The Torment of Saint Anthony

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The Torment of Saint Anthony: Michelangelo

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Michelangelo Various Paintings - The Torment of Saint Anthony

Keywords: Torment, Saint, Anthony

Work Overview: The Torment of Saint Anthony
Artist Attributed to Michelangelo
Year c. 1487–1488
Type Oil and tempera on panel
Dimensions 47 cm × 35 cm ( 18 1⁄2 in × 13 3⁄4 in)
Style High Renaissance
Genre religious painting
Location Kimbell Art Museum

The Torment of Saint Anthony is the earliest known painting by Michelangelo, painted after an engraving by Martin Schongauer when he was only 12 or 13 years old.[1] It is currently in the permanent collection of the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth, Texas.[1][2] It shows the common medieval subject, included in the Golden Legend and other sources, of Saint Anthony being assailed in the desert by demons, whose temptations he resisted; the Temptation of St Anthony (or "Trial") is the more common name of the subject. But this composition shows a later episode where St Anthony, normally flown about the desert supported by angels, was ambushed in mid-air by devils.[3]

The painting was previously attributed to the workshop of Domenico Ghirlandaio, under whom Michelangelo had served his apprenticeship.[4] Under that attribution it was bought at a Sotheby's auction in July 2008 by an American art dealer for US$2 million.[5] When the export license was obtained that September, it was brought to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, where it was cleaned of discoloured varnish and later overpainting and closely examined for the first time.[4] On the basis of stylistic hallmarks such as "emphatic cross hatching", it was decided that the painting was indeed by Michelangelo.[4] It was soon bought by the Kimbell Art Museum for an undisclosed amount, believed to be in excess of $6 million.[4]

Giorgio Vasari in his Lives of the Artists noted that Michelangelo had painted St. Anthony after a print by Schongauer, and Ascanio Condivi recorded that Michelangelo had gone to a market to draw fish scales, a feature not present in the original engraving.[4] Besides this enhancement, Michelangelo also added a landscape below the figures, and altered the expression of the saint.[4]

It is one of only four surviving panel paintings by Michelangelo, whom Vasari records as speaking disparagingly of oil painting in later life, and the only one, if the new attribution holds, from his adolescence. Schongauer's late-Gothic style is also in strong contrast with the rest of Michelangelo's oeuvre, even in his youth. The prints of Schongauer, just reaching the end of his short life when Michelangelo copied him, were widely distributed in Europe, including Italy.

This is the first known painting by Michelangelo, described by his earliest biographers and believed to have been painted when he was twelve or thirteen years old. Although Michelangelo considered himself first and foremost a sculptor, he received his early training as a painter, in the workshop of Domenico Ghirlandaio (c. 1449–1494), a leading master in Florence. Michelangelo’s earliest biographers, Giorgio Vasari and Ascanio Condivi, tell us that, aside from some drawings, his first work was a painted copy of the engraving Saint Anthony Tormented by Demons by the fifteenth-century German master Martin Schongauer. The rare subject is found in the life of Saint Anthony the Great, written by Athanasius of Alexandria in the fourth century, which describes how the Egyptian hermit-saint had a vision that he levitated into the air and was attacked by demons, whose torments he withstood. Created when he was informally associated with Ghirlandaio’s workshop and under the guidance of an older friend, the artist Francesco Granacci, Michelangelo’s painting earned him widespread recognition. Writing when Michelangelo was still alive, both Vasari and Condivi recounted that to give the demonic creatures veracity, he studied the colorful scales and other parts of specimens from the fish market. Michelangelo subtly revised Schongauer’s composition, making it more compact and giving the monsters more animal-like features, notably adding fish scales to one of them. He also included a landscape that resembles the Arno River Valley around Florence. The work is one of only four easel paintings generally regarded as having come from his hand and the first painting by Michelangelo to enter an American collection.

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Michelangelo’s first known painting, The Torment of Saint Anthony, went on view among the permanent collection of the Kimbell Art Museum on September 26, 2009. The Kimbell Art Museum acquired the painting in May 2009. Described by Michelangelo’s earliest biographers, this remarkably fresh and well-preserved gem is believed to have been painted in 1487–88, when Michelangelo was 12 or 13 years old. The work is executed in egg tempera and oil on a wooden panel and is one of only four known easel paintings generally believed to come from his hand. The others are the Doni Tondo in Florence’s Uffizi Gallery and two unfinished paintings, The Manchester Madonna and The Entombment, both housed in the National Gallery, London.

The Kimbell’s acquisition was the first painting by Michelangelo to enter an American collection.

Born in 1475 near Florence, Michelangelo is universally acknowledged as one of the towering geniuses of the Renaissance. Already by his teenage years, he had proven himself a superlative sculptor and painter. Best known for his mature works such as the ceiling frescoes in the Vatican’s Sistine Chapel, he evolved a forceful, muscular style that gripped the imaginations of artists for decades to come. First and foremost, Michelangelo thought himself a sculptor, and many of his works in marble are icons of Western art: his Vatican Pietà, his vigorous David in Florence, and his tragic, unfinished Rondanini Pietà in Milan. As a painter, Michelangelo was equally influential. As The Torment of Saint Anthony proves, he was drawn to painting at an early age, and by the time of his later masterpiece, The Last Judgment, also in the Sistine Chapel, he had presided over a vast revolution in Italian painting.

The Torment of Saint Anthony was offered at Sotheby’s in 2008 as “workshop of Domenico Ghirlandaio.” The Sotheby’s entry noted that Everett Fahy, curator emeritus of European paintings at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, who had known the work since 1960, believed it to be by Michelangelo. Purchased by Adam Williams Fine Art, New York, the panel was brought to the Metropolitan, where it underwent conservation and technical research.

The cleaning of Michelangelo’s Torment of Saint Anthony at the Metropolitan revealed the quality of the small panel. Michael Gallagher, conservator in charge of paintings conservation, removed the layers of yellowed varnish and clumsy, discolored overpaint that obscured the artist’s distinctive palette and compromised the illusion of depth and sculptural form. The technical study accompanying the cleaning has provided evidence of artist’s changes, signifying that the painting is an original work of art and not a copy after another painting.

Giorgio Vasari, in his Lives of the Artists (1550, second edition 1568), and Ascanio Condivi—Michelangelo’s former student whose information for his biography of the artist (1553) came directly from the master—both recount how the young Michelangelo painted a copy of the engraving Saint Anthony Tormented by Demons by the 15th-century German master Martin Schongauer. In an effort to try his hand at painting, Michelangelo reportedly took Schongauer’s print and produced a mesmerizing rendition of it on a wooden panel that earned him great repute and fame.

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The Torment of Saint Anthony by Michelangelo is the earliest painting that was done by this artist. It has very intricate details throughout the piece and was created somewhere between 1487 and 1488. It currently hangs in the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth, Texas where it is part of a permanent collection. It passed hands from American art dealers to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York before it arrived to this destination after being sold. It was sold for over $6 million dollars, but the exact amount is not known.

What Does This Painting Look Like?
The Torment of Saint Anthony features Saint Anthony being attacked by demons because he resisted their temptations. Anthony is on a rocky area half way in the air surrounded by several demons that all have grimacing looks on their faces. Below the jagged rocks is a large body of water with mountains that are far away in the background. Even the teeth of the demons were made in high quality detail to show how sharp and jagged they were.
Details
The size of this piece is 18.5 inches by 13.25 inches. It was painted with oil and tempera on panel. Experts were able to determine it was painted by Michelangelo because of the emphatic cross hatching style he used when painting. This piece is one of only four panel paintings that still exist from the artist Michelangelo.

Why Was It Created?
This painting was created when Michelangelo was only 12 or 13 years old. He made it after he saw a similar image on an engraving that was made by Martin Schongauer. He added more details than were in the engraving, which include fish scales and a landscape below the figures in the piece. The saint also has a different expression on Michelangelo’s piece than he did in Schongauer’s work.

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Today, many people think of Michelangelo (Florence 1475–Rome 1564) as a sculptor, but he received his early training as a painter, in the workshop of Domenico Ghirlandaio (1449–1494), a leading master in Florence. It was only in about 1490, following this apprenticeship, that he learned to carve marble. Michelangelo's biographers—Giorgio Vasari (1511–1574) and Ascanio Condivi (1525–1574)—tell us that, aside from some drawings, his first work was a painted copy after a well-known engraving by Martin Schongauer (1448–1491) showing Saint Anthony tormented by demons. Made about 1487–88 under the guidance of his friend and fellow pupil Francesco Granacci, Michelangelo's painting was much admired; it was even said to have incited Ghirlandaio's envy.

Schongauer's engraving, dating to the 1470s, illustrates a passage from The Golden Legend (ca. 1260) by Jacobus de Voragine that describes how "divers savage beasts" set upon Saint Anthony, tearing "at him with their teeth, their horns, and their claws." Schongauer departed from tradition by showing the saint in midair surrounded by a dense swarm of winged monsters. The theme resonated with the young Michelangelo, who must have admired the masterful arrangement of exotic creatures in complex poses as well as the fantastic creatures. In typical fashion, he revised the earlier composition, making it more compact. He simplified the forms and gave the monsters more animal-like features, notably adding fish scales to one of them. The folds of Saint Anthony's habit were also simplified and his face was given a serene expression. The young artist added a landscape that contrasts a rocky outcropping and dead trees with a green hill and a boat making its way safely through a vast seascape—perhaps an allegorical reference to the voyage of the soul epitomized by Anthony's resigned detachment from the torments he undergoes. The color combinations, especially the apple green and lavender, are peculiar to Michelangelo and forecast those he employed in the Sistine Chapel.

In one of Michelangelo's earliest sculptures, a marble relief showing a battle of centaurs, we also find a centrally placed figure isolated amid the tumult. It is a motif to which Michelangelo returned in a number of compositions, including his fresco of the Last Judgment on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. As one scholar commented: "Michelangelo sees the larger world as a battleground of titanic moral and spiritual forces."

Technical Observations

Though it has been known to scholars since the 1830s, when it was purchased in Pisa by a French sculptor, this painting has not always received proper attention. Accumulations of discolored varnish and disfiguring overpaints had obscured the qualities of the picture's masterful execution and remarkable color palette. A careful cleaning, carried out by Michael Gallagher, the Metropolitan Museum's Conservator in Charge of Paintings Conservation, transformed the painting, while infrared reflectography revealed how the artist modified and elaborated on Schongauer's composition.

Before its recent cleaning and restoration at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, many of the qualities of execution evident in The Torment of Saint Anthony were almost completely obscured. There was little sense of depth, and the spatial relationships and volumes of the figure group were severely impaired. Moreover, the remarkable color palette and refined handling were little in evidence. Cleaning has transformed the painting and permitted a more accurate appraisal of the means used to create it.

The preparation of the panel and the painting materials are typical of Italian painting at the end of the fifteenth century. The poplar panel was prepared with a ground of gesso, a mixture of animal glue and gypsum. On top of that the artist executed a preparatory drawing in a liquid medium in order to plan the composition and place the main figures. Digital infrared reflectography allows us to image the carbon-based drawing that lies beneath the visible paint layers. Taking the Schongauer print as a model, Michelangelo systematically refined the shapes and forms and made numerous alterations to the contours of wings, limbs, and drapery. This refining of outline appears to have been extremely important to the artist. The lines visible around the figures are fine and assured. Broader, more painterly brushstrokes in the underdrawing can be detected in Saint Anthony's cloak.

Frequently, forms overlap previously painted details, while in other areas paint has been scraped away. This suggests a rather intuitive, piecemeal approach to the sequence of painting, as one might expect of a young, inexperienced, but bold artist. Michelangelo was consistently preoccupied with the refinement of outline. Several figures have fine incisions where contours were emphasized or repositioned at a late stage in the painting's execution. The artist also scraped back paint layers in order to clarify, sharpen, and anchor forms while in other areas he built up substantial texture and relief.

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