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Eeeeh, he could draw.
Jun. 28th, 2006 09:10 amBeing the renaissance man that I am, in between being a dynamic entrepreneur, learning to be a ninja and ostentatiously reading impressive-looking books on the tube I also sometimes find the time to do cultural things too. So it was that last Saturday I leapt bright and early from my bed and headed down to the British Museum to catch the second-to-last day of the Michelangelo: Closer to the master exhibition. Arriving by 10am, I found it had already sold out for the day so I went home again*.
On Sunday I leapt from my bed brighter and earlier and headed in the same direction, this time arriving early enough get my clammy hands on a ticket for the last day of what the promotional literature described as a 'Once in a lifetime experience', which is was a fair description. It's unlikley that a collection of this many Michelangelo works will be gathered together very often and so, like watching Star Wars with George Lucas, when the opportunity came up to go and see it I rather felt I had to.
The exhibition focussed upon the prepatory sketches which he produced for all his works, drawing out possible poses for figures within his compositions. Michelangelo was a obsessive perfectionist who hated people seeing his works before they were finished, and shortly before his death he destroyed many of these sketches meaning that only several hundred pieces of his prodigous output remain. And very impressive they are too. As an insight into the creative process of works like the Sistine Chapel it was truly fascinating, especially the computer animated display which pulled together various sketched arms, legs, torsos and other bits of anatomy displayed around the room and showed how they all fitted together onto the finished work.
Sadly, there was so much to take in that by the time I reached the end of the exhibition my concentration was wavering and pieces of art which would have stopped me in my tracks by the entrance with cries of "By crikey, that's astonishing" were simply being nodded at before I moved to the next one. If there's one thing I learned from this, it's that when exhibitions of this sort roll around I really need to go twice simply to take everything in.
( Sociological thoughts on Michaelangelo )
Of course, when you try and make such interesting sociological points to your companions, they just hear the work 'Superman' and go off into geek-related giggles, completely missing the point.
That said, on a geek-related note, I'm still convinced that Michelangelo scooped Tolkein and drew Gandalf four hundred years before the creator of Middle-Earth:
*On the way home, I stopped off to catch Thank you for smoking, which is a tremendously fun film and I recommend it. Aaron Eckhart as Nick Naylor is my new hero. He's great and I aspire to being just like him.
On Sunday I leapt from my bed brighter and earlier and headed in the same direction, this time arriving early enough get my clammy hands on a ticket for the last day of what the promotional literature described as a 'Once in a lifetime experience', which is was a fair description. It's unlikley that a collection of this many Michelangelo works will be gathered together very often and so, like watching Star Wars with George Lucas, when the opportunity came up to go and see it I rather felt I had to.
The exhibition focussed upon the prepatory sketches which he produced for all his works, drawing out possible poses for figures within his compositions. Michelangelo was a obsessive perfectionist who hated people seeing his works before they were finished, and shortly before his death he destroyed many of these sketches meaning that only several hundred pieces of his prodigous output remain. And very impressive they are too. As an insight into the creative process of works like the Sistine Chapel it was truly fascinating, especially the computer animated display which pulled together various sketched arms, legs, torsos and other bits of anatomy displayed around the room and showed how they all fitted together onto the finished work.
Sadly, there was so much to take in that by the time I reached the end of the exhibition my concentration was wavering and pieces of art which would have stopped me in my tracks by the entrance with cries of "By crikey, that's astonishing" were simply being nodded at before I moved to the next one. If there's one thing I learned from this, it's that when exhibitions of this sort roll around I really need to go twice simply to take everything in.
( Sociological thoughts on Michaelangelo )Of course, when you try and make such interesting sociological points to your companions, they just hear the work 'Superman' and go off into geek-related giggles, completely missing the point.
That said, on a geek-related note, I'm still convinced that Michelangelo scooped Tolkein and drew Gandalf four hundred years before the creator of Middle-Earth:
*On the way home, I stopped off to catch Thank you for smoking, which is a tremendously fun film and I recommend it. Aaron Eckhart as Nick Naylor is my new hero. He's great and I aspire to being just like him.
