Paper Trail: Michelangelo in a New, Old Medium

“My beard points to heaven, and I feel the nape of my neck on my hump,” Michelangelo wrote in a poem about his experience painting the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. “I bend my breast like a harpy’s, and, with nonstop dripping from above, my brush makes my face a richly decorated floor.” To accompany that poem, the artist sketched himself at work, stretching up to apply paint to the freshly applied plaster (detail shown above). In Michelangelo: A Life on Paper, Leonard Barkan, a professor of comparative literature at Princeton University, examines how Michelangelo—best known for timeless works chiseled from stone or painted on architectural surfaces—revealed his deepest self on that most fragile of media, paper. By following Michelangelo’s paper trail, Barkan discovers a more versatile artist of both pictures and words who seems more human and strikingly more modern than the Renaissance genius of legend. Please come over to Picture This at Big Think to read more of "Paper Trail."

[Many thanks to Princeton University Press for providing me with a review copy of Leonard Barkan’s Michelangelo: A Life on Paper.]

Anger Management: Fighting the Crowds at Blockbuster Art Shows

Great art can sometimes be like a magnet—attracting hordes of admirers. The Gauguin: Maker of Myth exhibition that recently closed at the Tate Modern in London, England, drew more than its fair share of fans. According to some patrons, it was far more than a fair share, as complaints that the crowds took away from their enjoyment of the show mount. Is it fair that some people seem to “hog” the art and deny others the lingering look they desire? Or is such box office success the price to pay to see great art in great quantities brought to your locale? How can the anger such blockbuster shows generate be managed? Please come over to Picture This at Big Think to read more of "Anger Management."

Seek and Find: Discovering a Da Vinci Code in the Mona Lisa

It’s amazing what you can find in art when you really, really want to find it there. Italy’s National Committee for Cultural Heritage claims that they’ve found evidence of a real-life “Da Vinci Code” hidden in the pupils of the eyes of the Mona Lisa. Tiny letters and numbers too small to be seen by the naked eye “can clearly be seen” under a magnifying glass, claims Silvano Vinceti, the organization’s president. Did Leonardo Da Vinci really hide miniscule clues to some great mystery in the eyes of La Gioconda? If so, what can that mystery be? If not, is this just a case of wishful thinking—“seek and you shall find” on a grand scale? Color me incredulous, but I think this announcement is more about Italy’s pursuit of the Holy Grail of tourist dollars than anything else. Please come over to Picture This at Big Think to read more of "Seek and Find."

The Next Best Thing?: Digitizing the Museum Experience

One of the greatest art experiences of my life was going to Paris and roaming the Louvre. Making the pilgrimage to the Mona Lisa, checking out the Nike, walking around the Venus de Milo—we hit all the highlights that time allowed. And yet time always felt like it was running out. Nothing beats standing in front of a work of art and studying every nuance. But the problem of getting to stand in front of masterpieces is insurmountable in many cases. Reproductions in books have always been “the next best thing,” but a far second. Now, with improvements in digital reproduction, “the next best thing” comes pretty darn close. Please come over to Picture This at Big Think to read more of "The Next Best Thing?"

[Many thanks to Adrienne B. for tipping me off to the Halta Definizione site.]