Ovid, Michelangelo and the Non Finito

Abstract

Ovid, Michelangelo and the Non Finito* PAUL BAROLSKY The whole of anything is never told. —Henry James The catalogue to the spectacular exhibition of “unfinished” works of art from approximately the last 500 years that was mounted recently at the Met Breuer has stimulated me to write the following essay. Much more than valuable documentation, the catalogue presents a series of very instructive essays that raise questions, provoke thought, and intensify the viewer’s aesthetic pleasure. It also offers the reader technical information and theoretical support for various conclusions. I cannot possibly do justice here to the full extent of the exhibition catalogue. I will focus instead primarily on a single but major subject discussed in this volume: Michelangelo and the non finito—a rich topic to be sure. I feel compelled to do so because I believe that the “unfinished” in Michelangelo is sometimes a manifestation of the poetic imagination in ways that continue to escape the adequate understanding of art historians and non-specialists interested in the history of art. In my view, one cannot speak of the non finito in Michelangelo’s sculpture without regard in some cases to the poetic concept of “metamorphosis ,” which has deep roots in Ovid. I also believe that the Renaissance non finito needs to be seen in a broader, more synthetic perspective than now obtains in scholarly writing. The Met Breuer catalogue reasonably traces the Renaissance notion of the unfinished work of art back to various *Kelly Baum, Andrea Bayer, and Sheena Wagstaff, eds., with essays by Carmen C. Bambach and others. Unfinished: Thoughts Made Visible. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2016. 336 pages. arion 24.2 fall 2016 well-known taproots in Pliny’s Natural History where we read, for example, of ancient artists who signed their works in the imperfect tense, faciebat, as a sign of modesty, which suggested that these works were imperfect or unfinished. Artists working towards 1500 increasingly used the imperfect form of facere, most prominently Michelangelo in his signature on the Rome Pietà. On a sash that runs prominently across the breast of Mary, he carved, in abbreviated form, “Michelangelo Buonarroti the Florentine made [this].” Using faciebat, Michelangelo modestly suggested the imperfection of the work, which was not finished. According to Vasari, Michelangelo signed the work because he overheard somebody say that Gobbo of Milan had carved it. Michelangelo wanted credit where credit was due and so, according to Vasari, one night he shut himself in with the statue and by artificial light carved his signature. Scholars used to take the story at face value, but it has become increasingly apparent that it is a poetical fiction. It can be read as an instructive commentary on Michelangelo’s pride in his own accomplishment, which paradoxically he asserted with the modesty conveyed by the above-mentioned imperfect form of facere in the signature. Michelangelo’s pride is compounded by his bold decision to inscribe his name on the breast of Mary, who is the very vessel of humility. Pride and humility come together in a paradox that is a manifestation of the artist’s irony. This paradox is magnified by the very high polish or finish of the statue (seen from the front), which one can only speak of as “perfection”—the word Vasari uses in describing the statue. Moreover, if we stop to think about it, we recognize that a signature implies that the work has been brought in some sense to completion, even though its tense in the imperfect suggests that it has not been finished. Michelangelo’s great sculptural group is paradoxically perfect and imperfect at once: both finished and unfinished. Vasari affirms this paradox by asserting that within Michelangelo ’s unfinished or imperfect works one sees their ultimate perfection. As scholars have further observed, Michelangelo’s ovid, michelangelo and the NON FINITO 142 ironic, paradoxical signature is a manifestation of the artist’s ingenuity or wit, since he carved faciebat in such a way that part of the word is concealed by the Virgin’s hood. Not completed , the word that denotes imperfection or incompleteness in Michelangelo’s signature is itself imperfect or unfinished. Here as elsewhere the artist is...