Michelangelo@The Met

Little late in blogging about this but that's only because I just saw the monumental exhibit "Michelangelo: Divine Draftsman & Designer" at the Metropolitan Museum a few days ago. It's a mind-blowing, overwhelming experience.

This is not a typical exhibit. Besides its scale, its ambition is greater than simply displaying Michelangelo's work. Its explores his education, development, growth and influence as an artist. We not only see the work Michelangelo created but also the work of his teachers and the artists he mentored and worked with. Specifically, it examines Michelangelo's disegno, or drawing, that is the basis for all arts (painting, sculpture, fashion etc.). The exhibit displays over 100 of his drawings, including the sketches he created in preparation for his great masterpiece, the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in Rome (there is an entire exhibit room dedicated to the Sistine Chapel, including a 1/4 reproduction of it on the ceiling).

Perhaps my favorite drawing is one that Michelangelo created with this students: a collection of eye drawings, of various sizes, that dot the page, along with everyone's signatures. It's a reminder that, in his time, Michelangelo was a working artist and teacher, a draftsman. That's the genius of the man and this exhibit: it shows Michelangelo as a worker, a plodder, someone in the act of discovery, who created works that have lasted over 500 years. Genius, ultimately, is about simply working and working and working -- and re-working. Genius is not in the head, its in the doing.

This exhibit closes on February 12th so run and see it now -- and prepare to be amazed.   

P.S. There's an entire movie devoted to Michelangelo painting the Sistine Chapel, and his complex relationship with his patron, Pope Julius II, called The Agony and the Ecstasy. It came out in 1965 and, while not a great movie, it's a trip to see Charlton Heston (as Michelangelo) painting the Sistine Chapel and being berated by a crotchety Rex Harrison as the pope.