cavalierly on the wall. Realizing this was but the tip of the iceberg,
President Graves approached the art history department’s Miles Chappell to
figure out exactly what The College owned. Today, the collection, weighted in 17th- and 18th-century
English and American portraits, now consists of more than 4,000 works,
including those by Hans Hofmann, Picasso and Matisse.
Built through the support of William & Mary alumni and
friends, the museum was named for its major benefactors Joseph L. Muscarelle
(W&M ’27), his wife Margaret and their family. The Muscarelle opened in
1983 under the helm of Glenn
Lowry (current director of New York’s Museum of Modern Art) and within five years had
become accredited by the American Association of Museums—the first Virginia
university/college art museum to do so.
Thirty years after opening, there are plans to enlarge the
museum with a new arts complex so as to exhibit more pieces from the permanent
collection and accommodate larger traveling exhibitions. Muscarelle Director Dr.
Aaron H. De Groft would not reveal any specifics, but could confirm that “the College is in the process of
determining a revamped concept and the Museum is moving full speed ahead in
private fundraising for its facilities needs and toward a design … over the
next two years there will be significant strides towards the goals of the
Museum.”
For now, the
Michelangelo show serves as indication of the Muscarelle’s ambition. For a
small institution to mount such an exhibition is extraordinary—a fitting accomplishment to crown its 30th anniversary.
De Groft expresses it best: "I'm not only the director here, but I’m also
a William & Mary alumnus. I was here when the museum first opened and I am
so proud that the Muscarelle is offering this exceptional show of
Michelangelo's drawings.”
WM.edu/Muscarelle
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