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Tuesday, 3 December 2024

Artlyst: Michelangelo Leonardo Raphael At The Royal Academy Review

My latest exhibition review for Artlyst is on Michelangelo, Leonardo, Raphael: Florence, c.1504, at the Royal Academy of Arts:

'Ultimately, from the ‘Taddei Tondo’ through the Sala del Gran Consiglio commissions, this is an exhibition of unfinished yet hugely influential works. The exhibition includes an edition of Cicero’s letters annotated by Agostino Vespucci, a Florentine man of letters and scribe. Vespucci is struck by Cicero’s description of how the painter Apelles fully finished the head of Venus but left the rest of her body roughed out. In his margin note, he states that Leonardo did the same in all his paintings.

While works in this period can be left unfinished for a whole host of pragmatic reasons, from political upheavals to lack of time through competing commissions and to flaws in materials or the untimely death of the artist, there does also seem to be an appreciation of the aesthetic beauty of the un- or partly finished work. Given the amount of time required for the detailed realism of these artists, as shown by the sketches, preparatory drawings, and cartoons here, it is no surprise that, combined with the other factors noted, they left much unfinished. It is a true sign of their genius that their unfinished works could also be among their most influential.'

For more of my writing on the art of the Renaissance see here, here, here, here, here, and here.

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Posted by Jonathan Evens at 11:50
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