Michelangelo was one of the most creative and admired artists of the Italian Renaissance, famous for his work as a sculptor, painter, architect and poet. But his genius can only truly be appreciated outside Italy through his work as a draughtsman. This book, written to accompany a major exhibition, combines the finest works from three outstanding collections of his drawings in the British Museum, London, the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, and the Teyler Museum, Haarlem, to tell the story of Michelangelo’s extraordinarily long and active life.

Michelangelo was one of the most creative and admired artists of the Italian Renaissance, famous for his work as a sculptor, painter, architect and poet. But his genius can only truly be appreciated outside Italy through his work as a draughtsman. This book, written to accompany a major exhibition, combines the finest works from three outstanding collections of his drawings in the British Museum, London, the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, and the Teyler Museum, Haarlem, to tell the story of Michelangelo’s extraordinarily long and active life.

An introductory chapter discusses Michelangelo’s contemporary fame, his training and choice of drawing technique, and the role of drawing in the genesis of his works. The following chapters move chronologically through the important projects that dominated his long career, illustrating how his ideas evolved in the creation of his most celebrated works, including the Sistine chapel ceiling, the Last Judgement and the Medici chapel in Florence. The sequences of drawings that he developed give an unparalleled insight into Michelangelo’s creative process, revealing how the perfection of the finished piece was arrived at only after detailed preparation. Through these accompanying drawings - from sketchy first ideas to exquisitely refined and sensual studies of individual figures - the full spectrum of his artistic activities is revealed. Illustrated here are superlative examples of Michelangelo’s studies of the male nude, as well as less well-known facets of his activities such as portraiture, architecture, silversmith designer, teacher and supplier of compositional ideas for other artists. Michelangelo lived during a period of great political and religious turbulence in Italy, and his reactions to these seismic changes are explored through his work and letters.

From pen studies made when Michelangelo was in his early twenties to the visionary Crucifixion scenes carried out shortly before his death over six decades later, this book testifies to the fundamental importance of drawing in the work of this great Renaissance master.

Foreword

Acknowledgements

Michelangelo: Significant dates

1 Introduction

2 Early Formation: Florence and Rome, 1475-1501

3 Florence, 1501-1505

4 The Second Roman Period, 1505-1516

5 The Return to Florence, 1516-1534

6 Rome, 1534-1564

Appendix I: List of exhibits

Appendix II: Translations of longer inscriptions and letters

Notes

Bibliography

Index

Illustration acknowledgements