Michelangelo and the Viewer in His Time by Bernardine Barnes

Abstract

Reviewed by: Michelangelo and the Viewer in His Time by Bernardine Barnes Diane Ghirardo Bernardine Barnes, Michelangelo and the Viewer in His Time ( London: Reaktion 2017) 264 pp., ill. Viewers today usually view artworks from the Italian Renaissance in museum settings along with others from the same period, geographical area, subject, or materials. Such displays condition how we see artifacts, often altering key aspects of what the artist intended, as scholars have long realized. In her new book, Barnes argues that with single-minded clarity, Michelangelo kept his mind on the visitors' viewpoint in his large public sculptural, architectural, and painted projects, and even in many of his smaller works. The study considers several dozen artworks, of which the author examines about thirty in greater detail. Although much of the material upon which the book is based is available in specialist publications, this book is accessible to a general public and to students. The Sistine Chapel's ceiling and Last Judgment wall are the primary paintings that Barnes explores, well-trod turf that to which she explains the artist's intent for viewers with clarity, along with less widely-known drawings for Vittoria Colonna and Tommaso de' Cavalieri. Analysis of the latter, destined for private contemplation rather than public display, entails close [End Page 224] study of the details, as indeed both recipients acknowledged in their correspondence. So widely published are the two Sistine frescoes that most visitors will be familiar with them, but Barnes pays particular attention to the relation of the paintings to the architecture, the windows, the lighting, how they have changed over time, and the influence of these factors on what we see. For most readers, the sections with the greatest appeal may be those that treat the sculptures. The author begins with Michelangelo's earliest reliefs and the figures for the Arca of San Domenico in Bologna, which evidence precocious signs of the deftness with which even the very young artist attended to orientation and perspective. Two of the classics, the David and the Pietà, merit greater attention. Even the casual observer at the Accademia in Florence notices the outsized hands and head of David, but only the story of the varied locations considered for its placement helps explain these distortions. Originally intended for the corner of a buttress high on the Duomo, Santa Maria del Fiore, along with statues of several other prophets, officials soon realized the impossibility of such an enterprise. Other proposals considered included the interior of the Loggia dei Lanzi, a high pedestal in front of the Duomo, the Sala del Gran Consiglio, or the courtyard of the Palazzo della Signoria. Ultimately, it came to rest in front of the same palazzo, where a copy stands today. A committee formed to select an appropriate setting also paid particular attention to perspective, sight lines, and size in the discussions that Barnes summarizes. French cardinal Jean de Bilhères Lagraulas originally commissioned the Pietà, now located inside St. Peter's in Vatican City, for his tomb in the Santa Petronilla rotonda adjacent to the Vatican, where it was placed in 1501. Once Julius II initiated the enlargement of the basilica, Santa Petronilla had to be demolished, so by 1519, the sculpture had been moved into Old St. Peter's, thereafter to be transferred until it reached its present location behind a thick pane of glass far removed from any relation to its original setting. Barnes summarizes the story and discusses the particularities of the design as part of the larger tomb for which it had been designed. As Emily Fenicel has shown in her study of the statue, the story is richer and more complex than is possible to cover in a short book. Nonetheless, Barnes, like Fenicel, is attentive to more than the details of the artifact. Although much scholarship focuses on the physical attributes of the artifact, Barnes recognizes the importance of the spiritual and religious dimensions of Michelangelo's art. In the case of the Pietà, the artist no doubt worked with the client on the iconographic program, which comes into focus when we learn that it was not originally set high on an altar, as it is today. Barnes...