W-OLF
03-20-2006, 09:13 PM
Michelangelo Exhibition Sets Record
Published: 3/20/06, 1:45 PM EDT
LONDON (AP) - A new exhibition gives audiences a chance to see the creative process behind such Renaissance masterpieces as the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel and the interior of the Medici Chapel in Florence.
Michelangelo would not have approved.
"He wouldn't have been pleased to see us surveying his working drawings," said Hugo Chapman, curator of Italian drawings at the British Museum and author of a recent book on the artist. "Michelangelo just wanted you to look at his finished work and be overwhelmed by it and not realize that it's the result of thousands of decisions."
The British Museum is billing "Michelangelo Drawings: Closer to the Master" as a show of "works that Michelangelo, the perfectionist, wouldn't have wanted anyone to see."
They reveal the painstaking preparation behind the great artworks - a process Michelangelo did his best to disguise. He regularly destroyed his sketches so that rivals could not steal his work.
The exhibition opens Thursday and has already sold more than 10,000 advance tickets - a record for the museum.
Using pieces from the British Museum, the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford and the Teyler Museum in The Netherlands, the show brings together drawings and sketches that have not been in one place since they were removed from the artist's studio after his death in 1564.
Chapman said the show "allows you into his private works."
The exhibition includes some of the artist's earliest works, created when he was 12, as well as drawings for the Sistine and Medici chapels. The museum also offers private letters and personal sketches that Michelangelo created for himself, family and friends.
Many of the drawings are small, rough sketches done in ink or chalk that display elements of the human body, such as pictures of a knee at various angles, as Michelangelo analyzed movement and form.
Each is accompanied by an explanation of the larger artwork into which it fits, along with a small picture of that.
"Through the exhibit, you can see changes in Michelangelo as a man, and some of the core artistic elements that remained stable," said Chapman.
There are also drawings Michelangelo used to teach his students, as well as sketches by the pupils themselves. One is annotated with Michelangelo's note - "Draw, Antonio, draw, Antonio, draw and don't waste time."
In the center of the exhibition is an interactive area of computer screens, where visitors can select a piece of one of Michelangelo's sketches and view how that sketch fits into the larger picture.
Above sits a rotating image of paintings from the Sistine Chapel that gives a more realistic view of what it was like for the Italian artist, standing and creating the figures that now appear on the chapel's ceiling.
"Michelangelo Drawings: Closer to the Master" runs until June 25.
credit BellSouth
Published: 3/20/06, 1:45 PM EDT
LONDON (AP) - A new exhibition gives audiences a chance to see the creative process behind such Renaissance masterpieces as the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel and the interior of the Medici Chapel in Florence.
Michelangelo would not have approved.
"He wouldn't have been pleased to see us surveying his working drawings," said Hugo Chapman, curator of Italian drawings at the British Museum and author of a recent book on the artist. "Michelangelo just wanted you to look at his finished work and be overwhelmed by it and not realize that it's the result of thousands of decisions."
The British Museum is billing "Michelangelo Drawings: Closer to the Master" as a show of "works that Michelangelo, the perfectionist, wouldn't have wanted anyone to see."
They reveal the painstaking preparation behind the great artworks - a process Michelangelo did his best to disguise. He regularly destroyed his sketches so that rivals could not steal his work.
The exhibition opens Thursday and has already sold more than 10,000 advance tickets - a record for the museum.
Using pieces from the British Museum, the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford and the Teyler Museum in The Netherlands, the show brings together drawings and sketches that have not been in one place since they were removed from the artist's studio after his death in 1564.
Chapman said the show "allows you into his private works."
The exhibition includes some of the artist's earliest works, created when he was 12, as well as drawings for the Sistine and Medici chapels. The museum also offers private letters and personal sketches that Michelangelo created for himself, family and friends.
Many of the drawings are small, rough sketches done in ink or chalk that display elements of the human body, such as pictures of a knee at various angles, as Michelangelo analyzed movement and form.
Each is accompanied by an explanation of the larger artwork into which it fits, along with a small picture of that.
"Through the exhibit, you can see changes in Michelangelo as a man, and some of the core artistic elements that remained stable," said Chapman.
There are also drawings Michelangelo used to teach his students, as well as sketches by the pupils themselves. One is annotated with Michelangelo's note - "Draw, Antonio, draw, Antonio, draw and don't waste time."
In the center of the exhibition is an interactive area of computer screens, where visitors can select a piece of one of Michelangelo's sketches and view how that sketch fits into the larger picture.
Above sits a rotating image of paintings from the Sistine Chapel that gives a more realistic view of what it was like for the Italian artist, standing and creating the figures that now appear on the chapel's ceiling.
"Michelangelo Drawings: Closer to the Master" runs until June 25.
credit BellSouth