Leonardo, Michelangelo, and the Art of the Figure

by Michael W. Cole

In late 1504 and early 1505, Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519) and Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475–1564) were both at work on commissions they had received to paint murals in Florence’s City Hall.  Leonardo was to depict a historic battle between Florence and Milan, Michelangelo one between Florence and Pisa.  Though neither project was ever completed, the painters’ mythic encounter shaped art and its history in the decades and centuries that followed.  

This concise, lucid, and thought-provoking book looks again at the one moment when Leonardo and Michelangelo worked side by side, seeking to identify the roots of their differing ideas of the figure in 15th-century pictorial practices and to understand what this contrast meant to the artists and writers who followed them. Through close investigation of these two artists, Michael W. Cole provides a new account of critical developments in Italian Renaissance painting.

Genres: Art

192 pages, Hardcover

First published November 25, 2014

About the author

Michael W. Cole is professor of art history and archaeology at Columbia University.

Reviews

[haven ⋄ f (hiatus) · Rating 3 out of 5]

tends to be repetitive. first two chapters were the best, especially the second. i enjoyed how the author compaired michelangelo's work and stylistic choices to the other artists within the time period.

after the second chapter i felt myself get bogged down with the analysis and ended up just looking at the pictures. the author included inventions for chapter 3 and historical context/motivation for the last chapter which was quite boring.