Michelangelo's drawing in the British Museum of three figures in chalk and with a pen and ink sketch of the Virgin and Child, dated by the museum to 1503-05.
Photo: courtesy of the British Museum.
Michelangelo: verso of the drawing in the British Museum, 1503-05.
Photo: courtesy of the British Museum.
Sketch for The Bruges Madonna and Child
Michelangelo's sketch for the Bruges Madonna shows spontaneous movement that suggests it is a life drawing.
The Bruges Madonna and Child
THE BRUGE MADONNA AND CHILD
It is clear that different elements were added to both sides of this sheet in different mediums and at different times. This means that the work cannot be seen as a snapshot of a single moment in Michelangelo's creative process. Instead, it crosses boundaries and represents diverse thoughts and ideas rapidly put down on a sheet of paper that could well have been in his studio for a number of years.
The Virgin and Child sketch on the recto has never been seen as a problem. Indeed, it is so clearly related to Michelangelo's marble statue of the Madonna of Bruges, c1501-1504, that the relationship is beyond doubt. The only difference between the drawing and the final statue is that while the statue has been turned into a detached iconic image, superior and remote from the real world, the drawing has the feel of a life study taken from a real model sitting in the studio in front of Michelangelo.
The completed statue in The Church of Our Lady in Bruges shows how Michelangelo transformed a life study into a universal neo-platonic statement. This difference between the real people posing for Michelangelo and the neoplatonic idealism of the final works is of interest because it explains the way so many of his sketches search for the emotions in our physical reality and then transform them into a higher neoplatonic level of being. The real woman with the child in the sketch, slightly nervous and hesitant and holding a grumpty child wanting to wriggle away, is transformed into a sublimely calm and dignified figure aware of her child's destiny, and facing up to and rising above the troubles of this world.
Because of this link to The Bruges Madonna, the drawing has tended to be dated to 1503-1504, the time when The Bruges Madonna was created. But that need not be the whole story. Other sketches on the same sheet could be of a different period and could be for a different purpose.
The movement in the main image of three men is so physical and so strong that it has tended to be linked to Michelangelo's most physical works of the period, the Battle of Cascina, a proposed fresco that was destined for a wall in the Sala dei Cinquecento in the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence.
It was in 1504 that Michelangelo was commissioned to paint a mural of the Battle of Cascina, while at the same time Leonardo da Vinci was commissioned to paint The Battle of Anghiari on the wall opposite.
The Battle of Cascina had taken place on 28 July 1364, and was between Florence and the forces of Pisa. Michelangelo's work depicted the moment when the Florentine soldiers were bathing in the river Arno and were surprised by a sudden attack by the Pisan forces. They clambered out of the river and hurried to dress themselves. This moment of panic gave Michelangelo the idea of displaying a great many poses of men in action.
Michelangelo's proposed painting of the battle was, we believe, never carried out. He did, however make a cartoon which, although lost, was copied by a follower, Sebastiano da Sangallo (1481 – 1551). Sangallo's copy gives us a fairly clear impression of what Michelangelo intended.
The problem is that the drawing in the British Museum does not actually match any of the figures in the Sangallo copy of The Battle of Cascina cartoon. So has this drawing got any other identifiable function? Is there the possibility that it was used at a different time for a different purpose?
There is one curious link, which is with The Creation of Adam scene on the Sistine Chapel Ceiling in Rome, which Michelangelo painted between 1508 and 1512, at least four years after the suggested date of the British Museum drawing.
Copy of Michelangelo's cartoon of The Battle of Cascina by Sebastiano da Sangallo (1481 – 1551).
Reversed image of Michelangelo's drawing in the British Museum
If the original Michelangelo drawing is reversed and is compared to a detail of God the Father from The Creation of Adam scene it reveals a distinct similarity. The muscular supporting figure in the drawing is almost identical to the supporting figure underneath God in the Sistine Chapel fresco. Moreover, God is like an enlarged and highly developed version of the central figure in the drawing, the one who is being lifted up. The outstretched hand in the drawing, looking like it is seeking to grasp a support, is turned into a pointing gesture by God sparking life into Adam.
When turned on its side and compared to the supporting figures in the fresco of God the Father on the Sistine Chapel ceiling it looks more and more likely that the drawing is a study for the final fresco.
Detail of the figure of God and supporting angles from Creation of Adam from the Sistine Ceiling.Michelangelo made hundreds if not thousands of sketches of the human body throughout his life, and he could pick up on ideas made at different times and in different places. The British Museum drawing may well have been a study for any active group of men like those in the Battle of Cascina, but the idea emerges most clearly in the Creation of Adam scene on the Sistine Chapel Ceiling.