Michelangelo and the Reform of Art

by Alexander Nagel

• ISBN13: 9780521662925
• ISBN10: 0521662923
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2000-09-11
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

Michelangelo was acutely conscious of living in an age of religious crisis and artistic change, and for him the two issues were related. Michelangelo and the Reform of Art explores Michelangelo's awareness of artistic tradition as a means of understanding his relation to the profound religious uncertainty of the sixteenth century. Concentrating on Michelangelo's lifelong preoccupation with the image of the dead Christ, Alexander Nagel studies the artist's associations with reform-minded circles in early sixteenth-century Italy, and reveals his sustained concern over the fate of religious art.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations	ix
Acknowledgments	xv
Introduction: Michelangelo's Work as an Art Historian	1	(24)
PART ONE. HISTORY PAINTING AND CULT IMAGE IN THE ALTARPIECE
Transport and Transitus	25	(24)
History and Figure	25	(8)
Ancient and Tragedy and Christian Lament	33	(10)
The Altarpiece as a Dominant Form	43	(6)
Man of Sorrows and Entombment	49	(34)
Fra Angelico and the Man of Sorrows in Italy	49	(12)
Rogier van der Weyden and the Northern Man of Sorrows	61	(10)
Narrative and Icon	71	(12)
Humanism and the Altar Image	83	(30)
Archaism and Antique Revival	83	(7)
Christening Pagan Mysteries	90	(18)
The Paradox of Reform	108	(5)
The Altarpiece in the Age of History Painting	113	(30)
The Burdens of the Altarpiece	113	(9)
History, Myth, and Passion Narrative	122	(13)
The Parting of the Genres	135	(8)
PART TWO. PRESENTATION AND WITHDRAWAL: MICHELANGELO'S LATE PIET AS
Passionate Withdrawal	143	(26)
Art and Reform	143	(5)
Christ in Ecstasy	148	(10)
Lamentation as Bacchanal	158	(11)
Artwork and Cult Image	169	(19)
The Art of the Gift	169	(10)
The Passion According to Vittoria Colonna	179	(7)
Cult and Culture	186	(2)
Sculpture as Relic	188	(28)
The Controversy over Images and the Paragone	188	(14)
The Florence Pieta and the Integrity of Sculpture	202	(10)
The Sense of an Ending	212	(4)
Notes	216	(69)
Abbreviations and Frequently Cited Sources	285	(8)
Index	293