Existing comment:
Brutus and the Sculpted Bust
The works by Michelangelo in this gallery communicate a sense of the monumentality of his art. He worked in a complex, highly charged political climate, with variable allegiances and turbulent shifts in leadership. After 1528 his friends and private patrons included anti-Medici Florentines in political exile in Rome; the Apollo-David, Brutus, and Venus Kissed by Cupid were all produced for members of this group.
The Apollo-David and bust of Brutus reveal Michelangelo's working process in marble with a fascinating immediacy. He carves away to gradually liberate the forms from the inchoate stone block, echoing his famous sonnet: "Not even the best of artists has any conception / that a single marble block does not contain / within its excess, and that is only attained / by the hand that obeys the intellect." In their incomplete state, the sculptures suggest the quality of non finito, or "lack of finish," so admired in his work. |