Michelangelo. Eugene Muntz

Holy Infant of the Tondo Doni, the Bruges Madonna, and in one low-relief marble Madonna at the Bargello National Museum in Florence and another at Royal Academy of Arts in London. But before 1494 and after 1504, all the children look very athletic. And his recourse to compressed relief betrays a debt to Donatello.

      Once back in Florence, Michelangelo did a small marble of St. John the Baptist (a.k.a. Giovannino in Italy) for a poorer Medici. This statue has been linked to another found in Pisa a few years ago and now in a Berlin museum – it is a cold stilted piece of work and its attribution to Michelangelo is highly questionable. Returning to his home town Florence, Michelangelo entered his period of greatest serenity, or even perhaps impassiveness.

      At the foot of the pulpit from which Savonarola bellowed out his sinister warnings, Michelangelo went on from St. John the Baptist to his Sleeping Cupid and Kneeling Cupid (Victoria and Albert Museum of London), Bacchus and Adonis Dying (Bargello National Museum) and finally his David in marble, i.e. those works that stand apart in his oeuvre by their total absence of any vehemence, passion or pathos. This abrupt plunge into introspection was the product of his exposure to Classical art at its zenith. The importance of this series of works cannot be overemphasised: they prove that, before steeping himself in tragedy, there was a quiet, congenial Michelangelo some what moonstruck by the beauty of Antiquity.

      32. Study for the statue of David, circa 1501–1502. Drawn with quill, with annotated manuscript by Michelangelo. The Louvre, Paris.

      33. David, 1501–1504. Marble, 410 cm. Galleria dell’Academia, Florence.

      34. David, 1501–1504. Marble, 410 cm. Galleria dell’Academia, Florence.

      35. Saint Matthew, 1505–1506. Marble, 271 cm. Galleria dell’Academia, Florence.

      To understand the massive volume of work Michelangelo put out in the few years between attending Ghirlandaio’s workshop and completion of his Bacchus, Cupid and Adonis, or to grasp his speedy, decisive and almost miraculous emancipation of his art, we need only compare his works with those exiting the workshops of his most illustrious Tuscan peers at the time. Examination forces us to notice that, in comparison to the pure contours and fine relief of his works, theirs lack harmony, fullness and free movement – in short, they have those ‘charming flaws’ that typify the Primitives.

      On the other hand, Michelangelo demonstrates the most enviable ignorance of all the difficulties that stumped his predecessors! He hews marble as if kneading soft wax. He twists and turns human figures with playful ease, trying out the most contorted poses and always choosing the right one. Without such touching integrity and conviction throughout his works, one would think he enjoyed poking fun at obstacles. In short, if sculpture still had a long way to go before his time, Michelangelo raised it to the extreme limits of perfection and, to this day, no one can claim to have covered as much ground as he did.