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Toward A New Vision: Inventing Compositions
The works in this gallery demonstrate the young Michelangelo's process of designing compositions for works small and large. He developed a number of designs for private devotional imagery, probably small in size, between 1500 and 1505. In a dazzling pen-and-ink sheet, a tender arrangement of the Virgin and Child is surrounded by a frenzy of ideas for other figures. Emanating from an earlier, more stilted concept in a marble relief, the intimate figural group in turn inspired a painting by an artist in Michelangelo's circle. The painter is most likely the mysterious Piero d'Argenta, trained in the tradition of the city of Ferrara, who was friendly with Michelangelo from at least 1498 to 1530. The comparison of the painting to the drawing demonstrates Michelangelo's influence beyond the confines of Florence, and at a young age. The nearby study for a painting or sculpture of the Virgin and Child with Saint Anne already communicates a monumentality of the figure that would became the hallmark of Michelangelo's art. |