The renaissance of Michelangelo
Can it be, that such a successful movement like the Florentine Renaissance tried to copy itself? And that only one generation later? The laws of perspective have been rediscovered thanks to an extensive lecture of the Antique Vitruvian works. The perspective helped to improve painting and modernise architecture. Roman buildings seen by Florentine artists and architects in Rome gave a lot of inspiration. Michelangelo created sculptures which inspired many of his successors so much that they wanted to copy to profit a bit from the fame. Nobody might have reached Michelangelo. His sculptures are full of movement. They often contradict the rules of proportion and therefore of beauty as it is understood by the following generation. But their human power touched and generated an unique feeling. Often his sculptures remained unfinished like the sculpture of the Day at the Memorial for Giuliano de’ Medici, duke of Nemours in the new Sacresty at San Lorenzo in Florence.
At the shorter side of the Uffizi, some sculptures were arranged in a similar way like the group of Michelangelo’s Day and Night in the new Sacristy, just with the sitting Duke of Nemours. Vincenzo Danti was not yet born when Michelangelo started to create the sculptures from the marble blocks he had selected. Danti lived a generation later from 1530 to 1576. His work as a sculptor took clear inspiration from Michelangelo who was treated like a Saint artist. Michelangelo was more than a reference as he was able to give to his sculptures an expression, an emotion. They expressed always something of his suffering in creating them, especially when he became older. Danti’s group of “Equity and Rigor” at the Uffizi from 1566 shows that within one generation the creative process of internal suffering for perfection became more painless and smooth. Just taking over the composition as a quote from the master, create a kind of painless copy and the sculpture was good enough to be placed at a prominent position. The emotionality of the Michelangelo’s sculptures could be outperformed only by establishing and following some rules, which defined the secret of beauty as something what results from the composition of the parts. Beauty was the guarantee to be honored. Danti was a worker in Michelangelo’s workshop and he had the time to understand that the disruptive way to create sculptures was not for everyone as it is expession of a very individual style. The request for beautiful sculptures required some rules to define what is beauty and to agree upon. The renaissance of Michelangelo was the attempt to define principles to create that what he was able to do. Principles, rules and laws became the prison for artist’s individuality. Michelangelo could say no. For the generation after him, it was more difficult.
Another example is Michelangelo’s unfinished statue of the Genius of Victory which stands at the Chamber of the 500 in Palazzo Vecchio. Danti knew this sculpture very well. His first marble sculpture which he produced in 1561, represents a young and an old man bound together, similarly to the Genius of Victory, and today we are witnesses of a dramatic fight between honor and deceit. The honor, presented as a young man, should be the winner as the title says. In Michelangelo’s sculture the Genius is the winner, in Danti’s sculpture the honor defeats the deceit. His sculpture is exposed at the Bargello.
Vincenzo Danti has been a sculptor, a mathematician and also a writer. He planned a long series about proportions in art and their importance for the concept of beauty. But only one volume is today available. It shows that Danti looked for the beauty in his art by creating the harmony amongst the parts. Michelangelo’s sculptures show elemental forces which could move the world. In his sculpture, Danti treated the subject in a more human way. He shows the moment of the conflict where the defeat of the Deceit is close, but not yet there. With any missing attention or wrong movement, the potential winner still risks to be defeated as his opponent has external support: a serpent with a human face or a little dragon with wings which attacks him from the back. This is the game of Deceit, faking the defeat to deceive the stronger and younger with more physical force and social honor in terms of recognition. Honor is attributed by the human society, respect and acceptance as well. This gives the young man the right to defeat the older man without reputation and rights. The older is not anymore competitive and should leave the scene. But just elementar power of a young man can remove him. To deceive the older takes out all what is in his bag of tricks.
The fight seems to be finished and Danti shows in his sculpture the moment, when all is still possible. The Deceit, represented as old man with a life experience but physical weakness, cannot win, but just take the young man with him into the defeat by using unusual weapons.
