Posted on 05/20/2019 7:01:23 AM PDT by Red Badger
THE earliest-known work of art created by Michelangelo when the Italian artist was just 12 years old has been discovered.
The sketch, which depicts a robed man in a chair, was identified by leading Italian Renaissance scholar Sir Timothy Clifford.
Sir Clifford believes the legendary artist, who painted the Sistine Chapel ceiling and carved the statue of David in marble, created the work when he was just a young child.
Describing it as “the earliest drawing efforts of a youth who would one day emerge as one of the most remarkable artists that has ever lived,” Sir Clifford thinks it dates from around 1487.
He told The Sunday Telegraph: “It's the earliest-known Michelangelo drawing by a year, maybe two, than anything else we know. So it is particularly fascinating.
“He uses two different varieties of brown ink.
“He has an idiosyncratic way of drawing, with rounded chins and a very hard line under the nose, which also appears in a slightly later drawing.
“No other (Domenico) Ghirlandaio pupil draws like that. It's an extraordinarily interesting object because Michelangelo's very young indeed.”
It is considered to be all the more remarkable because the Italian artist was known to destroy drawings after finishing them.
This includes a huge number that he burned shortly before his death.
Michelangelo’s 16th-century biographer, Vasari, once wrote: “Just before his death, [Michelangelo] burned a large number of his own drawings, sketches and cartoons to prevent anyone from seeing the labours he endured or the ways he tested his genius, for fear that he might seem less than perfect.
“The way Michelangelo's talents and character developed astonished Domenico [his teacher], who saw him doing things quite out of the ordinary for boys of his age and not only surpassing his many other pupils, but also very often rivalling the achievements of the master himself.”
The Seated Man sketch was bought by an anonymous British collected in 1989 at a French auction.
At the time, its artist was unidentified.
LOL!
Is that really a chair? It does not seem like one...
I think it’s a throne...nevertheless...a chair.
There’s a similarity to his portrait of Moses
Not exactly, because all of my siblings save one have been artists, as was my father and my son. Even my mother had a hidden talent for painting. So I’m the odd one out.
:o[
‘Face
Picasso should never have grown up.
He was Black they will claim!
That was one of those things that was said in the art history classes of my day. He and Leonardo probably weren't the only two Italian guys who weren't zooming the chicks 24/7, but Renaissance gossip is what it is (or is what it was). In any event, they weren't exactly Benvenuto Cellinis.
Is it actually signed P. Picasso?! I can’t see it too clearly. Do you know the dimensions or what it’s called?
:^)
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