MICHELANGELO, 29th July – 3rd October 2005

By: Katarzyna Fortuna, Radio Krakow

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The exhibition at the Arsenal of the Princes Czartoryski Museum provides a unique opportunity to explore six original drawings by Michelangelo Buonarroti, one of the greatest artists of all time.

Made in pencil, sanguine and pen, the drawings reveal the masterly skill of this Renaissance genius, who at the same time was a precursor of the Baroque, sculptor, painter, architect and town planner. The enormous energy encapsulated in these works is astonishing. It is manifest in the dynamic rendering of human figures twined like a spiral around its axis, with strongly sketched lines of muscles in the arms that cut the space in a peremptory, lordly wave of the hand, the same from which Stanislaw Wyspianski derived the grand gesture of God the Father in his stained-glass window for the Franciscan Church in Cracow. There is in Michelangelo’s drawings on view the same strength, might and awe that is emanated by the artist’s greatest masterpieces Moses and Last Judgement. A sizeable antique copy of the latter can also be seen at the exhibition.

However, Michelangelo could also be a lyrical artist, as in the beautiful red crayon study of Leda’s head bowed in nostalgic contemplation which immediately makes one think of the pensiveness on Virgin Mary’s face carved in white marble in Vatican’s Pieta, an early work by the artist.

The exhibition of these valuable drawings is made complete by a few sculptures (such as a copy of the statue Moses), and paintings, among which the most outstanding are images painted in Poland in the 16th century under the influence of Michelangelo’s  work.

A multimedia presentation of selected works by this great artist, which by making ample use of close-ups surveys a wealth of what might often seem unfinished forms, is a peculiar spectacle of considerable educational value. We hope it will give the viewer  a better knowledge and understanding of an artist whose oeuvre played a pioneering role for the art of our time.

Tours are accompanied by audio recordings of selected texts, including sonnets, by Michelangelo and his contemporaries (Giorgio Vasari, Ascanio Condivi) as well as some period music.

The National Museum in Cracow

The Princes Czartoryski Museum

The Armoury

19, Sw. Jana Street and 8, Pijarska Street

http://www.muzeum.krakow.pl

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