In Michelangelos Mirror

The collaboration between Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475-1564) and Sebastiano del Piombo (1485-1547), is among the most extraordinary artistic partnerships of the early modern period. It produced works of startling originality, crucial to the development of the so-called High Renaissance in the first decades of the sixteenth century. It was arguably Michelangelo's most creative collaboration, helping him refine motifs and narrative strategies, and it proved determining for Sebastianos development of a monumental, spiritually invested idiom whose influence became a touchstone for religious art deep into the following century, and for principles of painterly abstraction beyond. Inspired by the exhibition Michelangelo & Sebastiano, mounted at The National Gallery in London in 2017, this book unites a group of international scholars in reflection on the two artists, their collaboration and its wider significance.

"Explores the imitation of Michelangelo by three artists, Perino del Vaga, Daniele da Volterra, and Pellegrino Tibaldi, from the 1520s to the time around Michelangelo's death in 1564. Argues that his Mannerist followers applied imitation to identify with and/or create ironical distance from to the older artist"--Provided by publisher.

Michelangelo Pistoletto is one of Arte Povera's most significant protagonists, and his iconic Mirror Paintings earned him rapid and lasting international recognition, encapsulating his dual interest in conceptualism and figurative representation. This book seeks to evaluate his Mirror Paintings from the last four years in both a contemporary context.

Translated by Lucinda Byatt This book tells the remarkable story of a rare discovery: the uncovering of two lost paintings by the great Renaissance artist Michelangelo. Like many stories of artistic loss, this one begins in a library in Italy, where Antonio Forcellino - a distinguished Michelangelo scholar and restorer - stumbled across some unpublished letters among the papers of Cardinal Ercole Gonzaga, son of Isabella d’Este and an extremely important figure in the Italian Renaissance. These letters comment on the paintings of Michelangelo in a way that is completely at odds with what was to become the dominant critical tradition of Michelangelo scholarship, an inconsistency that set Forcellino off on a journey that took him to Dubrovnik, Oxford, New York and Niagara Falls and culminated in the discovery of two magnificent paintings: Pieta with Mary and Two Angels, now in a private collection in America, and Cavalieri Crucifixion, now held by an educational institution in England. Through a combination of careful historical research, extensive restoration and meticulous radiographic analysis, Forcellino shows convincingly that these paintings can be traced back to the studio of Michelangelo. This extraordinary story, brilliantly retold, calls into question the received view of Michelangelo’s work and fills in a missing piece in our understanding of one of the greatest artists of all time.

A Cyclops is popularly assumed to be nothing more than a flesh-eating, one-eyed monster. In an accessible, stylish, and academically authoritative investigation, this book seeks to demonstrate that there is far more to it than that - quite apart from the fact that in myths the Cyclopes are not always one-eyed! This book provides a detailed, innovative, and richly illustrated study of the myths relating to the Cyclopes from classical antiquity until the present day. The first part is organised thematically: after discussing various competing scholarly approaches to the myths, the authors analyse ancient accounts and images of the Cyclopes in relation to landscape, physique (especially eyes, monstrosity, and hairiness), lifestyle, gods, names, love, and song. While the man-eating Cyclops Polyphemus, famous already in the Odyssey, plays a major part, so also do the Cyclopes who did monumental building work, as well as those who toiled as blacksmiths. The second part of the book concentrates on the post-classical reception of the myths, including medieval allegory, Renaissance grottoes, poetry, drama, the visual arts, contemporary painting and sculpture, film, and even a circus performance. This book aims to explore not just the perennial appeal of the Cyclopes as fearsome monsters, but the depth and subtlety of their mythology which raises complex issues of thought and emotion.

Encountering a doppelganger of herself while spending the summer in Florence, May travels through a time portal and falls in love with a painter before discovering that her twin wants to assume her life and trap May in the past.

The good news is: that faith in material goods really does bring prosperity to society. The bad news is: that self-same commitment to material things leads inexorably to the destruction of the civilizations it builds. Using theatre as a measure society's health, this book shows that Ancient Greece and Rome, Mediaeval Christendom and our own contemporary society all follow the same pattern: prosperity thrives on the conviction that the material world alone constitutes true 'reality'; but that very conviction leads to a rejection of the supernatural, undermines absolute moral standards, and leads to cultural and social disintegration.

In this book, Sarah Rolfe Prodan examines the spiritual poetry of Michelangelo in light of three contexts: the Catholic Reformation movement, Renaissance Augustinianism, and the tradition of Italian religious devotion. Prodan combines a literary, historical, and biographical approach to analyze the mystical constructs and conceits in Michelangelo's poems, thereby deepening our understanding of the artist's spiritual life in the context of Catholic Reform in the mid-sixteenth century. Prodan also demonstrates how Michelangelo's poetry is part of an Augustinian tradition that emphasizes mystical and moral evolution of the self. Examining such elements of early modern devotion as prayer, lauda singing, and the contemplation of religious images, Prodan provides a unique perspective on the subtleties of Michelangelo's approach to life and to art. Throughout, Prodan argues that Michelangelo's art can be more deeply understood when considered together with his poetry, which points to a spirituality that deeply informed all of his production.