Existing comment:
Michelangelo's Presentation Drawings
Around 1533, Michelangelo made a number of drawings derived from Ovid's Metamorphoses, a narrative poem containing more than 250 myths that was first published around AD 8. The drawings were gifts for Tommaso de' Cavalieri, a young Roman nobleman with whom Michelangelo was deeply smitten. The daringly homo-erotic depiction of Ganymede -- a beautiful boy kidnapped by an enamored Jupiter in the guise of an eagle -- reveals the influence of the Laocoön in the depiction of a struggling male body, while the dynamic Fall of Phaeton was probably based on a Roman sarcophagus. Meant as personal gifts, these highly finished drawings were soon copied, carved in crystal, cast in bronze, and published in print. Derivations such as these transformed the private compositions into very public images of Michelangelo's art |