The Young Michelangelo: The Artist in Rome, 1496-1501 and Michelangelo as a Painter on Panel; Making and Meaning

by Michael Hirst, Jill Dunkerton

Michelangelo`s first stay in Rome was a crucial period in his artistic production, a time when he created the life-sized marble sculptures Bacchus and the celebrated Piet... and worked on at least two important paintings now in the National Gallery, London-the Entombment and the Manchester Madonna. In this handsome book Michael Hirst presents the first coherent narrative of these years in Rome, and his perceptive comparison of the paintings and sculpture is supported by Jill Dunkerton`s lucid technical description of the making of the two National Gallery pictures. Published to accompany a major exhibition at the National Gallery in October.

Genres: Art History

144 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1994

About the author

Michael Hirst is an Art historian and an international expert on Italian Renaissance art.

Lecturer, Reader and Professor Emeritus of Courtauld Institute of Art, University of London, and a Fellow of the Academy since 1983, Hirst is one of the foremost living specialists on the drawings of Michelangelo. Indeed, such is his international standing in the world of Michelangelo studies that he was made a member of the Pontifical Commission for the Restoration of the Sistine Chapel's ceiling in 1987, and the following year curated an exhibition on Michelangelo as Draftsman for the National Gallery of Art in Washington.

He has made a signal contribution to knowledge and understanding of one of the greatest periods of Italian art. Among his publications on the subject are the standard monograph on Sebastiano del Piombo, on Michelangelo and His Drawing and The Sistine Chapel: A Glorious Restoration.