Michelangelo as Painter: A Historiographic Perspective

Michelangelo as Painter: A Historiographic Perspective
Author(s): Joseph Manca
Source: Artibus et Historiae, Vol. 16, No. 31 (1995), pp. 111-123
Published by: IRSA s.c.
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JOSEPH MANCA
Michelangelo as Painter: A Historiographic Perspective
The restoration of the Sistine Chapel frescoes has opened
new debates about Michelangelo's character as a painter and
unharmonious. This composite opinion seems not to be
has flattened the modeling of the frescoes and made them
widely held. Yet, the conclusion that Michelangelo was a deficient painter is supported by the historiographic evidence,
for many observers in the sixteenth century thought little of
his skill as a painter. If Michelangelo's works look in any way
clumsy, flat, or unpleasant, it could be that this is the fault of
too bright by removing Michelangelo's final layer of glue and
the artist, not the restorers at the Vatican. The recent viewer
some of hissecco additions. Those holding this opinion seem
who said that Michelangelo's figures now look like "cheap and
perverted holy-card figurines" was attempting to criticize the
Vatican authorities for an overzealous restoration but, if one
colorist, his influence on contemporary artists, and the effectiveness and safety of the cleaning. Concerning this last matter there are two main arguments. First, that the restoration
to be in a minority, but the group includes prominent artists,
art historians, and conservators.' The second argument is
that the restoration has been conducted properly, and that
Michelangelo's original artistic intentions are now known.
Those taking this position usually emphasize that it is now
possible to see what a great painter and colorist Michelangelo
was; many now delight in the vivid and varied colors of the
Sistine Chapel ceiling.2 Still another conclusion is possible,
however, one that combines these two points of view: that
the restoration has brought the frescoes close to their original state, but-rather than revealing a masterpiece-the cleaning now lets us see that Michelangelo's works are flat in mod-
eling, simplistic in their articulation, and coloristically
believes that the cleaning has been conducted well, he might
have unwittingly echoed the kind of opinion, in extreme form,
that was stated by Michelangelo's contemporaries.3
This paper is concerned with limited aspects of the craft
of painting, what was usually called colorito in the Cinquecento,
including the ability to model, represent texture, and create
pictorial harmony. There will be no discussion here of Michelangelo's draftsmanship, figural ideals, foreshortening, repre-
sentation of the passions, and so forth. Although there was
criticism of Michelangelo's one-sided reliance on the nude
figure and of the display of such nudity in sacred places, con111
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JOSEPH MANCA
temporaries generally respected his inventiveness and
Raphael's colors were more beautiful than anything found in
disegno. But there was no similar consensus concerning his
ability to paint.
In the sixteenth century, there was a considerable body
of opinion that asserted that Michelangelo was only a mediocre painter, although there were some exceptional voices that
praised Michelangelo's ability to color and paint in the man-
Nature. Correggio applied paint so that his figures appear
soft and charming. Vasari criticized Titian for having poor
ner held ideal by contempories. Laura Battiferra degli
Ammannati, in a poem written for Michelangelo's funeral
(1564), described his fleeting, sombre colors, and she noted
the verisimilitude of his painted images.4 Paolo Giovio, writing ca. 1523-1527, praised Michelangelo's foreshortening and
rendering of three-dimensionality in the Sistine Chapel and
he admired Michelangelo's convincing, deep shadowing, as
did Giovan Battista Armenini, who spoke of the "liquidissime
ombre" of his painting of flesh.5 Their statements are typical
of remarks that indicate Michelangelo's skill in rendering relief, and have largely to do with his ability to render threedimensionality in any medium, that is, to transfer sculptural
ideals into painting and drawing. More numerous among his
admirers were writers who were less specific in their assess-
ments of Michelangelo the painter, being satisfied, as was
Antonio Billi, to note that, compared to Michelangelo, "tutti lii
altri pittori gli sono inferiori;" Billi, noting that the artist had
achieved perfection as a painter, did not separate Buonarroti's
design and invention from his purely painterly contribution.6
The poet Ariosto stated that Michelangelo was equally adept
in painting and sculpture: "Duo Dossi e quel che a par sculpe
e colora/ Michel piui che mortal Angiol divino (Canto XXXIII,
2)." Even Giovanni Andrea Gilio, who criticized Michelangelo's
choice of representation, called him "gran" and "eccellente,"7
But this again is the usual kind of general praise, not specifically directed at painting/colorito, a field that most regarded
as his weak point as an artist.
Giorgio Vasari was one of Michelangelo's sympathetic crit-
ics. He wanted to demonstrate that Michelangelo was the
crowning glory in the development of sculpture, painting, and
architecture in Italy, and that he had brought art to a state of
perfection from which further advance was scarcely possible.
Thus, it is somewhat surprising to learn that Vasari was adversely critical of Michelangelo's ability to paint. Through his
own practice of painting, Vasari was knowledgeable about the
subtleties of the craft, and in his biographies he heaped praise
on artists when they excelled in coloring or in the modulation
of pictorial surface. He said of Perugino and Francia that their
coloring was so beautiful that people ran like mad to see it.
Leonardo and Giorgione produced graceful figures through
design, but in the description of his broken, variegated, and
complicated brushwork he acknowledged the Venetian
master's effectiveness as a painter.8
In the preface to the "third part" of the Lives, Vasari gives
no credit to Michelangelo for helping advance the art of painting over the hard and stony technique of the Quattrocento.
Later in the Vite, he uses the biography of Michelangelo to
spell out his critical attitude toward Buonarroti: as a painter
he excelled in invention, design, novel attitudes, expression,
and the sublimity of feeling, but he was deficient in painterly
execution. In a passage that appears only in the 1568 edition,
Vasari, presumably responding to Ludovico Dolce's criticism
of Michelangelo's colorito, asserted that Buonarroti purposely
neglected the kind of pictorial refinements that many held in
high regard. In the context of the Last Judgment, Vasari remarked:
It is enough for us to understand that this extraordinary
man chose always to refuse to paint anything except the
human body in its most beautifully proportioned and perfect forms and in the greatest variety of attitudes, and
thereby to express the wide range of the soul's emotions
and joys. He was content to prove himself in the field in
which he was superior to all his fellows, and painting his
nudes in the grand manner and displaying his greatest
understanding of the problems of design. Thus he has
demonstrated how painting can achieve facility in its chief
province; namely, the reproduction of the human form.
And concentrating on this subject he left to one side the
charm of coloring [le vaghezze de' colori] and the caprices
and novel fantasies of certain minute and delicate refine-
ments [i capricci e le nuove fantasie di certe minuzie e
delicatezze] that many other artists, not without reason,
have not entirely neglected. For some artists, lacking
Michelangelo's profound knowlege of design, have tried
by using a variety of tints and shades of color [la varieth
di tinte et ombre di colori], by including in their work vari-
ous novel and bizarre inventions (in brief, by following
the other method of painting) to win themselves a place
among the most distinguished masters.9
This passage is usually cited as support of Michelangelo's intelligence as a painter, and Vasari did surely intend to defend
the skillful rendering of tones, through their sfumato and deli-
the artist's reputation. Still, Vasari's assessment of Michelangelo as a painter is clear and is not purely laudatory.
cate suggestion-rather than the sharp definition-of form.
Michelangelo, Vasari suggests, was an expert in design and
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MICHELANGELO AS PAINTER: A HISTORIOGRAPHIC PERSPECTIVE
invention, but failed-or rather refused-to render subtle sur-
loro [contemporary critics] che, parte per burla, parte anche
faces textures, fine glazing, and charming harmony of colors,
in short, the "minute and delicate refinements" found in the
cor un poco di sdegno pure onesto, dicono ch'egli aveva
works of painters like Andrea del Sarto, Correggio, and
maneggiare a suo modo e verso. E certo e che nella sua pittura
Raphael. Vasari is clearly sympathetic to the "other method"
of painting, for he speaks highly of it throughout his biographies, and in this passage he emphasizes that artists producing "charm of coloring" and "novel fantasies" do so "not with-
at[t]ese piui al rilievo ch'al colorito..."13 This statement is all
the more significant insofar as Vincenzo is alluding to an opinion held by others. It contains a number of ideas. First, that
out reason." Michelangelo was a leader in painting, but only
because of his greatness as an inventor and designer.
Similarly, Vasari noted in discussing the Pauline Chapel
that Michelangelo "concentrated his energies on achieving
absolute perfection in what he could do best, so there are no
landscapes to be seen in these scenes, nor any trees, buildings, or other embellishments and variations; for he never
spent time on such things, lest perhaps he should degrade
his genius."10 Michelangelo was incapable of painting skillfully and subtly, because he spent little time on such matters;
Vasari emphasized that Michelangelo would have felt degraded
had he let any goal but good design define his artistic aims.
This is intended as praise, but the negative aspects of Vasari's
statements are clear enough. In another place, when Vasari
does praise Michelangelo's ability at representing softness of
texture and relief, he feels it necessary to add that this serves
"to show the kind of picture that a good and true artist should
paint," implying that it is remarkable that Michelangelo can
be compared to a real painter."1
Like Vasari, Raffaello Borghini was a Tuscan and a supporter of Michelangelo. In his Riposo of 1584, Borghini essentially followed the language and the attitude of Vasari, and
this was true also for his discussion of Michelangelo's works.
Borghini noted that the Sistine Chapel frescoes stupefied viewers with their artifice and design. But, in his discussion of the
Pauline Chapel, Borghini pointed out that, although there are
"infinite bellissime considerationi intorno alla perfettione del
disegno," it is also apparent that "Michelagnolo non attendesse
al bel colorito, n6 a certe vaghezze di paesi, e di prospettive,
e di adornamenti come fanno gli altri pittori..."12 Here we have
the charged word "colorito," coloring as the total act of paint-
ing. Like Vasari, Borghini emphasized that Michelangelo did
collora co' colori, e quali non aveva mai potuto domare n6
there were apparently unkind remarks circulating in artistic
circles about Michelangelo's ability to paint. Second, the pun
"anger at colors" ("collora co' colori") reveals an especially
harsh form of criticism. Third, the remark that Michelangelo
did not know how to handle colors suggests a contemporary
awareness of his struggle with the medium and his lack of
training in the craft. Finally, Borghini conveys the standard
sentiment that Michelangelo excelled in representing threedimensional relief rather than coloring, echoing the belief, of-
ten acknowledged by Michelangelo himself, that he was a
sculptor and not a painter.
Ascanio Condivi, Michelangelo's friend and biographer,
might be expected to have pronounced him a great painter,
but Condivi actually fails to make any great claims for Michel-
angelo as a colorist, except to note his successful shading of
foreshortened figures in the Sistine Chapel. Yet, even this comment refers to Michelangelo's ability to paint like a sculptor,
demonstrating his expertise in rilievo.14 Indeed, Condivi suggests that Michelangelo lacked interest in painting. He wrote
of the Sistine Chapel commission that "Michelangelo, who
had not yet used colors and who realized that it was difficult
to paint a vault, made every effort to get out of it, proposing
Raphael and pleading that this was not his art and that he
would not succeed; and he went on refusing to such an extent that the pope almost lost his temper."15 Like Vasari,
Condivi emphasizes that Michelangelo's strengths were in
invention and design. His report that the sculptor disclaimed
skill or interest in painting is all the more meaningful in light
of the fact that Michelangelo himself had probably dictated
information to Condivi.16
The Dialogues on Painting by the Portuguese painter Francisco de Hollanda (1548) are in a different category than the
writings cited above; they are not historical and biographical
not paint with the minute care and attention and skill that oth-
but critical and polemical, recording contemporary debates
ers did who were attempting to paint beauties of aerial perspective, verdant landscapes, and detailed surfaces.
Buonarroti's painting style was summary, its appeal rooted in
design rather than in fancy pictorialism.
over the art of painting. The dialogues shed light on the question at hand and, in particular, reinforce the ideas stated by
Another important Tuscan critic of the Cinquecento,
Vincenzo Borghini, echoed the opinions of Vasari and Raffaello
Borghini in his writings on the paragone of painting versus
sculpture. He said of Michelangelo that "Et hacci qualcuno di
Vasari and the Borghini. Michelangelo, if we are to trust
Hollanda for having accurately recorded his sentiments, stated
"that painting is excellent and divine which most resembles
and best copies any work of immortal God, whether it be a
human figure or a wild and strange beast or a simple straightforward fish or a bird of the sky or any other creature; and
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JOSEPH MANCA
that not in gold or silver or delicate tints but simply drawn
one of the most important aspects of colorito; the list includes
with a brush or with chalk or with a pencil in black and white."17
Raphael, Leonardo, Correggio, and Titian, as we might ex-
Even if the statement is Hollanda's and not Michelangelo's,
the reference to delicate tints stands as another example of
pect, but not Buonarroti.22 As if to make amends to Michel-
the wide diffusion of the belief that Michelangelo was not interested in the subtleties of pictorial articulation, as Vasari had
cognizione" in representing anatomy, even if he did exagger-
also reported. Again, one finds expression of the idea that
Michelangelo's art was grounded in strong design, with details of colorito less important. Hollanda goes on to quote
angelo, Lomazzo immediately lists him as having "perfetta
ate musculature. Overall, Lomazzo claims Michelangelo as a
ows of trees [sombras de arvores], and rivers and bridges,
great draftsman and anatomist, and elsewhere praises his invention and representation of the affetti. But in coloring per
se Lomazzo withholds from Michelangelo high praise.
It would perhaps seem unfair to cite the Venetian Ludovico
Dolce in this discussion, for the writer, a minor painter best
known for his polemical dialogue on painting (1557), was gen-
which they call landscapes [paisagens]... done without reason or art, without symmetry or proportion, without skillful
choice or boldness [sem advertencia do escocher nem
characters attack Michelangelo on a number of grounds, including the obscenity of the nudity in the Last Judgment and
Michelangelo's views on Flemish painting: it is concerned with
"stuffs and masonry, the green grass of the fields, the shad-
despejo] and, finally, without substance or vigor."18 This is an
extraordinarily rich list of items in which most painters of the
time were interested, including surface texture and realism of
pictorial detail. Yet, Michelangelo was not one of those paint-
ers, for he based his art on design and form. Michelangelo
would not have disagreed with the opinion of Vasari and
Hollanda that he ignored the finer aspects of painting; he had
erally opposed to all of Michelangelo's ideals. Dolce has his
the way that all of his figures look like muscular men. But
Dolce does not even think it fair to have his interlocutors at-
tack Michelangelo for his skill as a painter. In the middle of a
litany of criticisms of Buonarroti, Dolce has Aretino, the Venetian spokesman, say: "And Michelangelo's coloring I shall not
otherwise discuss. For everyone knows that he has given little
attention to this, and you grant me as much. Raphael, on the
other concerns.
other hand, knew how to counterfeit every sort of object
Throughout the Cinquecento there was little favor for
Michelangelo as a colorist and, therefore, as a painter. In the
Idea del tempio (1590), Giovanni Paolo Lomazzo, a Lombard
painter and theorist, addressed the question of Michelangelo's
painting: "Primieramente il Buonarroto nel suo colorire ha
servito alla furia, e profondith del disegno, lasciando in parte
la qualita dei colori, e reggendosi solamente dietro al grillo, e
al bizaria." Lomazzo goes on, though, to insist that
Michelangelo made beautiful, marvelous paintings, and he
admired the successful foreshortening of the figures in the
Last Judgment.19 On the whole, Lomazzo, conventionally, insists that Michelangelo favored design over coloring, and adds
marvellously by dint of coloring: flesh and draperies and landscapes and everything that can present itself to the painter."23
the new thought that he had little interest in the "quality of his
colors" and used a bizarre solution to the problem of color
harmonization, presumably referring to the bright and
changeant coloring of the Sistine Chapel that is so apparent
today. In his discussion of Titian, Lomazzo notes the
"vaghissima maniera" of his colorito, and describes in detail
the natural objects that the Venetian was able to capture with
his brush. It is this kind of skill at representation that Lomazzo
does not describe in Michelangelo's paintings, for Buonarroti
had taken quite a different artistic route.20 In his Trattato
dell'arte (1584), Lomazzo does laud Michelangelo's representation of light,21 but overall he largely omits mention of
Michelangelo's coloring. For example, he specifies the artists
who excelled in showing the effects of light on color, which is
This echoes the prevailing sentiment that Michelangelo paid
little attention to painting. That Dolce says "you grant me as
much" presumes a widespread belief in Michelangelo's disinterest in the subtleties of the art of painting. Indeed, Michelangelo's champion in the dialogue, Fabrini, fails to contradict
the speaker. Dolce goes on to imply, through the contrast of
Raphael with Michelangelo, that the latter was incapable of
accurate representation, of imitating nature. It is important to
note that Dolce, although a Venetian, was not necessarily
guided only by geographical prejudices, since he did approve
of the art of the Central Italian painter, Raphael.
Dolce's attitude toward Michelangelo was shared by the
Venetian critic Paolo Pino, who was more subtle than Dolce,
saying only that if the coloring of Titian could be combined
with the draftsmanship of Michelangelo, that composite artist
would be the greatest who had ever lived. In his dialogue on
painting of 1548, the character Lauro says: "se Titiano e Michiel
Angelo fussero un corpo solo, over al disegno di Michiel
Angelo aggio[n]tovi il colore di Titiano, se gli potrebbe dir lo
dio della pittura, si come parimenti sono ancho dei propri."
The interlocutor Fabio agrees: "Cosi tengo io veramente."24
The implicit message is that Michelangelo's colorito, or painting technique, was not his forte. This passage, usually cited
as an example of praise of Michelangelo, can as easily be read
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MICHELANGELO AS PAINTER: A HISTORIOGRAPHIC PERSPECTIVE
as backhanded criticism: he was an incomplete artist, and excelled only in his specialty, an idea that we saw expressed in
the writings of Lomazzo. The kind of criticism by omission, as
we might call it, was widespread. For example, Federico
Zuccaro calls Michelangelo the "ver possessore del dissegno,"
but he reserves high praise of colors and coloring for oth-
ers.25
This study has so far focused on criticism from Michel-
angelo's lifetime and a little later. In any discussion of his
critical fortunes as a painter, it must be kept in mind that his
frescoes were continuing to darken from dirt and yellowed
glues, and as one moves further from the dates of execution
one must be ever more cautious in estimating the importance
of comments on his colorito.26 Still, Michelangelo's frescoes
have never been so obscure as to deter observers from arriv-
ing at some general conclusions regarding their style and execution; and judging from what they could see, later critics
often reiterate the kinds of opinions that were held in the sixteenth century. For example, Francesco Scannelli, in his
Microcosmo della pittura (1657), repeats information found
in Vasari's writings, saying of Raphael that "le pitture de lui
erano migliori di quelle di Michelangelo secondo I'ordine della
is so low: "Michelange ignoroit tout ce qui depens du coloris,
et ses carnations donnent entierement dans la brique pour
les clairs, et dans le noir pour les ombres."31 Piles finds that
the combination of Venetian coloring with the design of
Michelangelo is more satisfying: "ll n'en est pas de m6me des
Tableaux que Fra-Bastian del Piombo a fait d'apres les Desseins
de Michelange: la couleur en est meilleure et tient beaucoup
du go t Venitien."32 Now that the Sistine Chapel ceiling has
been cleaned, it is even more apparent to us than it was to
Roger de Piles that Michelangelo was uninterested in painting gradations of tonality in the "gout Venitien."
It is hardly surprising that late eighteenth-century critics
would take the opportunity to find Michelangelo deficient in
painting, just as they found fault with other aspects of his style.
Ralph Anton Mengs largely ignored Michelangelo and concentrated his discussion of great painters on Raphael,
Correggio, and Titian, noting that Raphael was better than
Michelangelo in coloring and harmony.33 One annotator of
Vasari's Lives wrote in 1793 that "Michelangelo non sapeva
imitare il colorito della natura, e non intese al par di tanti altri
goes on to say that compared to the collaborative paintings
produced by Michelangelo and Sebastiano, Raphael's works
che fioriron prima e dopo di esso la prospettiva aerea."34
Charles de Brosses described (1739-40) the Last Judgment
as having "un coloris sans harmonie, une mauvaise teinte
generale, ambigue, d'aire bleutre et rougeatre, qui ne
ressemble pas mal au melange des elements dans le
renversement de la nature."35 Sir Joshua Reynolds could
hardly be considered an enemy of Michelangelo; indeed, he
were "dipinto con miglior facilit&, e co la piti bella, e spiritosa
inventione," and that Raphael was "per dir cosi, pi~i Pittore, e
was one of the first of many in the eighteenth and nineteenth
centuries who would establish Buonarroti's reputation as the
Pittura, cioe piui vaghe di colorito, di migliore inventione, e di
arte piui vezzose," and that they were equal in design to
Buonarroti's but Raphael was "nel colorito migliore." He then
si pu6 affirmare per ogni parte maggiormente compito."27
most sublime and great souled of artists. Still, in Discourse
Andr' Felibien (1666) was passing along a current view when
VI, he writes "Even the great name of Michael Angelo may be
used, to keep in countenance a deficiency or rather neglect of
colouring, and every other ornamental part of the art."36 In
he claimed not to be one of those who think that Buonarroti
was not a real painter: "Pour ce qui est de Michel-Ange, bien
que je ne sois pas de ceux qui ont une aversion si forte contre
lui, qui'ils ne le croient pas meriter le nom de peintre," and he
goes on to praise him instead, although he does say that he
prefers the "douceur et grace merveilleuse" of Raphael.28 Similarly, Carlo Cesare Malvasia (1678) wrote that "si conosce che
ii Buonarroti era piui statuario che pittore e Raffaelle fu piii
pittore di Michel Angelo."29
One famous critic of Michelangelo was the theorist and
academician Roger de Piles. His treatise on painting of 1708
includes a rank ordering of famous painters throughout his-
tory, each given a rating based on a scale of 20 in such categories as invention, draftmanship, color, and expression.
Titian gets 18 points in coloring, Direr 10 points, Tintoretto
16, but Michelangelo comes up short, with only 4 points out
of twenty in the ability to color.30 In his Abrig6 de la Vie des
peintres (1699), de Piles says why his opinion of Michelangelo
Discourse V, Reynolds makes a fair assessment: "We ought
not to expect more than an artist intends in his work.
[Michelangelo] never attempted the lesser elegancies and
graces in his art ... nor can it be thought strange, that such a
mind should have slighted or have been witheld from paying
due attention to all those graces and embellishments of art,
which have diffused such lustre over the works of other paint-
ers."37 Here Reynolds exactly echoes Vasari's earlier sentiment: both writers, though, are far from the moderns who
see in Buonarroti a splendid and sensitive painter.
It is not possible here to cite all later art historical opinion
on the subject of Michelangelo as painter. In brief, it can be
said Buonarroti's critical fortunes began to change in the nineteenth century, and he was often judged to be a good colorist, although one often expresses certain reservations. A characteristic example in the literature of this attitude is found in
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JOSEPH MANCA
the writings of Luigi Lanzi, an important early "encyclopedic"
art historian. Lanzi generally favored Buonarroti's style. Indeed, he found the Sistine Chapel to be painted with "forza"
and "rilievo."38 But, he wrote that, according to Condivi and
others, Michelangelo certainly was better with the chisel than
with the "pennello," and he noted that "conscious of his su-
periority in sculpture, he seems to have dreaded appearing
as a second or third rate painter."39 Lanzi praises the Sistine
Chapel in general, but is critical of the Doni tondo, faulting the
the mind." Finally, a point to which we will return, there has
developed since the middle of the nineteenth century a
broader definition of what "good painting" is, and writers have
accepted Michelangelo's technique as adequate and even
admirable. In sum, there have been two periods in which
Michelangelo's reputation as a pure painter has been judged
to be admirable: the second one, which we are experiencing
now, is a consequence of the cleaning of his painted works,
weak coloring and the poverty of the aerial perspective. In
but the primary one occurred well before any significant restoration and is a reflection of a change in taste and art histori-
short, Lanzi was not far from the Cinquecento in his criticism:
cal criticism.
Michelangelo was a great draftsman, but only a middling
painter proper, for his painting excelled in draftmanship and
There is no need to trace in detail Michelangelo's critical
fortune as a painter since the last century. Suffice it to say that
the representation of anatomy rather than in colorito.
Although Michelangelo's murals were becoming more difficult to read, or perhaps because of it, many writers in the
nineteenth and twentieth centuries-a period in which his over-
writers have often ignored the subject of Michelangelo's
all critical fortunes have soared to great heights-have had little
hesitation in praising Michelangelo's painting technique and
colorito, or when the matter is broached he receives high
marks. As in earlier criticism, most more recent writers have,
because of the poor condition of the Last Judgment and the
Pauline Chapel frescoes, turned their attention to the Sistine
Chapel ceiling and the Doni tondo. Mackowsky (1908) noted
manner. This new, admiring assessment of Michelangelo as
painter seems to have taken root by the middle of the nineteenth century. Harford (1857) described Michelangelo's skill
that, with full artistic consciousness, Michelangelo placed color
in the service of Form in the Sistine Chapel vault, and
Mackowsky pointed out the beautiful nuance of fleshtones and
as a painter, including his ability at rendering texture, exactly
colors in the nude figures.43 De Tolnay produced a paean of
admiration for Michelangelo's coloring, noting the "tender
suavity" and delicacy of the color scheme and the "pale and
subdued unity" of the coloring.44 Hibbard believed that
Michelangelo was a sensitive colorist and nicely harmonized
the skill that Vasari and other early writers implied that the painter
lacked, while Wilson (1876), who knew that the Sistine Chapel
ceiling was once "forcible and brilliant," noted that "Michelangelo stands in the first rank as a colourist."40 J. A. Symonds,
writing in 1893 of the Sistine Chapel ceiling, recorded the
his hues.45 Hartt described the beauty and delicacy of
"beauty of the flesh-painting," the "technical delicacy" of the
modeling of the limbs, and the skillful "modulation from one
Michelangelo's colorito.46 The most recent literature on the
Sistine Chapel ceiling has included effusive praise of the colors and the coloring of the newly-restored frescoes. Hartt recently wrote that the restoration shows that Michelangelo was
"the most sensitive, resourceful, imaginative, and influential
colorist of his time in Central Italy." Hall asserted that, after
the cleaning of the Sistine Chapel, "we [now] recognize that
he was as significant a pioneer in color as he was in form."47
tone to another."41 Heinrich Wl1fflin's Klassische Kunst of 1899
included no criticism of Michelangelo's colorism or ability to
paint, and he had earlier (1890) written glowingly of the growing freedom and painterliness that Michelangelo achieved as
he progressed on the Sistine Chapel ceiling.42
Thus, by the later nineteenth century, Michelangelo's critical fortune as a painter had risen dramatically compared to
what it had been in earlier centuries. We might posit several
possible causes of this change. First, the overall rise of Michelangelo's critical fortune and reputation as a painter during the
last century has affected the discussion of all aspects of his
art, and writers have become reluctant to criticize the artist
who since the Romantic era has been deemed a great super-
hero of the Renaissance. Secondly, the darkening condition
of his works has obscured vision of the artist's technique and
has allowed viewers to interpret Michelangelo in their own
fashions. For example, Symonds, in the passage cited above,
faced with the darkened vault of the Sistine Chapel, noted
favorably that it "leaves a grave, harmonious impression in
Even writers critical of the results of the cleaning, such as
Alessandro Conti, laud Michelangelo's coloring, and they ascribe any faults of the present appearance to the restorers.48
The circumstances surrounding Michelangelo's early training as an artist fail to support the current high esteem in which
Michelangelo-the-painter is held. Michelangelo was not thoroughly trained as a painter, nor did he always respect the me-
dium. There is little in Michelangelo's background to lead us
to expect that he would be a good painter. He was taken by
his father to the workshop of the painter Domenico Ghirlandaio
at the age of thirteen (in April of 1488) and was apprenticed to
him for about a year. It is unlikely that he could have learned
much in so brief a time and at so young an age. He went to
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MICHELANGELO AS PAINTER: A HISTORIOGRAPHIC PERSPECTIVE
study as a sculptor on his own and under the guidance of
Ghirlandaio became jealous of the young artist's work. The
Bertoldo di Giovanni by his mid-teens, and the craft of sculpture occupied most of his efforts during his formative years.
He later tried to deny that he had ever studied with Ghirlandaio,
writers stressed that Michelangelo worked with diligence, and
consulted Nature itself, even looking at fish in a market as a
model for the scaly surface of one of the demons. The anec-
and there is no evidence that he formally studied the craft
dote implies that Michelangelo had somehow mastered the
art of coloring, and had shamed his master. Neither Vasari
with another master.49 Indeed, when he started work on the
Sistine Chapel, he was unaware of the proper technique for
applying the plaster and pigments, and he sought counsel from
a trained, established master, Giuliano da Sangallo; other artists were also on hand to offer advice and assistance.5s In an
nor Condivi gives a location for the copies, as they usually do
in recording Michelangelo's work, and it is probable that they
had never seen them. As a convenient legend, though, the
story fills a gap in Michelangelo's career: the Schongauer
age that placed great emphasis on craftsmanship and technical skill, Michelangelo was largely an autodidact as a painter,
and there is no reason to suspect that he would have been
able to handle easily the intricate challenges posed by the art
copies are the only works that Condivi and Vasari claim were
well colored and painted with the consummate skill of a pro-
of painting. He himself asserted decisively that he was no
the story of the Schongauer copies suggests that he could
painter. In a well-known poem written in the middle of the
work on the vault of the Sistine Chapel ceiling (1510), he wrote:
"La mia pittura morta/ Difendi ormai, Giovanni, el mio onore/
Non sendo in loco bon, ne io pittore."51 Condivi, presumably
have been a great and diligent one had he chosen that path;
as Vasari would say later, if Michelangelo was not what was
normally considered to be a good painter, it is because he
passing along Michelangelo's own words, reported much the
same thing. Michelangelo, trying to get out of the Sistine
Chapel commission, said to the pope: "ho pur detto a Vostra
Santita che questa non e mia arte."52
Michelangelo's attitude toward painting does little to encourage us to expect his painted works to be excellent. In the
paragone between the arts he disparaged the art of painting,
calling it false and artificial.53 It is of particular interest that
Michelangelo thought ill of the art of oil painting, which he
considered most suitable for lazy artists, for it was the very
medium that in his time had prevailed among painters because it is conducive to painterly and subtle effects.
Michelangelo disliked more than just the medium of painting;
he detested the actual practice, as revealed in his caricature
fessional painter. Although it was recognized by everyone,
including Michelangelo himself, that he was not a true painter,
consciously left to one side pretty painting and finicky detail-
ing. He was a middling painter by choice.
There was a shared belief in the sixteenth century that
Michelangelo obstinately refused to learn how to paint in the
normal way, the "other method" of charming tints and delicate shadows that Vasari mentions. There seems to be an
aspect of truth to this, insofar as Michelangelo never really
attempted to be a painter like Leonardo or Raphael. True, in
his earlyEntombment (London, National Gallery) and his Doni
Madonna (Florence, Uffizi) he did attempt something approaching an all-encompassing inclusion of the normal range
of pictorial elements. Still, these works are abstract and lin-
of himself at work on the Sistine vault, and he avowed that he
ear, and the coloring and shadowing is conservative and
traditionalizing, aspects that can be clearly seen in the Doni
Madonna and in the more finished part of the Entombment.
An important step in Michelangelo's career as a painter came
had been forced to paint there. Only later in his career did
with the commission for the Battle of Cascina, in which the
Michelangelo cease to sign his name consistently as "scultore,"
and only some years after his work on the ceiling of the Sistine
young sculptor was put into head-to-head competition with
Leonardo. While Leonardo chose a subject that allowed him
to display a wide range of pictorial skills, Michelangelo designed as the main scene a veritable gathering of statues, a
virtuoso display of the clever designing of twisting, nude
males. And while Leonardo was experimenting with a kind of
encaustic technique, Michelangelo apparently planned a tra-
Chapel did he acknowledge that painting, if it is based on good
design, is as worthy an art as architecture and sculpture. It is
unlikely that an artist so resistant to painting could be expected
to excel in it.
In this light it would be useful to review the anecdote related by Condivi and Vasari of the copies by Michelangelo
after Martin Schongauer's Saint Anthony Tempted by the Demons.54 The biographers reported that Michelangelo made a
drawing and painted a panel after the famous print, the painted
copy produced, as Condivi noted, with skillful "differentiations"
("la compose e distinse"), meaning artful coloring and rendering of details. Condivi reported that the master painter
ditional fresco for the mural. Indeed, by avoiding oil for most
of the rest of his career, he also evaded comparison with works
made in the new pictorial manner of the Cinquecento that
Vasari describes in the preface to the third part of his Lives as
soft, suggestive, and graceful. Michelangelo did better by
going his own way and not competing with artistic rivals on
their grounds.
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JOSEPH MANCA
Now that the Sistine Chapel ceiling is cleaned, it is more
apparent that Michelangelo did turn his back on the current
method. In a few of the earlylgnudi-as is especially obvious
in the two to the left of the The Drunkenness of Noah-he did
essay a kind of darkly shadowed skin surface, but the result is
heavy-handed and comes across as a caricature of early
Cinquecento sfumato. It is true, as writers of all periods have
agreed, that Michelangelo was able in all media to represent
shadows masterfully, and his modeling itself here is convincing, but in these/gnudi he failed to make a pleasing and smooth
transition from the rosy flesh to the deep shadows. In later
figures in the ceiling the experiment was dropped in favor of
a more even, diffuse lighting. In general, the bright, simple
coloring, changeant hues, and linearity recall preLeonardesque norms and ideals. When they report that
Michelangelo hesitated to apply old-fashioned gold to the
Sistine ceiling, Vasari and Condivi suggest that Michelangelo
was in that regard a progressive painter, but in general the
visual evidence suggests that Buonarroti's technique was not
forward-looking.55 Michelangelo failed to please his contemporaries with his painting because he turned his back on the
pictorial innovations made during the previous generation.
The Florentine tradition of design needed few subtleties to
succeed, and he showed his contemporaries how a retrogressive manner of painting could still, linked with modern design, look revolutionary.
Michelangelo, as Vasari reported in his vita of Sebastiano,
thought that oil painting was for "lazy people." Assuming that
he actually said this, what might he have meant? This was
partly a jibe at artists who worked in the tradition of Leonardo,
whose slow working methods were recorded for us by contemporaries. Indeed, oil painting is suitable for lazy people;
fresco calls for discipline in working out the sections every
day, and filling the areas that have been prepared in wet plaster, while oil painters can work sporadically and slowly. Michelangelo would seem from this comment to place speed of execution and virtuosity above exacting skill. More importantly,
he is saying that fresco painting is adequate to transfer the
ideals of disegno. Oil painting he called effeminate because
is it sensuous, it appeals to lazy artists and ignorant viewers,
who are tricked by surface niceties. That medium is for those
artists who work in the "other method" that Vasari cites, those
who depict suggestive and sensuous surfaces. In his opposition to oil painting, Michelangelo reveals that he had little regard for coloring, for modeling, for splendid mimetic representation of texture, and so forth. His attitude leads us to
Michelangelo's relationship with Sebastiano del Piombo
sheds further light on the Florentine master's uneasy avoca-
tion as a painter.56 Buonarroti could not successfully compete with Raphael and others in making easel pictures; he
had not been trained as a painter. But in league with
Sebastiano, he could combine his design with the handling of
a trained master, Pino's ideal of the combined Tuscan and
Venetian traditions. The results of this collaboration-includ-
ing the Pieth in Viterbo and the Raising of Lazarus in London-are often thought of merely as a convenience for
Michelangelo, and the cooperation is not usually used by
modern writers to disparage Michelangelo's skills. But sixteenth-century observers must have known better. Again,
Vasari is illuminating, and helps to convey the sentiment of
some of his contemporaries. In his life of Sebastiano, Vasari
explains the use of Sebastiano by Michelangelo as a compensation for his handicap of not being a fine painter: "Raphael of
Urbino had risen to great credit as a painter and his friends
and adherents maintained that his works were more strictly in
accordance with the rules of art than those of Michelangelo,
affirming that they were graceful in coloring, of beautiful invention, admirable in expression, and of characteristic design."
Vasari goes on to make the extraordinary statement that
Michelangelo, being pleased with the grace and beauty of
Sebastiano's coloring, "took him into his protection thinking
also that by assisting Sebastian in design, he might succeed
without doing anything himself, in confounding those who held
the above-described opinion" regarding the superiority of
Raphael.57 Michelangelo said repeatedly that painting was not
his forte, that he did not like to actually do it, and that it was
an inferior form of art. He must have agreed with Vasari that
painters like Sebastiano worked more "in accordance with the
rules of art," simply because painting has its own rules, and
Sebastiano was indeed trained and inclined to follow these
rules. If Michelangelo were to conquer a painter like Raphael,
he needed someone like Sebastiano.
The critical opinion of Michelangelo in the sixteenth century was generally that he was a great artistic thinker who had
never had a chance to learn how to paint in a skillful and harmonious way, and nor was he interested in learning such skills.
Now that the Sistine Chapel ceiling is cleaned, we have a
chance to reassess Michelangelo's work as a painter. The pictures look very different from before: gone is the pictorial
subtlety that appeared to be a unifying modulation of surface
and a skilled gradation of tone. It once appeared, however
expect that his frescoes ought to be valued for their design
and invention, and not for their colorito, that is, their worth as
superficially, that Michelangelo had more richly articulated his
surfaces, but now this is shown to have been an impression
lent by the incrustation of dirty, discolored animal glue, smoke,
paintings in a strict sense.
and salt. One presently sees large, simplified areas and
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MICHELANGELO AS PAINTER: A HISTORIOGRAPHIC PERSPECTIVE
patches of light and color, truly lacking in "differentiations,"
just as the Cinquecento writings on Michelangelo would lead
us to expect. This stripping away of the dirt has left the pictures surprisingly simplified and bright. The changeant coloring is also more obvious, and that has further flattened the
modeling because the adjacent colors areas appear now to
clash since they are seen more as hues and less as differently
shaded tones. Still, the cleaning has to some extent made
the overall effect more three-dimensional because the design
Mondrian, and Ellsworth Kelly. Absence of modeling, surprising color combinations, and expressionism are now acceptable to twentieth-century eyes, and so are clear and sometimes bright colors. Modern standards of excellence in
painting are not the same as those applied in the Cinquecento.
The Sistine Chapel frescoes, even after the restoration, might
not now necessarily seem wanting in subtlety. On the contrary, we are willing to overlook its abstractness compared to
other sixteenth-century works, and enjoy its force and bold-
is clearer, giving credence to the many early writers who found
ness. Today, many find the Sistine Chapel to be exhilarating in
its forcible, clear coloring, and that is understandable. Indeed,
the skillful rendering of relief in them; but individual parts look
flatter and less worked up with a painter's skill and care. Where
when the ceiling was being cleaned, a sort of neo- expres-
Michelangelo attempted a richer, more "modern" technique,
as in the Ignudi near the Drunkenness of Noah, the clumsiness of his attempt has been revealed by the stripping away
of the dirt that had unified the pictorial surface. It is now easier
to see that Michelangelo's technique had become more free
and bold as the work progressed, an evolution in his manner
sionistic style was current in western art, and the lunettes in
particular, with their lollipop colors and clashing changeant
hues, fit exactly into one prevailing taste.
If we acknowledge that the idea that Michelangelo was a
great painter is a creation of the last century or so, we must
be consistent and confront a related question: was the notion
that he was a middling painter a legend of the Cinquecento, a
that W61fflin could see in 1890 even through the encrusted
paint surface.58 Yet, no Cinquecento writers recorded this
change in style, and one must have felt that his painting man-
fabrication intended to make Michelangelo's efforts as a
painter even more striking and pleasantly surprising? Cast
ner and technique was still largely the same as it had been
has argued that the story of the "unfinished" state of the Sistine
and still maintained its essential-and great-differences from
the technique and colorito of other leading painters of the sixteenth century. Hall has recently given a penetrating analysis
of Michelangelo's use of colors, but it must be asked-no matter how clever the coloring is and how effective it might be in
its symbolism, narrative appropriateness, and as a means of
ceiling was invented by Vasari and Condivi, perhaps with
Michelangelo's encouragement, to enhance Michelangelo's
conveying spiritual energy-whether this is "good painting"
by Cinquecento standards. The historiographic evidence suggests that it was not. However impressed many modern viewers might be with Michelangelo's change of style, Cinquecento
observers can hardly be blamed for failing to note it, for they
had strong and clear ideas about good painting as practiced
by Raphael, Titian, Correggio, and others. Michelangelo had
gone his own way and had not bothered with the pictorial
subtleties that these artists, "not without reason," had brought
to their painted works.
Many of those who were used to the old appearance of
the frescoes are surprised by the changes, and some have
vociferously decried the restoration. The critics of the restoration, we must presume, had become accustomed to thinking of Michelangelo as more like his contemporaries, as more
"normal" for his time, and the results of the cleaning thus came
as a surprise and a shock. However, a change has happened
in the history of criticism: since the earlier nineteenth century, the ideals of subtle modeling, coloristic harmony, and
pictorial unity have given way to other possibilities. Modern
viewers have grown up on the styles of Gauguin, Matisse,
reputation and to aid the critical reception of his work in the
chapel.59 Were Cinquecento writers creating a legend about
an untrained and clumsy painter who managed, despite his
handicap, to stun the art world with his brush? Of course, it is
certain that by disclaiming knowledge of painting Michelangelo
was giving us a reason to marvel at what he did actually manage to accomplish. Still, there is little reason to imagine that
the reputation of Michelangelo as a mediocre painter has been
merely a literary fiction. Unlike, for example, the account by
two Tuscan writers of the unfinished nature of the Sistine vault,
the status of Michelangelo as a painter was discussed widely
and can be tested more easily by other historical evidence.
That Michelangelo was no painter was argued for by friend
and foe, by contemporaries and later writers, by the artist's
own public pronouncements and by his intimate, private letters, and is attested by the known information concerning his
training, his technical deficiencies, and his reliance on profes-
sional painters to carry out his designs. All of the evidence
indicates that painting was not his forte.
Michelangelo is now, more than ever, widely loved as a
painter. But in the Cinquecento, Michelangelo did not meet
the test that his contempories set, for his colorito was conservative, and his pictorial skills rudimentary. Even the recently
cleaned Last Judgment, although it has a bit more subtlety
and some of the "douceur" that Felibien wanted to see, does
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JOSEPH MANCA
not signal a profound change in style or technique for Michelangelo as compared to his earlier works. We must conclude
that Michelangelo was not, according to contemporary standards, a good painter. This statement is true even when comparing him to painters that he is now thought to have influenced. Can any visitor to the Uffizi, in comparing the Doni
tondo to the nearby Madonna of the Harpies by Andrea del
Sarto, not acknowledge that Michelangelo had very different
goals as a painter, goals that connoisseurs of the time might
have found displeasing? Still, Michelangelo's paintings appeal
to modern taste, even though by Renaissance standards
Michelangelo clearly did not live up to the prevailing ideal.
His distance from that ideal is ever more obvious now that
the Sistine Chapel is stripped of its concealing dirt and discol-
ored animal glues. But Michelangelo's contempories had,
through their writings, already prepared us for what we see
now. If the ceiling looks, as Michelangelo's champions would
say, abstract and intellectual and forcibly clear or, as critics of
the restoration have put it, pictorially impoverished and flat,
early writers provided a forewarning and an explanation, and
Michelangelo concurred when he said that painting "non e
mia arte."
F Hartt in a reply letter ("L'ultima mano on the Sistine Ceiling," The Art
rence, 1986 (with an introduction by Toti Scialoja), who emphasizes
the removal of dark shadowing during the restoration, modeling a
secco that the Vatican claims was added after Michelangelo's time.
Another critic is M. Daley who, like Beck, questioned the contention
that Michelangelo did not apply a unifying final layer of animal glue
on the vault ("Sistine Restoration Remains Veiled in Mystery," The
Journal of Art [September 1991], p. 66).
For a summary of some of the criticisms of the cleaning and
an analysis of the exchange between Beck and Hartt, see D. Cast,
"Finishing the Sistine," The Art Bulletin 73, no. 4 (Dec. 1991), pp. 669-
Bulletin 71, no. 3 [Sept. 1989], pp. 508-509). Beck had previously
criticized the restoration in "The Sistine Ceiling Restorations: Second
Thoughts," Arts Magazine 61.1 (Oct. 1986), pp. 60-61. The main opposition from a conservator is by Alessandro Conti, Michelangelo e
la pittura a fresco: Tecnica e conservazione della Volta Sistina, Flo-
"Twenty-Five Questions about Michelangelo's Sistine Ceiling,"Apollo
126.2 (Dec. 1987), pp. 392-400, and D. Ekserdjian, "The Sistine Chapel
and the Critics," Apollo 126.2 (Dec. 1987), pp. 401-404. An explica-
1 The argument has been carried out in the popular press as
well as in scholarly literature, most recently in J. Beck, Art Restoration: The Culture, the Business, and the Scandal (with Michael Daley),
London, 1993. Beck's "The Final Layer: L'ultima mano on Michelangelo's Sistine Ceiling," The Art Bulletin 70, no. 3 (Sept. 1988), pp.
502-503, makes the case that the "ultima mano" that Condivi describes
Michelangelo as being ready to apply was a coat of dark glue sizing
that, along with other secco passages, would have unified the picture
surface. His arguments about the "ultima mano" were questioned by
672.
2 For a defense of the cleaning see K. Weil-Garris Brandt,
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MICHELANGELO AS PAINTER: A HISTORIOGRAPHIC PERSPECTIVE
tune of Michelangelo as colorist see M. Kirby Talley, Jr., "Michelangelo
p. 452. See also Vasari, The Lives of the Artists, trans. G. Bull
(Harmondsworth, 1965), p. 458.
9 See Vasari, ed. Milanesi, 1881, p. 210, and Vasari, ed. Bull, pp.
378-379. Walter Persigati, in a public lecture (Houston, 11 May 1991)
argued that this passage in Vasari is meant to say that Michelangelo
did not use fancy coloring only in the Last Judgment, as opposed to
the ceiling itself, but this is clearly not the point of the passage, in
which Vasari says Michelangelo "always" chose to refuse to paint
anything but the human body. The passage is rather general, and
summarizes Michelangelo's overall attitude toward the art of painting. R. Williams, "Vincenzo Borghini and Vasari's Lives," Ph. D. diss.,
Princeton, 1988, pp. 171-72 emphasized the positive critical attitude
of Vasari as found in this passage.
remarks on Michelangelo's critical fortunes as a painter are in Robert
Clements, Michelangelo's Theory of Art, New York, 1961, pp. 249-52,
and in Conti, pp. 113-14. See also notes by P Barocchi in G. Vasari, La
passage appears only in the 1568 edition.
11 Vasari, ed. Bull, p. 382; cf. Vasari, ed. Milanesi, VII, 1881, p.
214 ("mostrano veramente come hanno da essere le pitture fatte da
tion and defense of the restoration is made in the catalogue of the
exhibition held at the Vatican in 1990, Michelangelo e la Sistina: La
tecnica, il restauro, il mito (Rome, 1990), pp. 55-126, and by F.
Mancinelli, "The Technique of Michelangelo as a Painter: A Note on
the Cleaning of the First Lunettes in the Sistine Chapel," Apollo 117.2
(May 1983), pp. 362-367. See also F Mancinelli and G. Colalucci, "Vero
colore di Michelangiolo: Le lunette della Cappella Sistina," Critica
d'arte no. 6 (July-September 1986), pp. 72-89, and their essays in La
Cappella Sistina, ed. C. Pietrangeli, Novara, 1986, pp. 218-272. For
illustrations of the results of the restoration see F Hartt, G. Colalucci,
F Mancinelli, La Cappella Sistina, 3 vols., Lucerne, 1989-90.
For a defense of the cleaning and notices on the critical forRediscovered," Art News 86.2 (Summer, 1987), pp. 159-70. Other
vita di Michelangelo nelle redazioni del 1550 e 1568, Milan-Naples,
1962, II, pp. 484-88, and E. Battisti, "La critica a Michelangelo prima
del Vasari," Rinascimento 5 (1954), pp. 117-32, and "La critica a
Michelangelo dopo il Vasari," Rinascimento 7 (1956), pp. 135-57.
During the restoration of the vault of the Sistine Ceiling, the
Samuel H. Kress Foundation sponsored an investigation of the results by a group of art historians and conservators, who concluded
that the recent restoration of Michelangelo's ceiling has been carried
out responsibly.
This present study is intended to discuss, not the restoration,
but Michelangelo's critical fortunes as a painter. I would conclude
that the frescoes by Michelangelo are now rather close to the condition in which he painted them, although I would not rule out that there
has been some minor damage to the modeling as a result of the recent cleaning. Whatever position one takes on the Vatican's restoration, the historiographic evidence is always relevant, and both the
critics and defenders of the restoration should be aware of Michel-
angelo's historical reputation as a painter.
3 Quoted from Toti Scialoja by C. Haberman, "Cleansed of Centuries of Grime, Sistine Ceiling Shines Anew," The New York Times
(29 March 1990), p. C18.
4 The wife of the sculptor Bartolommeo Ammannati wrote: "I
color caduchi, e bassi,/ Di cui fingesti altere forme, e rare/ Si vere,
che'l ver finto in quelle appare." See The Divine Michelangelo: The
Florentine Academy's Homage on His Death in 1564. A Facsimile
Edition of "Esequie del Divino Michelagnolo Buonarroti," Florence,
1564, ed. R. and M. Wittkower, London, 1964, p. 86.
5 P Giovio, "Michaelis Angeli Vita," cited from Scritti d'arte del
Cinquecento, ed. P Barocchi, Milan and Naples, I [1971], p. 10.
See G. B. Armenini, De veri precetti della pittura [Ravenna,
1586], ed. M. Gorreri, Turin, 1988, pp. 135 and 240-41.
6 //Libro di Antonio Billi [written before 1530], ed. C. Frey, Berlin, 1892, p. 52; Billi made no specific mention of Michelangelo's col-
oring. Similar kind of general praise is uttered by an anonymous
Florentine in II codice magliabechiano, ed. C. Frey, Berlin, 1892, p.
114; writing ca. 1537-42, he described the Sistine Chapel as "maravigliosa et cosa tanto rara quanto sia possibile."
7 G.A. Gilio,Due dialoghi [1564], ed. P Barocchi, Florence, 1986,
p. 69. Gilio was largely concerned not with stylistic matters but with
Michelangelo's lack of propriety and decorum in his later frescoes at
the Vatican.
8 G. Vasari, Le vite de' pits ecce/llenti pittori, scultori ed
architettori, ed. G. Milanesi, Florence, 1881, VII, pp. 425-69, especially
10 Vasari, ed. Milanesi, VII, 1881, p. 216, and ed. Bull, p. 384. This
buoni e veri pittori"). Vasari includes this statement in the editions of
both 1550 and 1568. Even here these remarks about Michelangelo's
skill as a painter largely concern modeling and shadowing rather than
colorito in the broadest sense.
12 R. Borghini, II riposo, Florence, 1584, p. 515.
13 Vincenzo Borghini's writings on the primacy of the arts, dat-
able to the 1560s, are cited in Scritti d'arte del Cinquecento, ed. RF
Barocchi, I, Verona, 1971, p. 623; see also R Barocchi, "Una Selva di
notizie di Vincenzio Borghini," in Un augurio a Raffaele Mattioli, Flo-
rence, 1970, p. 113. This particular passage is a response to Michelangelo's letter to Varchi on the paragone.
14 A. Condivi, Michelangelo: La vita, raccolta dal suo discepolo
[1553], ed. P d'Ancona, Milan, 1928, pp. 110-11; cf. The Life of Michelangelo, ed. H. Wohl, trans. A. S. Wohl (Baton Rouge, 1976), p. 48.
Condivi does, exceptionally, make claims for Michelangelo as
a skilled painter in his discussion of the young Buonarroti's copy of
Martin Schongauer's Temptation of Saint Anthony; see the discussion in the text below.
15 Condivi reported: "Michelagnolo, che per ancora colorito non
aveva e conosceva il dipignere una volta esser cosa difficile, tent6
con ogni sforzo di scarivarsi, proponendo Raffaello e scusandosi che
non era sua arte e che non riuscirebbe (ed. d'Ancona, p. 106);" cf.
Condivi, ed. Wohl, p. 39. When spotting of the plaster began,
Michelangelo said to the pope: "lo ho pur detto a Vostra Santith
che questa non e mia arte; ci6 ch'io ho fatto e guasto (ed. d'Ancona,
p. 112)."
16 Condivi as a mouthpiece for Michelangelo is discussed by H.
Wohl in Condivi, ed. H. Wohl, pp. XVI-XXI.
17 F de Hollanda, Four Dialogues on Painting, ed. A. Bell, Ox-
ford, 1928, p. 69. Hollanda wrote in his third dialogue, set in the year
1538, "E isto nbo com ouro, nem com prata, nem com tintas muito
finas, mas somente com uma pena ou com um lapis desenhado, ou
com um pincel de preto e branco." See F de Holanda, Diajlogos Em
Roma, ed. J. da Felicidade Alves, Livros Horizonte (1984), p. 62.
18 This quote is from the first dialogue, also set in 1538. See ed.
Bell, pp. 15-16, and ed. Alves, p. 29.
19 G. P Lomazzo, Idea del Tempio della pittura, Bologna, 1590,
pp. 41-42. Lomazzo echoes Pino, suggesting (p. 60) that the best
paintings would be an Adam and an Eve, the first by Michelangelo
and Titian, and the second by Raphael and Correggio.
20 Ibidem, p. 44.
21 G. P Lomazzo, Trattato dell'arte della pittura, Rome, 1844,
I, p. 363.
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JOSEPH MANCA
22 Ibidem, pp. 40-41.
23 "Ne parlerb altrimenti del colorito di Michel'agnolo: perch6
ogni un sa, che egli in cib ha posto poca cura, e voi mi cedete." See
the dialogue and commentary in M. Roskill, Dolce's "Aretino" and
Venetian Art Theory of the Cinquecento, New York, 1968, pp. 17879, with an English translation of the passage; also relevant for
Dolce's opinion of Michelangelo's painting is his letter to Gasparo
Ballini, pp. 200-11 of Roskill's edition. For an analysis of Venetian
criticism of Michelangelo's colorito, see Battisti, 1956, as in note 2,
pp. 149-53.
Michelangelo Biondo, in his Della nobilissima pittura, Venice,
1549, p. 19, wrote of Buonarroti's "divinissima pittura," but without
making any distinctions between his abilities in coloring, design, or
invention.
24 P Pino,Dialogo dipittura [Venice, 1548], ed. R., A. Pallucchini,
Venice, 1946, p. 131.
25 From his Lamento della pittura (1605), in Scritte d'arte di
Federico Zuccaro, ed. D. Heikamp, Florence, 1961, p. 123. For example, he admires the "vaghe tinte" of Correggio (p. 125).
26 That the frescoes were becoming somewhat obscured already
in the Cinquecento can be seen in the restored section of the Sacrifice of Noah by Domenico Carnevali; a section on the left side of the
scene, painted by him in 1568 to replace a lost section of the vault, is
now darker than the original surrounding area because he was attempting to harmonize with the original tonality. One German viewer
reported in 1536 that the ceiling was already becoming darkened by
candle smoke; see August Schmarsow, "Excerpte aus Joh. Fichard's
Italia von 1536," Repertorium fOr Kunstwissenschaft 14 (1891), pp.
130-39. He seems to have exaggerated the darkness of the frescoes.
A study of the cross-sections of the paint and its later surface accumulations (only some of which could belong to the sixteenth century), a plausible assessment of the amount of dirt and smoke that
could have settled on the ceiling in the decades after its completion,
and a look at Carnevali's attempt to match flesh tones in his restoration of the 1560s all suggest that the vault of the Sistine Chapel was
by the middle of the Cinquecento slightly darker than when Michelangelo painted it but was not nearly so obscured that viewers could
not reach accurate assessments of Michelangelo's skill and technique
as a painter.
27 F Scannelli, II microcosmo della pittura, Cesena, 1657, pp.
162-63.
28 A. Felibien, Entretiens sur les vies et sur les ouvrages des
plus excellents peintres anciens et modernes (Entretiens I and II)
[1666], ed. R. Demoris, Paris, 1987, pp. 279-80. Speaking of the "goit
romain," Felibien noted in his /d6e du peintre parfait (London, 1708),
that artists of the Roman School put design first, "n'ayant pas le tems
de s'apliquer a connoitre le Coloris, ils ne I'estiment pas tout ce qu'il
vaut."
29 C. C. Malvasia,Felsina pittrice [1678], Bologna, 1844, II, p. 169.
30 R. de Piles, Cours de peinture par principes, in Oeuvres
diverses, Amsterdam-Leipzig, 1767, II, found in a table in the back
(would be page 391).
31 R. de Piles, Abr6g6 de la vie des peintres, Paris, 1699, p. 225.
32 Ibidem, p. 225.
33 R. Mengs, Gedanken (iber die Sch6nheit und ber den Ge-
schmack in der Malerei [1762], ed. H. Heller, Leipzig, 1884, ch. 3, pp.
38-62.
34 See note on p. 82, signed by F G. D., in Vite de'pid ecce/llenti
pittori, scultori e architetti scritte da M. Giorgio Vasari, Siena, 1793,
vol. 10.
35 C. de Brosses, Lettres familibres. Ecrites d'ltalie en 1739 et
1740, Paris, 1869, II, p. 169.
36 J. Reynolds,Discourses on Art, ed. R. Wark, San Marino, 1959
[Discourse VI, 1774], p. 103.
37 Ibidem [Discourse V, 1772], p. 82.
38 L. Lanzi, Storia pittorica della Italia, Bassano, 1795-96, 1, 117,
pp. 120-21 and 125-26.
39 bidem, I, p. 118: "...quasi vedendosi primio nella scultura,
temesse di parere nella pittura o secondo, o terzo." On p. 117 Lanzi
writes, speaking of the chisel versus the brush, that "quasi sicuramente
si esercitb pii di proposito e con piui fama."
40 J. Harford, The Life of Michael Angelo Buonarroti, London,
1857, vol. I, pp. 267-268. On the temporary scaffolding in the Sistine
Chapel one is "smitten with admiration at the dash and vigour of each
stroke, and not less at its certainty and truth," and he praises (p. 268)
"the richness and clair-obscur" of the frescoes. For C. Heath Wilson's
views on the subject see his Life and Works of Michelangelo
Buonarroti, London, 1876, pp. 60-64 and 156-57. In a complete turnaround from earlier critical attitudes, C. Holroyd, Michael Angelo
Buonarroti, London, 1903, pp. 171-72 described Eve in The Creation
of Adam as "modelled with a delicious softness... something like the
quality sought by Correggio in later times," although Wilson had com-
plained (p. 64) that the Doni tondo had "arrested progress in the di-
rection of a rich, harmonious coloring and forcible chiaroscuro,
substiting a conventional method and neglect of the study of nature."
41 J. A. Symonds, The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti, London,
1893, 1, pp. 256-58.
42 H. W61fflin, "Die Sixtinische Decke Michelangelo's," Re-
pertorium fOr Kunstwissenschaft 13 (1890), pp. 264-72.
43 H. Mackowsky, Michelagniolo, Berlin, 1908, p. 107.
44 C. de Tolnay, The Sistine Ceiling (vol. 2 of Michelangelo),
Princeton, 1949, pp. 99-102.
45 H. Hibbard, Michelangelo, New York, 1985, p. 142 refers to
the "masterly, broadly painted harmony" of the Sistine Chapel. Similarly, A. Parronchi, Opere giovanili di Michelangelo, Florence 1981,
vol. 3, pp. 187-91, calls him a "pittore malgrb lui," and sees a fine
quality in his sfumato and lighting effects. H. von Einem, Michelangelo: Bildhauer, Maler, Baumeister, Berlin, 1973, p. 76 calls him "ein
grosser Maler" and noted that his color-composition in the Sistine
Chapel is first rate. V. Mariani, Michelangelo pittore, Milan, 1964 emphasizes throughout his book, not Michelangelo's coloring, but rather
the artist's skill at rendering light and dark.
46 F Hartt, Michelangelo, New York, 1964, pp. 11-12.
47 M. Hall, Color and Meaning: Practice and Theory in Renaissance Painting, Cambridge, 1992, pp. 123-29.
48 Hartt, 1989, p. 509, and Conti,passim. L. Steinberg indicates
approval of the style of the rediscovered Michelangelo in "A New
Michelangelo," Art and Antiques (Oct. 1985), pp. 49-52 and 92-93.
49 Vasari published the evidence that Michelangelo studied with
Domenico Ghirlandaio in the 1568 edition of the Vite (ed. Milanesi,
VII, 1881, pp. 138-39; cf. ed. Bull, pp. 327-28). Condivi's account, presumably reflecting Michelangelo's statements, gives a very minor role
to Ghirlandaio in Michelangelo's development.
The literature on Michelangelo's origins as a painter is very
large and opinions are quite varied, depending on which works different authors accept as by young Michelangelo. Two basic studies are
C. de Tolnay, The Youth of Michelangelo (vol. I of Michelangelo),
Princeton, 1947, passim and p. 242, and C. J. Holmes, "Where did
Michelangelo Learn to Paint," The Burlington Magazine XI (1907), pp.
235-36.
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MICHELANGELO AS PAINTER: A HISTORIOGRAPHIC PERSPECTIVE
so According to Vasari (ed. Milanesi, VII, 1881, pp. 175-76, and
ed. Bull, p. 351), several masters came to Rome to show Michelangelo
their technique, and both Vasari and Condivi report that Giuliano da
Sangallo helped Michelangelo to avoid the spotting that was occurring in his frescoes. For a good discussion of the question of Michelangelo's helpers in the Sistine, see W. Wallace, "Michelangelo's Assistants in the Sistine Chapel," Gazette des Beaux-Arts vol. 110 (Dec.
1987), pp. 203-16.
51 The lines are found on a drawing showing Michelangelo painting the vault of the Sistine Chapel; the sheet, in the Archivio Buonarroti,
vol. XIII, fol. Ill, is illustrated in F Hartt, The Drawings of Michelangelo,
London, 1971, p. 87, no. 109.
52 Condivi (ed. Wohl, p. 57; ed. d'Ancona, p. 112); cf. note 15
above.
53 For an overview of Michelangelo and the paragone between
painting and sculpture see Clements, pp. 300-28, and D. Summers,
Michelangelo and the Language of Art, Princeton, 1981, pp. 269-78.
For his letter to Varchi on the paragone see Scritti d'arte del
Cinquecento, ed. Barocchi, I, pp. 522-23.
54 The event is reported in Condivi (ed. Wohl, pp. 9-10; and ed.
d'Ancona, pp. 35-36) and Vasari (ed. Milanesi, VII, 1881, pp. 140-41,
and ed. Bull, p. 329).
55 The passages about Michelangelo's reluctance to add more
gold to the vault are discussed by Cast, pp. 673-74.
56 For Michelangelo's collaboration with Sebastiano see M. Hirst,
Sebastiano del Piombo, Oxford, 1981, pp. 41-75 and pp. 148-51.
Sebastiano was not the only artist used by Michelangelo in
this way, as the painters Marcello Venusti and Jacopo Pontormo also
were entrusted with designs by the master, the latter executing a Venus and Cupid and a Noli me tangere after a design of Michelangelo.
Once again, Vasari provides a critical framework for us; he said of the
Noli me tangere that it was appreciated "per la grandezza del disegno
di Michelangelo e per lo colorito di Jacopo," yet another indication
that Michelangelo could only fully succeed in painting when assisted
by a trained painter. For a discussion of Vasari's account and the
collaboration on this painting between Pontormo and Buonarroti, see
W. Wallace, "II Noli me tangere di Michelangelo: tra sacro e profano,"
Arte cristiana vol. 76, no. 729 (1988), pp. 443-50. See also J. Cox-
Rearick, The Drawings of Pontormo, New York, 1981 [first ed. 1964], 1,
p. 72, and F M. Clapp, Jacopo Carucci da Pontormo: His Life and
Work, New Haven, 1916, pp. 60 and 62.
57 Vasari, ed. Milanesi, V, pp. 567-68.
58 W61fflin, pp. 264-72.
59 Cast, especially pp. 670-79.
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