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Michelangelo's drawings
Michelangelo's Drawings
Michelangelo's drawings offer a unique insight into how the
artist worked and thought. They are beautiful artworks in their own
right but also provide a crucial link between his work as a
sculptor, painter and architect. This tour traces Michelangelo's
life from youth to old age through drawings.
Michelangelo was extraordinarily famous during his lifetime, so
much so that other artists produced portraits of him and three
biographies were written. His artistic achievements set him in a
class apart from his contemporaries; after the death of his main
rival Raphael in 1520, he was to dominate the Roman art world for
more than four decades. His primary focus as an artist was the male
body, and his drawings chart his relentless search to find poses
that would most eloquently express the emotional and spiritual
state of his subjects.
Most of Michelangelo's drawings were never intended for public
display. In fact, he would have been appalled to see them exhibited
as he hated showing them to outsiders. He destroyed a large number
before he died, probably to prevent them from falling into other
hands; he may also have wished to conceal the amount of preparation
behind his major works.
This tour was written to accompany the exhibition
Michelangelo Drawings: Closer to the Master, at
the British Museum from 23 March to 25 June 2006 (Room 5). The
exhibition included drawings from the collections of three museums:
the British Museum, the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford and the Teyler
Museum in Haarlem.