Michelangelo and the Reinvention of the Human Body

by James Hall

A brilliant new comprehensive critical analysis of Michelangelo's art, focusing on his depiction of the human body.

Michelangelo's art is exhilarating, but also What is the source of its power? In this imaginative and detailed study, the art critic James Hall explores some of the major puzzles of Michelangelo's work-his stern Madonnas and their lack of maternal responsiveness; his concern with colossal scale and size; the way that anatomical dissections affected his attitude toward the human body; and the placing of solitary, heroic figures against backgrounds of chaotic, troubling crowds. Hall arrives at a more precise, nuanced appreciation of the body language of Michelangelo's figures, and offers new explanations of many sculptures, paintings, and drawings, including David, the narratives of the Sistine Chapel ceiling, and the monumental figures of his middle and late period.

Hall dispels both the idea of Michelangelo as an artist-superman and as brilliant but unbalanced, obsessed with the male nude. Instead he redefines him as the first artist to put the body center stage, making it the focal point of his quest for psychological and spiritual meaning. Lively and thought-provoking, Michelangelo and the Reinvention of the Human Body is a bold critique that will reshape the way we see this iconic artist's work, throwing a vividly revealing light on the originality and power of his genius.

Genres: Art

312 pages, Hardcover

First published May 11, 2005

About the author

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See this thread for more information.

James Hall is a freelance art critic and historian. A former art critic for the Guardian.

Reviews

[Giovanni García-Fenech · Rating 1 out of 5]

I knew I was in trouble already when in the introduction Hall claims that for Michelangelo "The male figure... was always in some sense a surrogate for the ultimate human being, the dying and dead figure of Christ." That "always" was too categorical for my taste, but I forged ahead.

Then I got to his preposterous interpretation of the Doni Tondo, in which he claims the Virgin Mary is a stand-in for St. Christopher just because she is looking at the Christ child over her shoulder. Hall then proceeds to claim that the mysterious male figures in the background are "sinners waiting for purification in, and passage across it," referring to the river that St. Christopher crosses, but which is not in the Tondo, and which are not even attributes of St. Christopher, I simply gave up.

For a better academic treatment of Michelangelo, I highly recommend Marcia Hall's (no relation, I assume) "Michelangelo's 'Last Judgment."

[Amy Jane · Rating 4 out of 5]

How do you approach a book about Michelangelo, without daunting the reader or setting a challenge too massive to achieve? James Hall manages both by focussing on the way the artist depicted the human body, using his treatment of the subject as an inroad to learn about Michelangelo.

The author assesses Michelangelo's times through politics, religion, philosophy and poetry to give a comprehensive view. By referring to a range of to ideas from Socrates and Erasmus, to Savonarola to Castiglione, from Vasari to Pater, Hall creates something original and totally readable.