Saturday, March 20, 2010

Thursday, March 11, 2010

Monday, March 1, 2010

Okay, so Michelangelo supposedly painted this fucker when he was 12 or 13...






















Michelangelo, The Torment of Saint Anthony, c. 1487- 88. Oil and tempera on panel, 18 1/2 x 13 1/4 in.

Granted, he did it after this dude's engraving, but fuck...Michelangelo arguably improved on it in a few ways:






















Saint Anthony Tormented by Demons, ca. 1470–75
Martin Schongauer (German, ca. 1445–1491)
Engraving, first state of two
11 1/2 x 8 5/8 in. (29.1 x 22 cm)


I dunno...at 12 or 13, my only previous artistic influences had been He Man and Marvel comics. Young 'Michi' was going to the local market to observe and sketch fish scales, while I was observing and sketching Spiderman's webbing. Had I been introduced to Schongauer's engraving (or Bosch or Grunewald or Arcimboldo or Durer, etc...etc...) in 6th/7th grade, it would've blown my mind, as I'm sure it did Michelangelo (albeit, Schongauer's prints were widely available in Michelangelo's time, but probably not on the level of my access to He Man). Sometimes, I wish I could obtain a flux capacitor and introduce my young, adolescent self to crazy shit like this...they would've made the raddest He-Man characters ever!!! (not that I would want to forever alter the course of history or nothin...)