Michelangelo Drawings: Closer to the Master (Hardcover)

by Hugo Chapman (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Review
“A must-purchase. . . . Handsomely illustrated and enlightening. . . . A fascinating history of the fate of the artist’s drawings after his death”

(Dave Gagon Deseret Morning News )

“The catalog . . . is really an artistic biography told through the drawings, but with several informative sidelights….”—Ingrid D. Rowland, New York Review of Books

Product Details

• Hardcover: 320 pages
• Publisher: Yale University Press (November 11, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0300111479
• ISBN-13: 978-0300111477
• Product Dimensions: 11 x 9 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #395,692 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

39 of 39 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars The exhibition Hugo, the exhibition..., June 25, 2006

By	Christopher Evans (Frankfurt am Main, Deutschland) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

It seems that Mr. Chapman set out to survey the life of Michelangelo, which is frustrating, as this book is the sole document to 'catalog' what is the largest exhibition of Michelangelo's drawing in modern times.

Also unnerving is that while being a $50 paperback, the British Museum did not license decent prints to accompany a book about M's life, so the reader must suffer black and white, grainy photographs of 'Battle of the Centaurs' and other pivotal works, reproduced with the quality of a cheap high school art survey text.

The pictures from the Exhibition itself are severely scaled and butchered, many only given half to a fourth of a page. The delightful 'Study of Infants' is included at barely 3" across, the result of which are sub 1" inch figures. Let me reiterate that this figure study was in the exhibition that Mr. Chapman's book is supposed to catalog and accompany!

Works such as St. Matthew, the Bruges Madonna, the Dying Slave, etc.. are just crammed in postage stamp, sub 1.5" thumbnails and confined to the edges, as if warring with the text itself. If this metaphor was to be taken literally, I would say Mr. Chapman's text was actually the victor. For a book about M's drawings to have the Gardner Pieta scaled to a size of 1.5" or the Studies for the Libyan Sibyl at 2", both black and white; is pretty inexcusable.

Mr. Chapman however, does a decent job of digesting most contemporary knowledge about the man and regurgitating it in a somewhat interesting and easily re-digestible text. It is unfortunate that this book is one of the only places you can see these drawings, and this alone is a reason to own it. However, in the end, this was a book about the drawings, and those who bought this book surely wanted to gaze, not squint, upon the work of the most masterful artist that has ever lived.

1 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Michelangelo Drawings, February 2, 2007

By	Jeffrey Soniat "ARC" (Baton Rouge, LA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This is a really fine book. It's great to have all of these drawings together in one book. The drawings have a life of their own. As a bonus I was surprised to find here some of the best shots of the Sistine Chapel post-restoration. Amazing!