Tag Archives: Michelangelo

La Pieta

March 27, 2019

Rachel Fleishman Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States   La Pieta, 1498–1499, Michelangelo, St. Peter’s Basilica, Vatican City. Via Wikipedia. CC BY 2.5. A mother holds her dead child. His body flops open without resistance, freshly dead. His head is cocked back, shoulder lifted, arms release the last vestige of grip. Her face sullen, her hand beside […]

Michelangelo’s David and the anatomical politics of religious art

March 15, 2019

Sam Shuster Woodbridge, Suffolk   David. Michelangelo. 1501-4, Florence It is impossible to see Michelangelo’s David without marvelling at the way its power and humanity have been fashioned from coarse stone. Apart from its living warmth, there is a unique display of human anatomy, each feature of which stands out in perfection, and together make […]

Michelangelo’s The Creation of Adam

January 25, 2019

Jessica Lobo London, Ontario, Canada   Michelangelo, taken from a drawing in “The Index Guide to Travel and Art-Study in Europe” Lafayette Loomis, 1882. Michelangelo painted some of his most famous work on the Sistine Chapel ceiling, covering it with the world’s most beautiful frescoes, of which The Creation of Adam is the most iconic.1 He […]

The feast of health: the Christian legacy of Hygeia

June 15, 2018

Wilson F. Engel, III Gilbert, Arizona, United States   Figure 1. The Fall and Expulsion of Adam and Eve, 1510 AD. Michelangelo, Fresco, Sistine Chapel, Vatican, Rome.   Michelangelo’s famous fresco in the Sistine Chapel (Figure 1) shows the serpent tempting Eve on the left, and the archangel Raphael expelling Adam and Eve from the Garden of […]

The Anatomy of Michelangelo (1475-1564)

April 11, 2018

JMS Pearce East Yorks, England   Michelangelo’s anatomy drawings Michelangelo Buonarroti was an exception to the rule that the qualities of many brilliant artists and composers are realized and extolled only after death. He was recognized by contemporaries as a genius, a “Hero of the High Renaissance,” the only artist of whom it was claimed […]

Realdo Colombo (ca.1515-1559)

November 15, 2017

  Although Italy during the Renaissance consisted of a mosaic of independent states, its inhabitants and particularly academicians seem to have moved freely from one city state to another. Thus it came about that the anatomist Matteo Realdo Colombo was born and educated in the principality of Milan (in philosophy and later as an apothecary); […]

My tragedy in retrospect

January 29, 2017

Mary Osborne Chicago, Illinois, United States   The downfall of Adam and Eve and their expulsion from the Garden of Eden, 1508–1512 Michelangelo, The Sistine Chapel, Rome, Italy From a scaffold, neck craned, Michelangelo Buonarroti painted scenes from the book of Genesis, prophets, and sibyls upon the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Considering himself a […]

Divine birth: Eve, fashioned from Adam’s rib

January 27, 2017

It was written in the Bible that it is not good for the man to be alone. So the Lord fashioned from Adam’s rib a companion by an innovative birthing method, as documented in the fresco of Michelangelo. And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he […]

Surgeon’s hands in Vesalius’s portraits and Rembrandt’s The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Tulp

January 19, 2017

Adéla Janíčková Prague, Czech Republic   Fig 1: Anon, Frontispiece, 1543. From Andreas Vesalius, De humani corporis fabrica libri septem, 1543 “To extol the human hand as a monument to God’s wisdom, an instrument that permits humans to create civilization” This statement by Dolores Mitchell1 describes the human hand as both a monument to divinity and […]