Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 16.djvu/245

Rh MICHELANGELO 231 Michelangelo s early sculptures, and one of the finest of his life. It still recalls the ideals of some of the earlier Tuscan masters, especially Jacopo da Quercia ; but the execution is of a mastery and nobility unprecedented in Italian art. The Virgin, in drapery of magnificent design, with her left knee somewhat raised and her right hand slightly extended, sits holding on her lap the dead Christ, a figure of splendid frame and modelling as well as of admirable pathos and dignity in expression. Florence, 1501-6. Four Saints decorating the Shrine of Pius If. , in the cathedral of Siena. These figures represent the only part which Michelangelo ever completed of his contract with the car dinal Piccolomini and his heirs. They are evidently carried out by the hand of pupils only. Virgin and Child, Liebfrauenkirche, Bruges. This pleasing group has been since the days of Albert Diirer attributed to Michelangelo, and bears the manifest stamp of his design, though its execution may be partly by inferior hands. It is placed close to the tombstone of a member of the Moscheroni (or Moskeron) family. We know that Michelangelo executed at this time, for one of this very family, a work which the ancient biographers describe as having been in bronze, a medal lion in that metal, says explicitly Vasari ; but it is probably really the marble group in question. Virgin and Child, Royal Academy, London. This beautiful unfinished circular relief is identified with one recorded to have been executed by the master for Taddeo Gaddi. Virgin and Child, National Museum, Florence, a similar relief, also unfinished, originally ordered by Bartolommeo Pitti. Youthful David, Academy of Arts, Florence. Of this colossal work, which in spite of its scale and subject has still, in grace of pose and style, a considerable artistic affinity with the earlier Bacchus and St John, enough has been said. Figure of David, a small statue in bronze. Several extant works have been pointed out as probably identical with this lost statue ; but the claims of none have been generally acknowledged. PAINTING. Holy Family, Uffizi, Florence. This circular picture, painted for Angelo Doni, and mentioned by the earliest biographers, is the only perfectly well-attested panel-painting of Michelangelo which exists. His love of restless and somewhat strained actions is illustrated by the action of the Madonna, who kneels on the ground holding up the child on her right shoulder ; his love of the nude by the introduction (wherein he follows Luca Signorelli) of some otherwise purposeless undraped figures in the background. Virgin and Child with Four Angels, National Gallery, London. This unfinished painting, marked by great grace as well as severity of feeling and design, was formerly attributed to Domenico Ghirlandaio, but is now commonly held to be the earliest extant picture by Michel angelo. Of his manner, especially in the design and treatment of the drapery, it bears evident marks ; but the execution seems like that of some weaker pupil or companion, perhaps Kidolfo Ghirlandaio or Granacci. Entombment of Christ, National Gallery, London. This picture, also unfinished, has in like manner been much con tested. Its composition is unfortunate ; weaker hands have dis figured some portions of the work ; but the extraordinary excellence of other portions, and the grandeur of some of the actions, render it probable that the work is one begun and afterwards abandoned by Michelangelo himself. Cartoon of the Battle of Anghiari. Of this famous lost work (begun, though apparently not completed, in the period now engaging us) the only authentic record is contained in two early engravings, one by Marcantonio and the other by Agostino Veneziano. An elaborate drawing of many figures at Holkham Hall, well known and often engraved, seems to be a later cento destitute of real authority. Michelangelo had not been long in Rome before Pope Julius devised fit employment for him. That capacious and headstrong spirit, on fire with great enterprises, had conceived the idea of a sepulchral monument to com memorate his glory when he should be dead, and to be executed according to his own plans while he was still living. He entrusted this congenial task to Michelangelo. The design being approved, the artist spent the winter of 1505-6 at the quarries of Carrara, superintending the excavation and shipment of the necessary marbles. In the spring he returned to Rome, and when the marbles arrived fell to with all his energy at the preparations for the work. For a while the pope followed their progress eagerly, and was all kindness to the young sculptor. But presently his disposition changed. In Michelangelo s absence an artist who was no friend of his, Bramante of Urbino, had been selected by Julius to carry out a new architectural scheme, commensurate with the usual vastness of his con ceptions, namely the rebuilding of St Peter s church. To the influence and the malice of Bramante Michelangelo attributed the unwelcome invitation he now received to interrupt the great work of sculpture which he had just begun, in order to decorate the Sixtine chapel with frescos. Soon, however, schemes of war and conquest interposed to divert the thoughts of Julius, not from the progress of his own monument merely, but from artistic enterprises altogether. One day Michelangelo heard him say at table to his jeweller that he meant to spend no more money on pebbles either small or great. To add to the artist s dis comfiture, when he went to apply in person for payments due, he was first put off from day to day, and at last actually with scant courtesy dismissed. At this his dark mood got the mastery of him. Convinced that not his employment only but his life was threatened, he suddenly took horse and left Rome, and before the messengers of the pope could overtake him was safe on Florentine territory. Michelangelo s flight took place in April 1506. Once among his own people, he turned a deaf ear to all overtures made from Rome for his return, and stayed throughout the summer at Florence, how occupied we are not distinctly informed, but apparently, among other things, on the continuation of his great battle cartoon. During the same summer Julius planned and executed the victorious military campaign which ended in his unopposed entry at the head of his army into Bologna. Thither, under strict safe-conduct and promises of renewed favour, Michelangelo was at last prevailed on to betake himself. Julius received the truant artist kindly, as indeed between these two volcanic natures there existed a natural affinity, and ordered of him his own colossal likeness in bronze, to be set up, as a symbol of his conquering authority, over the principal entrance of the church of St Petronius. For the next fifteen months Michelangelo devoted his whole strength to this new task. The price at which he undertook it .left him, as it turned out, hardly any margin to subsist on. Moreover, in the technical art of metal casting he was inexperienced, and an assistant whom he had summoned from Florence proved insubor dinate and had to be dismissed. Nevertheless his genius prevailed over every hardship and difficulty, and on the 21st of February 1508 the majestic bronze colossus of the seated pope, robed and mitred, with one hand grasping the keys and the other extended in a gesture of benedic tion and command, was duly raised to its station over the church porch. Three years later it was destroyed in a I revolution. The people of Bologna rose against the authority of Julius ; his delegates and partisans were cast out, and his effigy hurled from its place. The work of Michelangelo, after being trailed in derision through the streets, was broken up and its fragments cast into the furnace. Meanwhile the artist himself, as soon as his work was done, had followed his reconciled master back to Rome. The task that here awaited him, however, was after all not the resumption of the papal monument, but the execution of the series of paintings in the Sixtine chapel which had been mooted before his departure. Painting, he always averred, was not his business; and he entered with misgiving and reluctance upon his new undertaking. Destiny, however, so ruled that the work thus thrust upon him remains his chief title to glory. His history is one of indomitable will and almost superhuman energy, yet of will that hardly ever had its way, and of energy continually at war with circumstance. The only work which in all his life he was able to complete as he had conceived it was this of the decoration of the Sixtine ceiling. The pope had at first proposed a scheme including figures of the twelve apostles only. Michelangelo would be content with nought so meagre, and furnished instead a design of many hundred figures, embodying all the history of creation and