Powerful Goddess Portraits

Carving is easy.

You just go down to the skin

and stop.

Michelangelo

Classical sculptures greatly inspire the portraits I create and it’s exciting to look forward to the NYC Metropolitan Museum‘s new exhibit featuring Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475–1564).

Despite, or maybe because of Michelangelo’s quirky personality, Italians adored this towering genius in the history of Western art.  He was celebrated for the excellence of his disegno, the power of illustration and invention that provided the foundation for all the arts. He mastered drawing, design, sculpture, painting, and architecture with dazzling imagery and technical virtuosity. Sometimes cranky yet always prolific, they referred to him as “Il Divino” or the Divine. His works, not his moods, attest to how he lived up to the moniker.

Did you know these fun facts about this renaissance man?

He paints his face as his signature.

The Pietà was Michelangelo’s first sculptural masterpiece and it turned out so well no one believed it could have possibly come from such a young artist. He inscribed his name on a sash running diagonally across the Virgin Mary’s chest and never signed any other work of art thereafter. Though he might paint himself into them as he did in The Last Judgment fresco that covers an entire wall of the Sistine Chapel–a project that was Raphael’s dare for him to prove he couldn’t paint. Look out for St. Bartholomew holding the skin of a face that appears to be Michelangelo’s.

The David was carved from a scrap block of marble.

Of all the facts about Michelangelo and his career, this is maybe the most impressive. Though notoriously picky about the marble he used, Michelangelo chose a tall, slender piece for the David, leading many to doubt something good could come out of it.

Called the “Giant”, the marble slab had been quarried and then abandoned for over 40 years before Michelangelo claimed it. The stone had deteriorated and grown rough from the elements yet Michelangelo created a 17-foot tall masterpiece, deemed structurally perfect by the world’s best artists and sculptures.

He launched his career with a forgery.

Michelangelo probably got his start in 1496 from copying an ancient Roman sculpture called Sleeping Cupid and passing it off as the original. After completing the reproduction, he buried the statue underground then dug it up to give it a worn, scratched look then sold the piece to a cardinal for a large sum. A compliment to unstoppable genius!

The Met Museum opens its exhibit Michaelangelo: Divine Draftsman and Designer on November 13, 2017. This exhibition a wide range of his drawings, marble sculptures, earliest painting, wood architectural model, as well as a body of complementary works by other artists for comparison and context.

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