Cover of Michelangelo's Painting
Michelangelo's Painting Selected Essays
by Leo Steinberg, edited by Sheila Schwartz, introduction by Alexander Nagel
University of Chicago Press, 2019
Cloth: 978-0-226-48226-2 | Electronic: 978-0-226-48243-9
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226482439.001.0001

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ABOUT THIS BOOK

Leo Steinberg was one of the most original art historians of the twentieth century, known for taking interpretive risks that challenged the profession by overturning reigning orthodoxies. In essays and lectures ranging from old masters to contemporary art, he combined scholarly erudition with an eloquent prose that illuminated his subject and a credo that privileged the visual evidence of the image over the literature written about it. His writings, sometimes provocative and controversial, remain vital and influential reading.

For half a century, Steinberg delved into Michelangelo’s work, revealing the symbolic structures underlying the artist’s highly charged idiom. This volume of essays and unpublished lectures elucidates many of Michelangelo’s paintings, from frescoes in the Sistine Chapel to the Conversion of St. Paul and the Crucifixion of St. Peter, the artist’s lesser-known works in the Vatican’s Pauline Chapel; also included is a study of the relationship of the Doni Madonna to Leonardo.

Steinberg’s perceptions evolved from long, hard looking. Almost everything he wrote included passages of old-fashioned formal analysis, but always put into the service of interpretation. He understood that Michelangelo’s rendering of figures, as well as their gestures and interrelations, conveys an emblematic significance masquerading under the guise of naturalism. Michelangelo pushed Renaissance naturalism into the furthest reaches of metaphor, using the language of the body to express fundamental Christian tenets once expressible only by poets and preachers.

Leo Steinberg was one of the most original art historians of the twentieth century, known for taking interpretive risks that challenged the profession by overturning reigning orthodoxies. Michelangelo’s Painting is the second volume in a series that presents Steinberg’s writings, selected and edited by his longtime associate Sheila Schwartz.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

Leo Steinberg (1920–2011) was born in Moscow and raised in Berlin and London, emigrating with his family to New York in 1945. He was a professor of art history at Hunter College, City University of New York, and then Benjamin Franklin Professor at the University of Pennsylvania, where he remained until his retirement in 1990. Sheila Schwartz worked with Steinberg from 1968 until his death in 2011. She received her PhD from the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University, and is presently Research & Archives Director of The Saul Steinberg Foundation.

REVIEWS

“Sheila Schwartz, an art historian who worked closely with Steinberg, has edited these essays with a discernment that’s matched by the elegance of the volumes, which are among the most beautifully produced art books of recent years.”
— New York Review of Books

"This second volume of Steinberg's selected essays treats readers to the late scholar’s masterly prose and scholarship, this time focusing on Michelangelo’s paintings. Schwartz is an expert, and her editing of these 11 essays is judicious. . . . With excellent production values and nicely illustrated throughout, this book continues to whet one’s appetite for future volumes. . . . Highly recommended. 
— CHOICE

"It is gratifying to see the text now supported by the sort of photographs it deserves. The editor Sheila Schwartz, Steinberg’s longtime assistant and now curator of his literary legacy, also augments the text with evidence that Steinberg continued to accumulate for the rest of his life. No less importantly, Schwartz’s collection, the second in a series of five planned volumes of Steinberg’s essays, enables one to see that Steinberg’s account of the Pauline Chapel was embedded in a larger and continuously shifting account of Michelangelo’s painting. . . . The flourishing scholarly interest in [Steinberg's] legacy starts from a conviction that he is a model worth following. Beyond the encomia that appeared after Steinberg’s death in 2011, his findings and method continue to be discussed by students of art, philosophy, and aesthetics."
— Storia della Critica d’Arte, Annuario della S.I.S.C.A.

"Steinburg prompts us to think about and see Michelangelo in new ways and enriches our understanding of him—a poetic artist and an artistic poet—and of Renaissance art and life. This book is as accomplished and scholarly as it is gorgeous."
— Renaissance and Reformation

"A Close, Dazzling Look at Michelangelo’s painting"
— Hyperallergic

"It is no surprise that this volume of Steinberg’s essays on Michelangelo’s paintings brims with the author’s well-known chutzpah. . . . Michelangelo’s Painting: Selected Essays adds much that is valuable and revealing about Steinberg’s oeuvre."
— NYU Institute of Fine Arts Alumni Newsletter

TABLE OF CONTENTS


DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226482439.003.0000
[Leo Steinberg;Alexander Nagel;Michelangelo]
Leo Steinberg'smethod was certainly unusual, but the goals were the quite traditional ones of remaining accurate to the historical intentions and functions that actuated a central tradition of European art. The rhetorical demands he makes on his readers was his means of instilling an attitude in them adequate to the rhetorical complexity native to the art. By modeling this complexity in his own writing, and activating it in dialogue with his readers, he offered an embedded argument for the existence of a certain figurative language and style of reference at work in the art.


DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226482439.003.0001
[Michelangelo;Leonardo;Doni Madonna;Michelangelo drawings;St. Anne iconography]
For the past century, almost every reference to the Doni Madonna asserts the tondo’s dependence on Leonardo’s lost 1501 St. Anne cartoon—that Michelangelo saw the cartoon as a challenge, with the Doni Madonna the result. But between 1501 and 1506, the date of the Doni Madonna, Michelangelo was engaged in major sculptural commissions, so it is unlikely that the tondo was a delayed after-effect. Moreover, a close look at the tondo reveals conceptual differences belying the common assertion of compositional affinities. The Leonardo departs from the traditional iconography of St. Anne, the Virgin, and Child, which emphasizes the generational sequence of filiation, whereas manifest filiation is at the center of the Doni Madonna, the Virgin sitting between the spread legs of St. Joseph, understood as surrogate father and surrogate husband, standing in God’s place. To fully disconnect the Doni Tondo from Leonardo’s conception, two drawings on the theme of St. Anne with the Virgin and Child are closely examined. Traditionally attributed to Michelangelo, they have been heralded as proof of his “quick response” to “the challenge of Leonardo.” One is shown to be only partly by Michelangelo and intended to instruct a student, the other not by his hand.


DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226482439.003.0002
[Michelangelo;Sistine Ceiling;Deluge;Pope Julius II;Allegory;Amicitia;Hugh of St. Victor;Pasquino;Hercules and Antaeus]
The Sistine Deluge fresco is the least appreciated of the ceiling’s narrative scenes: the figures are felt to be too small and too many, the composition seems disjointed and scattered. These perceived flaws, however, yield to a positive interpretation when three questions are asked. How does Michelangelo, in his first essay in monumental fresco painting within an architectural frame, wrestle the difficulties of integrating his subjective invention with the pregiven, inhospitable conditions of the site? How does he go about telling a story, and just what is the story he tells? Lastly, can Michelangelo’s conception of the subject be seen as an occasion for self-confession? The answers to these questions engage the evolution of the artist’s design for the ceiling, the composition of the Deluge and the three Creation scenes as a response to the dynamics of the architecture, the symbolism of the narrative divisions of the Deluge, the theological interpretation of the event, and Michelangelo’s biography at the moment he was forced to abandon his cherished project for the many figured marble tomb of Julius II and take up fresco painting.


DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226482439.003.0003
[Michelangelo;Creation of Adam;First and Second Adam;First and Second Eve;rebel angels;St. Michael]
The first photographic reproductions of the Sistine Ceiling in 1870 soon led to the observations that the female figure under God’s right arm was Eve and the child at her knee was Christ as Second Adam. Both identifications were greeted with controversy and the suggestion of other names. By 1950, the focus on the picture turned to the central contact of the fingers of God and Adam, considered by many to be the main subject of the fresco. But God is involved in a double action, and the essay looks hard at the right half of the picture, affirming the identification of Eve and Christ through a analysis of scale, posture, and gesture, including the telling indication of God’s “other” hand. Also identified are the small dark angels under the veil of heaven as the rebel angels, jealous of God’s creation of humankind, and the fair-haired figure gliding above the green cloth as the Archangel Michael, the defender of heaven.


DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226482439.003.0004
[Michelangelo;Creation of Adam;Genesis;Wisdom-Sapientia;Theology of the Creation;St. Augustine;Tertullian]
The author’s response to a letter concerning his essay “Who’s Who in the Creation of Adam.” The letter proposes that the female figure under God’s right arm is not Eve but Holy Wisdom. The reassertion of Eve reveals Michelangelo to have reconciled two variant Genesis texts, and the Wisdom hypothesis, which first appeared in the literature in the late 19th century, flawed on theological grounds as well as the visual evidence of the fresco.


DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226482439.003.0005
[Michelangelo;Ancestor lunettes;Sistine Ceiling, cleaning campaign;Ancestor spandrels]
The Ancestors of Christ in the lunettes and spandrels of the Sistine Ceiling were the first to be restored in the Vatican’s cleaning campaign of the 1980s. With the grime of centuries removed, Michelangelo is revealed as a brilliant colorist and the Ancestors as an integral part of the ceiling’s iconography. This chapter previews some of the discussions in chapter 6.


DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226482439.003.0006
[Michelangelo;Sistine Ceiling;Scaffolding;Genealogy of Christ;Active and Contemplative Lives;Rachel and Leah;Martha and Mary;Assumption of the Virgin]
Michelangelo transformed the iconography of the rarely depicted cycle of the forty-two Ancestors of Christ described in the first chapter of St. Matthew. By adding women and children, he introduced male-female parity into the genealogy as well as procreative activity. The iconographical function of the Ancestors is to suggest the generations of procreation that lead to the birth of Christ. They represent the Active Life, directed to good works, which theologians paired with the Contemplative Life, directed to the vision of God. Both lives were unified in the Virgin, and she is so extolled in the liturgy for the Feast of the Assumption, to which the Sistine Chapel is dedicated. The program of the ceiling manifests a like unification, with the Active Life represented by the Ancestors across a horizontal wall stratum that sets off the thrones of the contemplative Prophets and Sibyls above. Although the Ancestors cycle has often been criticized for the perceived gloom of some of the figures, they are here seen as cast in varied postures expressive of waiting—some eagerly, some patient or resigned, others near exhaustion—because they know themselves to be engines of generation in which the holy seed ripens toward the Incarnation.


DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226482439.003.0007
[Michelangelo;Last Judgment;Copies of the Last Judgment;Hell;Charon;Minos;Juan de Valdés;Vittoria Colonna;Counter-Reformation;Spirituali (Evangelicals)]
From Vasari down to today, the Last Judgment (1536-41) has been seen as a punitive manifestation where an angry Christ condemns and the saints and martyrs cry out for vengeance. Nothing in the fresco supports such a reading. The pictorial evidence reveals that Michelangelo’s conception of the Last Judgment reflects his involvement with the Spirituali, devout Catholics in Rome who questioned the dogma of eternal punishment and the materiality of hell. Only in the years after the fresco was completed did the Council of Trent and leaders of the Counter-Reformation declare such ideas heretical. It was Vasari, writing in the late 1540s, who described the fresco in terms that diverge from what Michelangelo painted in order to protect the artist from further criticism—the Last Judgment having already been lambasted by some for its nudities. Engraved and painted copies also alter the compositional structure or significant details, adjustments that helped determine the literary tradition. Included in the chapter are the function of the artist’s self-portrait in the flayed skin held up by St. Bartholomew, the appearance of the pagan boatman Charon, the history of the Christian doctrine of hell, and the theology of Juan de Valdés, mentor to the Spirituali.


DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226482439.003.0008
[Michelangelo;Last Judgment;Biagio da Cesena;Minos;Charon;Hell;Self-portrait]
Written descriptions rather than pictorial evidence have long determined the perception of the Last Judgment. In addition to the misreading of the fresco as punitive manifestation, there is a telling sixteenth-century anecdote involving the lower right corner. Michelangelo is said to have portrayed Biagio da Cesena, the Vatican’s Master of Ceremonies, in the loathsome figure of Minos, after Biagio complained about the nudities. The story is apocryphal and, moreover, the figure long called Minos—Dante’s judge of hell—has been misidentified, as has the action of the serpent at his groin, which presents a satanic inversion of marriage. As such, the figure stands as a counterpoint to the heavenly bridegroom in Christ. Such counterpoint is but one in a series of five diagonals that mark intersecting themes in the fresco, wherein the dramatis personae serve as poles, vectors, and links in chains of causation that center on the theology of Judgment Day. The chapter further discusses the misreading of Charon’s action and the figures in his barque as well as central cave of hellmouth. The visual evidence suggests the possibility of redemption, of hell overruled, in keeping with theology of the Spirituali, with whom Michelangelo was associated in the 1530s.


DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226482439.003.0009
[Michelangelo;Last Judgment;Simon of Cyrene;Collocation of image and architecture]
The chapter concerns the relationship of the design of the Last Judgment—the overall structure as well as some of the individual figures—to the architecture of the Sistine Chapel. Rather than suggest the obliteration of the altar wall so as to raise up an apocalyptic vision of the Second Coming, as has often been claimed, the fresco engages the actuality of the chapel as well as some of the adjacent frescoes. This collocation can be seen, among other places, in the horizontal zoning and in the end figures’ relationship to the cornice at left and right. The dominant figure at right is the heroic nude with the cross, conventionally called Dismas, the Good Thief, but here identified as Simon of Cyrene, who bore the cross for Christ and now sets it down on the intruding cornice, his mission accomplished; the cross is now our burden as the subject shifts from a future apocalyptic event to the immanent eschatology of the here and now. Throughout the Last Judgment, Michelangelo creates an invasion effect whereby the collocation of image and architecture encroaches our space.


DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226482439.003.0010
[Michelangelo;Geometry;Crucifixion of St. Peter;Last Judgment;Self-portrait;Creation of Adam;Creation of Eve;Temptation and Expulsion;Manchester Madonna]
Chapter 7 discussed compositional vectors in the Last Judgment as bearers of meaning—conceptual points on structured diagonals. This chapter integrates those observations with other Michelangelo paintings, beginning with lines of significance in the Crucifixion of St. Peter (usually eradicated by copyists). The self-portrait in the flayed skin held up by St. Bartholomew in the Last Judgment is revisited: the reasons for its absence from the literature until 1925, the tradition of the skin in the iconography of St. Bartholomew, and the consequence of its location in the fresco. Next, the three creation scenes on the Sistine Ceiling—the Creation of Adam, Creation of Eve, and the Temptation and Expulsion: the gestures of Eve in each fresco are shown to be interrelated by a latent diagonal that glides across the three panels. Finally, the early Manchester Madonna: an activating diagonal runs from the angel’s hand at upper left, through the open prophetic book, the arm and trunk of the Christ Child, and down toward the knee of St. John, the forerunner gazing at us as he begins to step out of the picture and into his ministry. In Michelangelo’s work, meaning flows in the geometry of the structure.


DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226482439.003.0011
[Michelangelo;Self-portraits;Pauline Chapel;Julius Tomb;Conversion of St. Paul;Crucifixion of St. Peter]
Until the twentieth century, the Conversion of St. Paul and the Crucifixion of St. Peter in the Pauline Chapel were dismissed as flawed works of the artist’s old age. The present reassessment begins with Michelangelo’s brooding about the failure of the monumental Julius Tomb project, which had plagued him since 1505. There is evidence that Michelangelo, even as he interpreted the Pauline subjects theologically and politically, inserted self-portraits that ponder the course of his life, from youthful pride and ambition to present contrition. The chapter probes many aspects of the frescoes, among them Michelangelo’s conception of narrative in the Conversion of St. Paul, which absorbs Scripture, Patristic and medieval commentaries as well as contemporaneous preachments. Also examined is the fresco’s structuring of disorder—the chaos earlier writers had perceived in the composition—through collocation with the planned architectural context. Another compositional system involves the central figures in the Crucifixion of St. Peter, who revolve in a circular motion that suggests the central plan of the Apostle’s tomb. Peter’s forthright glance, meanwhile, marks the all-seeing, all-summoning power of the Church, personified in its founder. These concepts and others reevaluate the Pauline frescoes as syntheses of private penance, apostolic fervor, and art.

Book published by University of Chicago Press, 2019. Page maintained by BiblioVault.