Michelangelo & Sebastiano at London’s National Gallery – be awed at the …
… human spirit & creativity at its highest
Michelangelo Sebastiano National Gallery London: the power of the emotion on display is almost overwhelming.
No wonder Vasari called Michelangelo ‘the divine’.
In touch with their God: Michelangelo Sebastiano National Gallery
If any artist was ever in touch with his God, it was Michelangelo.
For us lesser mortals he personified the highest of artistic achievement, the perfection of the human form, the noblest depiction of humankind whether in grief, fear, ecstasy and the deepest of emotions.
Humanism to the fore: Michelangelo & Sebastiano National Gallery
Man and woman released to show pride and strength in their physical and psychological nakedness.
Acknowledging God and his son Jesus Christ, these two placed mankind almost on a par.
Monumental, spiritual solemnity: Michelangelo & Sebastiano National Gallery
Monumental figures, deep spiritual sculptural solemnity, human in their settings and so easily identifiable with by us mortals.
Sebastiano’s ‘Raising of Lazarus’:
In this exhibition it is set within context and the viewer cannot help but be drawn into the story to contemplate and enjoy.
Movement is there, emotion of course, recognisable figures, all realistically depicted for us to identify with.
Composition: Michelangelo & Sebastiano National Gallery
Compositionally, Sebastiano has created open form, to invite us in as part of the story as witness. The light sources and postures are true and recognisable, the colours dynamic, the verticals, horizontals and linear perspective give a rigid and realistic structure. Two ‘golden sections’ can be seen.
The work is alive.
The PRB and Michelangelo & Sebastiano National Gallery
William Holman Hunt said of Raphael’s ‘Transfiguration’ ‘grandiose disregard of the simplicity of truth, the pompous posturing of the apostles, and the attitudinizing of the Saviour’.
Hunt was of course a member of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood: a movement to return to naturalism pre-Raphael.
No way could this be said of Raphael’s contemporaries Sebastiano and Michelangelo.
Simple truthful depictions of us at our noblest and malevolent, humble, emotionally strongest and weakest.
The monumentally of the human spirit.