Michelangelo, A study of a seated nude man for the ‘Battle of Cascina’. 1504-5, London: The British Museum

I’ve had the plesure of contributing an expansive, critical essay on Michelangelo’s life and art to a monumentally conceived, high-end compilation volume of the Michelangelo drawings at the British Museum, published by Spanish book afficionados Artika Press. It consists of two volumes, the central one of which includes high-quality, full-size reproductions of all the drawings, while a study book includes essays on the drawings by my excellent colleagues at the British Museum Hugo Chapman and Sarah Vowles, in addition to my essay. They are encased in a glriously wild case featuring a relief reproduction of Michelangelo’s David!

The essay was a thrill to write and I’m excited to be in such great company and to find publication under such fantastic conditions. Simply titled “Michelangelo: Life and Art”, my essay starts like this:

Michelangelo made modern art. Not alone, not

on his own, but if we were to point to a single

artist responsible for establishing in our collective

consciousness the notion of art as self-expression, it

would be he. And he did it on a scale unmatched by

his contemporaries, giving his art a heroism integral

to our narrative of his pre-eminence. Yet there are

also profound intimacies to his work, emotional

disclosures—even vulnerabilities. This dichotomy,

surely, has been crucial to his position at the centre

of the western canon.

Here’s an image of the product, which I believe retails at a price beyond most of our means.

See more on the Artika website.