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IMG_0709
Michelangelo
Tondo Pitti, 1504 - 1505
Marble - Diameter 80 cm
Much like the Tondo Taddei, the Tondo Pitti was a piece intended ‘for the home’ and not for the grand civic audience, like the David or the Pieta in St. Peter’s. Many consider this piece to be unfinished but the validity of this argument is more widely disputed than with the Tondo Taddei. It is suggested that Michelangelo left the work seemingly unfinished simply because he liked it that way and,
“The unworked details give them a suggestive power which might have been lost in a more polished version.”
Michelangelo’s composition places the Madonna seated on a stone, its forward edge projected toward the viewer, while the figure of the Madonna seems to in a crouching position. In her lap is a book, that she was reading, until the Christ child interrupted her, as he places his elbow, supporting his head onto her book. The child St. John peers over the Virgin’s shoulder, none of the subject making eye contact with one another.
“Michelangelo has employed a simple device to unique effect. He has given the upper edge of the marble disk, a concavity to set off the relief. The circular rim cannot contain the proud, tragic head of the Madonna, which breaks through and rises above it…Michelangelo conveys a feeling that the Madonna’s sublime inner life cannot be confined by everyday limitations, but heedlessly and unconsciously bursts them.”
To address the centrality of the Madonna in the Tondo Pitti, Georg Brandes says:
“Not only is she the main figure; but Michelangelo has concentrated in her all his sense of nobility. Wound about her brow is a broad royal band ornamented with the angel’s head with wings spread wide. As usual, she also wears a kerchief. To underline her dominance, Michelangelo has employed a simple device to unique effect.”
The composition of the marble tondo carved in high relief, is described by Robert Coughlan:
“In the Pitti Madonna Michelangelo set focus of his composition in the center of the circle: all the contours gently curve away from it.”
George Bull also comments on the composition, saying:
“The Virgin’s head, covered in a helmet-like head cloth (as in the other roundels), projects above the edge of the circle, and the figure of the child Baptist emerges faintly from the rough, unfinished background. The Christ Child leans as if sulkily on an open book on the lap of the Virgin, who dominates the scene, seated on a block, with a look of sudden, sad revelation.”
Bull goes onto describe the cultural and spiritual landscape of Florence during the time he completed this work.
“Michelangelo’s work reflects both the Christian iconography and also the inherited artistic traditions of his time…but Michelangelo found himself, in Florence in those early years of the cinquecento, amazingly free to pursue his own ideas in the work he was given. The free hand he was allowed in interpreting the wishes of his patrons was further empowered by the less inhibited, more reflective searching religious mood in Florence after the humiliation and death of Savonorola…”
According to Georg Brandes:
“The Tondo Pitti marks the main line of Michelangelo’s actual development. He had been set the modest task of doing a Madonna for the home of a citizen. He invested it with a scene of lofty power, though the relief is no bigger than the Battle of the Centaurs.”
The Tondo Pitti, originally done for the private home of Bartolommeo Pitti, is now in the Museo Nazionale in Florence.
IMG_0709
Michelangelo
Tondo Pitti, 1504 - 1505
Marble - Diameter 80 cm
Much like the Tondo Taddei, the Tondo Pitti was a piece intended ‘for the home’ and not for the grand civic audience, like the David or the Pieta in St. Peter’s. Many consider this piece to be unfinished but the validity of this argument is more widely disputed than with the Tondo Taddei. It is suggested that Michelangelo left the work seemingly unfinished simply because he liked it that way and,
“The unworked details give them a suggestive power which might have been lost in a more polished version.”
Michelangelo’s composition places the Madonna seated on a stone, its forward edge projected toward the viewer, while the figure of the Madonna seems to in a crouching position. In her lap is a book, that she was reading, until the Christ child interrupted her, as he places his elbow, supporting his head onto her book. The child St. John peers over the Virgin’s shoulder, none of the subject making eye contact with one another.
“Michelangelo has employed a simple device to unique effect. He has given the upper edge of the marble disk, a concavity to set off the relief. The circular rim cannot contain the proud, tragic head of the Madonna, which breaks through and rises above it…Michelangelo conveys a feeling that the Madonna’s sublime inner life cannot be confined by everyday limitations, but heedlessly and unconsciously bursts them.”
To address the centrality of the Madonna in the Tondo Pitti, Georg Brandes says:
“Not only is she the main figure; but Michelangelo has concentrated in her all his sense of nobility. Wound about her brow is a broad royal band ornamented with the angel’s head with wings spread wide. As usual, she also wears a kerchief. To underline her dominance, Michelangelo has employed a simple device to unique effect.”
The composition of the marble tondo carved in high relief, is described by Robert Coughlan:
“In the Pitti Madonna Michelangelo set focus of his composition in the center of the circle: all the contours gently curve away from it.”
George Bull also comments on the composition, saying:
“The Virgin’s head, covered in a helmet-like head cloth (as in the other roundels), projects above the edge of the circle, and the figure of the child Baptist emerges faintly from the rough, unfinished background. The Christ Child leans as if sulkily on an open book on the lap of the Virgin, who dominates the scene, seated on a block, with a look of sudden, sad revelation.”
Bull goes onto describe the cultural and spiritual landscape of Florence during the time he completed this work.
“Michelangelo’s work reflects both the Christian iconography and also the inherited artistic traditions of his time…but Michelangelo found himself, in Florence in those early years of the cinquecento, amazingly free to pursue his own ideas in the work he was given. The free hand he was allowed in interpreting the wishes of his patrons was further empowered by the less inhibited, more reflective searching religious mood in Florence after the humiliation and death of Savonorola…”
According to Georg Brandes:
“The Tondo Pitti marks the main line of Michelangelo’s actual development. He had been set the modest task of doing a Madonna for the home of a citizen. He invested it with a scene of lofty power, though the relief is no bigger than the Battle of the Centaurs.”
The Tondo Pitti, originally done for the private home of Bartolommeo Pitti, is now in the Museo Nazionale in Florence.