Francisque Xavier Michel

For the first seven years after the artist's return to Rome, his time was principally taken up with the painting of the colossal and multitudinous "Last Judgment." This being completed in 1541, he was next compelled to undertake two more great frescoes— one of the Conversion of Paul and another of the Martyrdom of Peter—in a new chapel which the pope had caused to be built in the Vatican, and named after himself—Capella Paolina.

The fresco of the "Last Judgment" in the Sixtine Chapel is probably the most famous single picture in the world. In it Michelangelo shows more than ever the omnipotence of his artistic science, and the fiery daring of his conceptions. But the work, so far as its deplorably deteriorated condition admits comparison, is hardly comparable in the qualities of colour and decorative effect to the earlier and far more nobly inspired frescoes of the ceiling. It is to these and not to the "Last Judgment" that the student must turn if he would realize what is best and greatest in the art of Michelangelo.

The frescoes of the Pauline Chapel are on their part so injured as to be hardly susceptible of useful study or criticism. In their ruined state they bear evidence of the same tendencies that made the art of Michelangelo in its latest phase so dangerous an example to weaker men—the tendency, that is, to seek for unqualified energy and violence of action, both in place and out, for "terrible ness" quand meme, and to design actions not by help of direct study from nature, but by scientific deduction from the abstract laws of structure and movement. At best these frescoes can never have been happy examples of Michelangelo's art.

Other Works of 1534-1549.

SCULPTURE.-During the fifteen years when Michelangelo was mainly engaged on these paintings, he had also at last been enabled to acquit himself, al though in a manner that can have been satisfactory to none con cerned, of his engagements to the heirs of Julius. Once more the influence of the pope had prevailed on them to accept a corn promise altogether to their disadvantage. By a final contract dated 1542, it was agreed that the "Moses" executed thirty years before, seated on a low plinth in a central recess, should be the chief figure of the new scheme; in niches at either side of him were to be standing figures of "Leah" and "Rachel." These Michel angelo himself executed hastily with the help of assistants. To pupils entirely was left the carrying out of the upper cornice, with the recumbent effigy of the pope occupying the centre of a weak and incongruous architectural scheme, a Madonna and Child in a niche above, and a prophet and a sibyl in recesses at either side. Meantime all idea of incorporating any of the "Slaves" in the new design had been abandoned. The master gave the two that had been finished in 1513-1516 to Robert Strozzi, who gave them to Francis I. "Brutus," marble (National Museum, Florence). Prob ably executed soon after 1539, in memory of the tyrannicide Lor enzino de' Medici. To the end of this period or to a year or two later belongs the infinitely pathetic unfinished sketch in marble of a life-size "Pieta" (Palazzo Rondini, Rome)—the mourning mother, standing on an elevation behind her son, holds his body upright in front of her by the shoulders. Still later, after 1550, is the more complicated and more finished group of the "Pieta," with the corpse of Christ collapsing in utter relaxation through the arms of those who try to uphold it : this Michelangelo destined for his own sepulchre ; it stands now in the cathedral at Florence.

PAINTING.—"The Entombment of Christ" (National Gallery, London). This unfinished painting bears all the marks of Michel angelo's design, and must have been begun from a cartoon by him, probably of about 1535-154o.

For nearly all his great life-works mentioned above, preparatory sketches and studies by the master's hand exist. These, with a large number of other drawings, finished and unfinished, done for their own sakes and not for any ulterior use, are of infinite value and interest to the student. Michelangelo was the most learned and scientific as well as the most inspired and daring of draughts men, and from boyhood to extreme old age never ceased to prac tise with pen, chalk or pencil. There are some 25o genuine sheets scattered amongst various collections, chiefly public ; those in England (at the British Museum, the University Galleries, Oxford, and the Royal Library, Windsor), are quite half the whole num ber ; other important examples remain still at what was for cen turies the home of his heirs, the Casa Buonarroti at Florence; others at the Uffizi, Florence; the Venice Academy; the Albertina, Vienna; the Louvre; the Conde Museum at Chantilly; the Berlin Museum; and, not least, the Teyler Museum at Haarlem. By means of these drawings and the many published facsimiles we are best able to trace the progress of the master's genius and its se crets. We see him diligently copying in youth from the frescoes of Giotto, Masaccio, and his own master Ghirlandaio. At this date his instrument was the pen only, used in a manner of hatch ing : sometimes extremely careful and close, at others fiercely bold and free, and in either case all his own. Sketches and studies thus drawn with the pen exist for the "David," the "Bathers Surprised," the accessory figures for the tomb of Julius as first conceived, and the great series of the Sixtine Chapel decorations. By, or even before, the date of the Sixtine Chapel, chalk, red or black, comes into use along with the pen, and many of the finest studies for the "Slaves" or "Atlases" and other decorative figures of the ceil ing are in the latter material (many more studies are preserved for these subordinate figures than for the main compositions). After the Sixtine Chapel period the pen gives way to red or black chalk almost entirely. Sketches are rare for the great abortive scheme of the Julius monument; almost non-existent for the equally abortive San Lorenzo façade ; fairly abundant for the various stages of the Medici monument scheme in its architectural parts, but not for the great figures. About the time of Michel angelo's final change of domicile from Florence to Rome (1532— '535) he began the practice of making highly finished and fully shaded drawings of classic or symbolic subjects in red or black chalk for presentation to his friends, especially to young Tommaso Cavalieri, the object of his passionate Platonic affection, from about 1532. The "Fall of Phaeton," the "Tityos," the "Gany mede," the "Men shooting at a Mark," are well-known examples; in this class of work the Windsor collection is far the richest. At the same time, or soon afterwards, were produced drawings little less powerful and finished of Christian subjects, especially the "Crucifixion," "Entombment" and "Resurrection." Then comes the great fresco of the "Last Judgment," for which there exist both general sketches and particular studies. In the few extant drawings for the Capella Paolina a faltering both of the imagina tion and of the hand become discernible. To the same or to still later years belong many beautiful but somewhat tentative draw ings done either directly for, or nearly in the spirit of, the famous "Crucifixion" which he is recorded to have painted with so much devotion for Vittoria Colonna.