"A good man but he can't paint."
Michelangelo's paintings with their epically proportioned beings strike me as clumsy and without natural grace- his oversized figures puzzled as to why they are have been rendered in paint & forced into these rather awkward, immense operatic scenarios. His drawings are a very different matter and far more appropriate to his genius than his unfortunate essays with paint, as shown by this magnificent crucifixion, even if the Christ is of somwhat unlikely historical accuracy, comprised as he is of Michelangelo's trademark impressive physicality. A full panorama of such bulky & unhappily coloured in titans all heroically dominating space doesn't do it for me, however. Incidentally, El Greco's departure from Rome to Spain was said to have been precipitated by his suggestions to the then Pope, with whom he was on good terms, that the Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel might benefit from being painted over by his good self. However seriously such a suggestion may have been made, there is no doubt El Greco one of the most naturally gifted artists to have lived, & a strong argument could be made for his being the greatest visionary painter of Western Europe, as shown in this great Agony in the Garden.
Or here in the Burial of the Count of Orgaz, Greco shows how to paint an enormous scene with perfect grace.
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To my totally uniformed eye, El Greco doesn’t work. It’s has a modern quality, reminding me of Goya, who I similarly dislike. Michelangelo’s women are some of the ugliest ever yet his Pietà in the Basilica is one of my favourite pieces of art. It moves me beyond words. I think what you describe as his figures being ‘clumsy and without natural grace’ is exactly what I like about them. He makes me aware of the divide between the physical and spiritual. Again, it’s the Pieta. The beauty and ugliness in one piece.
And I nearly forgot to add that I think Michelangelo is f***ing excellent.
I would agree with you, Ed, on Michelangelo's excellence in all but the art of painting. It just doesn't ring true for me- feels like a natural sculptor forced to work in paint, which is exactly what it was by all account; the Pope forcing Michelangelo to work in this medium unnataral to his genius.
I hate to do it but I have to question your the existence of your totally uniformed eye, Edwina.
El Greco, I think has to be seen primarily in visionary terms & while Goya might in very broad terms share a visionary sense, he seems much more visceral & rooted in the physical. Some very powerful & dark depths plumbed by that genius like in this. A kind of merging of a Macbethian Middle Ages vibe with a very modern sense.
Was in the Museo del Prado in Madrid on a trip where they have some El Grecos. Our tour guide (you'll love this) very confidently told us the redoubtable Greek's tendency to stretch his figures was most likely to be explained by astigmatism (i.e. he had fucked up eyeballs). So much for the 'greatest visionary painter of Western Europe' then.
Christ! No wonder we passed our fucking exams with people like that out there actually getting paid for their expertise. Though needless to say, this diminishes El Greco considerably in my eyes- only a fool would like the work of some Cretan with fucked up eyeballs. Can you recommend any artists with normal eyeballs? Goya went fully deaf which is nearly as bad. Imagine not being able to hear your own paintings.
you might like what Theodore Zeldin says about the Greek in his An Intimate History of Humanity, he sees him as the perfect artist in some ways.
Saw a Goya/Rembrandt exhibition in Venice that scared me witless. Had to go and eat much gelato to recover from that one.
If you read Michelangelo's v good poems, they manifest a strong tension between his 'platonising' wish for bodiless purity, and his incredibly physicality - that tension in some ways is Michelangelo, and that's what i think distorts & energises his paintings. Life always seems on the verge of exploding into a newer intensity in his stuff, like in his 'dying slave', the man emerging from stone. He was always after that further consummation. Died when Shakespeare was 3 months in the womb, you know.
Perhaps I'm being harsh on Michelangelo, El, & if his major paintings seen in the flesh, my opinions might radically change. Though it is just towards his paintings that I feel antipathy.
Thanks for the Zeldin mention- a new name to me I'll look up.
Goya & Rembrandt certainlyseem to make a natural kind of pairing & i think Goya said that his two masters were Nature/God & Rembrandt.
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