Sweetness and Strength

The Reception of Michelangelo in Late Victorian England

Nonfiction, Art & Architecture, General Art
Cover of the book Sweetness and Strength by Lene Østermark-Johansen, Taylor and Francis
View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart
Author: Lene Østermark-Johansen ISBN: 9780429760389
Publisher: Taylor and Francis Publication: January 15, 2019
Imprint: Routledge Language: English
Author: Lene Østermark-Johansen
ISBN: 9780429760389
Publisher: Taylor and Francis
Publication: January 15, 2019
Imprint: Routledge
Language: English

First published in 1998, this volume explores the reinvention of Michelangelo in the Victorian era. At the opening of the nineteenth century, Michelangelo’s reputation rested on the evidence of contemporary adulation recorded by Vasari and Condivi. Travel, photography, the shift of his drawings into public collections, and, in particular, the publication of his poems in their original form, transformed this situation. The complexity of his work commanded new attention and several biographies were published.

As public curiosity and knowledge of the artist increased, so various groups began to ally themselves to aspects of Michelangelo’s persona. His Renaissance reputation as a towering genius, a man of great spiritual courage, who had journeyed through and for his art to the depths of despair, was important to the Pre-Raphaelites and other artists. His love for his own ‘Dark Lady’, Vittoria Colonna, aroused excited speculation among High Church advocates, who celebrated his friendship with the deeply religious woman-poet; and the emerging awareness that some half of his love poetry was dedicated to a younger man, Tommaso de’ Cavalieri, was of intense interest to the aestheticists, among them Oscar Wilde, Walter Pater and J.A. Symonds, who sought heroic figures from societies where masculinity was less rigorously defined.

In this original and beautifully illustrated study, Lene Østermark-Johansen shows how the critical discussion of the artist’s genius and work became irretrievably bound up in contemporary debates about art, religion and gender and how the Romantic view of art and criticism as self-expression turned the focus from the work of art to the artist himself such that the two could never again be viewed in isolation.

View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart

First published in 1998, this volume explores the reinvention of Michelangelo in the Victorian era. At the opening of the nineteenth century, Michelangelo’s reputation rested on the evidence of contemporary adulation recorded by Vasari and Condivi. Travel, photography, the shift of his drawings into public collections, and, in particular, the publication of his poems in their original form, transformed this situation. The complexity of his work commanded new attention and several biographies were published.

As public curiosity and knowledge of the artist increased, so various groups began to ally themselves to aspects of Michelangelo’s persona. His Renaissance reputation as a towering genius, a man of great spiritual courage, who had journeyed through and for his art to the depths of despair, was important to the Pre-Raphaelites and other artists. His love for his own ‘Dark Lady’, Vittoria Colonna, aroused excited speculation among High Church advocates, who celebrated his friendship with the deeply religious woman-poet; and the emerging awareness that some half of his love poetry was dedicated to a younger man, Tommaso de’ Cavalieri, was of intense interest to the aestheticists, among them Oscar Wilde, Walter Pater and J.A. Symonds, who sought heroic figures from societies where masculinity was less rigorously defined.

In this original and beautifully illustrated study, Lene Østermark-Johansen shows how the critical discussion of the artist’s genius and work became irretrievably bound up in contemporary debates about art, religion and gender and how the Romantic view of art and criticism as self-expression turned the focus from the work of art to the artist himself such that the two could never again be viewed in isolation.

More books from Taylor and Francis

Cover of the book Adolescent Coping by Lene Østermark-Johansen
Cover of the book Crime, Victims and Justice by Lene Østermark-Johansen
Cover of the book How Ethical Systems Change: Tolerable Suffering and Assisted Dying by Lene Østermark-Johansen
Cover of the book Feminist Readings in Middle English Literature by Lene Østermark-Johansen
Cover of the book Discrete Choice Modelling and Air Travel Demand by Lene Østermark-Johansen
Cover of the book The Routledge Companion to Expressionism in a Transnational Context by Lene Østermark-Johansen
Cover of the book Subalternity and Difference by Lene Østermark-Johansen
Cover of the book Food Literacy by Lene Østermark-Johansen
Cover of the book Mergers and Acquisitions in Practice by Lene Østermark-Johansen
Cover of the book Women Musicians in Victorian Fiction, 1860-1900: Representations of Music, Science and Gender in the Leisured Home by Lene Østermark-Johansen
Cover of the book Learning Spaces in Africa by Lene Østermark-Johansen
Cover of the book Soft or Hard Borders? by Lene Østermark-Johansen
Cover of the book Baudelaire by Lene Østermark-Johansen
Cover of the book Red Highways by Lene Østermark-Johansen
Cover of the book Women and Aging by Lene Østermark-Johansen
We use our own "cookies" and third party cookies to improve services and to see statistical information. By using this website, you agree to our Privacy Policy