Michelangelo: Mind of the Master

Established in 1784, the Teylers Museum has had this collection of Michelangelo drawings since 1790. Many have never been shown outside Europe. This is the first time the drawings have left the Teylers Museum as a group in almost 15 years.

“Michelangelo is widely acknowledged as one of the most talented and influential artists in the history of Western art,” says William Griswold, Director of the Cleveland Museum of Art. “He was an exceptional draftsman, and the up-close study of Michelangelo’s drawings is an unparalleled experience, one that we are delighted to bring to visitors in Cleveland.”

Michelangelo had a remarkable ability to convey the expressiveness of the human form. Born outside of Florence, the center of the Renaissance, at 13, Michelangelo was living in the city and learning drawing techniques as an apprentice. By 1490 he was involved with the circle of scholars, poets and artists patronized by the rich and influential Medici family. His study of ancient Greek and Roman statues and human cadavers at a local hospital had a lifelong impact on his art. Michelangelo’s dynamic portrayal of the nude in an active pose, highlighted with red or black chalk, revolutionized the rendering of the human form.

“This group of drawings encapsulates the various ways Michelangelo drew throughout his long career,” says Emily Peters, CMA Curator of Prints and Drawings. “The Teylers group of Michelangelo drawings is among the best preserved in the world, and . . . retain a vibrancy and freshness that allow visitors to really appreciate the immediacy and power of Michelangelo’s thinking on paper.”

Michelangelo destroyed many of his drawings and studies, so this exhibition offers a rare opportunity to view his surviving work and admire the evolution of his ideas. It features drawings from throughout his career, including studies for his Battle of Cascina fresco (1502–04), the New Sacristy, or Medici tombs, at the Basilica of San Lorenzo (1519–34) in Florence, and the monumental sculptural tomb of Pope Julius II, completed and installed in Rome in 1545.

Michelangelo traveled often to Rome for commissions and died in the city at age 88. The exhibition features drawings for Michelangelo’s major Roman projects, including a group of four double-sided drawings for the Sistine Chapel ceiling (1508–12); a key architectural drawing for the new Saint Peter’s Basilica dome (begun in 1547) and a drawing for his Last Judgment fresco.

Michelangelo: Mind of the Master is on view at the Cleveland Museum of Art until January 5, 2020, then travels to the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles.