'Certain of Death': Michelangelo's Late Life and Art (original) (raw)
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On 18 February 1564, just two weeks before his eighty-ninth birthday, Michelangelo Buonarroti passed away in Rome, surrounded by his closest friends. It was not his death, however, that assured the master a place of excellence in the Pantheon of the arts: indeed, even in his lifetime, he was lauded as the unsurpassed champion of his century. 1 Even after 1564, Michelangelo's lessons in art continued to gather strength, albeit unsteadily.
Michelangelo as the Creator: The self-portrait of the Buonarroti Archive, XIII, 111 r
CRITICA D' ARTE, ns. 13-14, 2022
Michelangelo depicted himself in a sheet of the Archivio Buonarroti while painting the Sistine Ceiling. The self-portrait is not, as many scholars wrongly asserted, a caricature. For the first time, this article wants to point out the intriguing resemblance between Michelangelo’s self-portrait silhouette and the artist’s representation of God in the iconic fresco of the Creation of Adam. This panel was the first painted by Michelangelo in 1511 for the second part of the ceiling’s decoration. God seems to silently say to Adam, «Be still and know that I am God» (Psalm 46:10). The Lord’s creative act is often identified with the gesture of the right arm towards Adam. Likewise, in the sheet of the Buonarroti Archive, the artist represented himself in the act of creating, giving life, through the brush. This tool represents an extension of Michelangelo’s body. In the artist’s self-portrait, his right arm is stretched toward the ceiling’s surface to give life to the stories of Genesis. The artist holds a brush that approaches the vault’s surface but does not touch it. This gesture recalls Michelangelo’s painting of God’s index, who gives life to Adam without touching him. The artist’s self-portrait goes towards the surface of the ceiling, as God goes towards Adam. Michelangelo was (also) a Creator.