Battle of the Centaurs (Michelangelo)
Encyclopedia
Battle of the Centaurs is a relief
by Italian Renaissance
artist Michelangelo, created around 1492. It was the last work Michelangelo created while under the patronage
of Lorenzo de' Medici
, who died shortly after its completion. Inspired by a classical relief created by Bertoldo di Giovanni
, the unfinished marble sculpture depicts the mythic battle between the Lapith
s and the Centaur
s. A popular subject of art in ancient Greece, the story was suggested to Michelangelo by the classical scholar and poet Poliziano
.
Battle of the Centaurs was a remarkable sculpture in several ways, presaging Michelangelo's future sculptural direction. Michelangelo had departed from the then current practices of working on a discrete plane to work multidimensionally. It was also the first sculpture Michelangelo created without the use of a bow drill
and the first sculpture to reach such a state of completion with the marks of the subbia chisel
left to stand as a final surface. Whether intentionally left unfinished or not, the work is significant in the tradition of "non finito
" sculpting technique for that reason. Michelangelo regarded it as the best of his early works, and a visual reminder of why he should have focused his efforts on sculpture.
Michelangelo, at 17, was working under the patronage of Lorenzo de' Medici when he crafted the Battle of the Centaurs, although the work was not commissioned but created for himself. The work reflected a then current fashion for reproducing ancient themes. Specifically, Michelangelo was inspired by a relief that had been produced for de' Medici by Bertoldo di Giovanni, a work in bronze that hung in the Medici palace
. Michelangelo chose to work in marble rather than the more expensive bronze to keep down costs. Bertoldo's work, The Equestrian Battle in the Ancient Manner—also known as Battle (with Hercules)—was a recreation of a damaged Roman battle sarcophagus
and required liberal imagination to fill in the gaps left by the damaged original. Bertoldo took other liberties with his source material and seems to have himself been inspired by the Antonio del Pollaiolo engraving Battle of the Nudes
.
The young sculptor never finished the work. While a number of biographies have attributed this to the loss of power of the Medici family, contemporary Michelangelo biographer Eric Scigliano argues that Michelangelo had plenty of time to finish the sculpture if he had chosen to and points out that this was only the first of several "non finito" sculptures, preceding the Taddei Tondo
and Pitti Tondo. He also notes that Michelangelo expressed no dissatisfaction with the work.
Whether or not the sculpture was intentionally left incomplete, Michelangelo regarded this sculpture as the best of his early works. He kept it, though he destroyed or abandoned many of his other pieces, and remarked to his biographer Ascanio Condivi
later in his life that looking at it made him regret the time he'd spent in pursuits other than sculpture.
. Pirithous, king of the Lapith, had long clashed with the neighboring Centaurs. To mark his good intentions Pirithous invited the Centaurs to his wedding to Hippodamia
, whose name ("Hippo," Ιππο, literally translates as "horse"), and may suggest some connection to them.Some of the Centaurs, over-imbibed at the event, and when the bride was presented to greet the guests, she so aroused the intoxicated centaur Eurytion
that he leapt up and attempted to carry her away. This led not only to an immediate clash, but to a year-long war, before the defeated Centaurs were expelled from Thessaly
to the northwest.
The myth was a popular subject for Greek sculpture and painting. The Greek sculptors of the school of Pheidias perceived the battle of the Lapiths and Centaurs as symbolic of the great conflict between order and chaos and, more specifically, between the civilized Greeks and Persian "barbarian
s". Battles between Lapiths and Centaurs were depicted in the sculptured friezes on the Parthenon
and on Zeus' temple at Olympia
.
Scigliano suggests that Michelangelo's Battle of the Centaurs also reflects the themes of "Greeks over barbarians" and "civilization over savagery", but in Michelangelo's work he sees, in addition. the triumph of "stone over flesh". He notes that in the work itself, Michelangelo depicts his combatants using rocks against one another, and suggests that the sculptor could not have missed the coincidence that the name of the human fighters—Lapith—reflects the Latin word for stone (lapis) and the Italian word for stone plaque (lapide).
Battle of the Centaurs was an early turning point and a harbinger of Michelangelo's future, sculptural technique. Michelangelo biographers, Antonio Forcellino and Allan Cameron, say that Michelangelo's relief, while created in a classical tradition, departed significantly from the techniques established by masters such as Lorenzo Ghiberti
and Donatello
. Rather than working on discrete, parallel planes as his predecessors had done, Michelangelo carved his figures dynamically, within "infinite" planes. Forcellino and Cameron describe this break with modern practice as Michelangelo's "own personal revolution", and they point specifically to the left of the relief where a twisting figure becomes "something of an artistic manifesto." Particularly striking is the composition of the figure's upper limbs, which deviate from the carefully articulated norms. Also remarkable, according to them, is the manner in which Michelangelo sculpted independently of his preparatory drawings, freeing him from the constraints of two-dimensional vision and allowing him to merge the figures fluidly and multi-dimensionally.
Battle of the Centaurs was also the first sculpture for which Michelangelo eschewed the use of the bow drill. Finer details of the relief were probably achieved with the use of a toothed chisel called a gradina. The smooth figures of the foreground contrast strongly with the roughly-hewn background, created with a subbia chisel. A traditional sculptor's tool, the subbia produced punched marks that had never before been left as a final surface in a work completed to this degree. Georgia Illetschko insisted in 2004, these unfinished surfaces are "a conscious compositional element.", and not due to a lack of time. According to Scigliano, it was an important development in the non finito sculpting technique.
Relief
Relief is a sculptural technique. The term relief is from the Latin verb levo, to raise. To create a sculpture in relief is thus to give the impression that the sculpted material has been raised above the background plane...
by Italian Renaissance
Italian Renaissance
The Italian Renaissance began the opening phase of the Renaissance, a period of great cultural change and achievement in Europe that spanned the period from the end of the 13th century to about 1600, marking the transition between Medieval and Early Modern Europe...
artist Michelangelo, created around 1492. It was the last work Michelangelo created while under the patronage
Patronage
Patronage is the support, encouragement, privilege, or financial aid that an organization or individual bestows to another. In the history of art, arts patronage refers to the support that kings or popes have provided to musicians, painters, and sculptors...
of Lorenzo de' Medici
Lorenzo de' Medici
Lorenzo de' Medici was an Italian statesman and de facto ruler of the Florentine Republic during the Italian Renaissance. Known as Lorenzo the Magnificent by contemporary Florentines, he was a diplomat, politician and patron of scholars, artists and poets...
, who died shortly after its completion. Inspired by a classical relief created by Bertoldo di Giovanni
Bertoldo di Giovanni
Bertoldo di Giovanni was an Italian sculptor and medallist.Born in Florence, he was a pupil of Donatello and for a long time worked in his master's workshop, carrying out his unfinished works after his death in 1466, for example the bronze pulpit reliefs from the life of Christ in the Basilica di...
, the unfinished marble sculpture depicts the mythic battle between the Lapith
Lapith
The Lapiths are a legendary people of Greek mythology, whose home was in Thessaly, in the valley of the Peneus and on the mountain Pelion.They were an Aeolian tribe. Like the Myrmidons and other Thessalian tribes, the Lapiths were pre-Hellenic in their origins...
s and the Centaur
Centaur
In Greek mythology, a centaur or hippocentaur is a member of a composite race of creatures, part human and part horse...
s. A popular subject of art in ancient Greece, the story was suggested to Michelangelo by the classical scholar and poet Poliziano
Poliziano
Angelo Ambrogini, commonly known by his nickname, anglicized as Politian, Italian Poliziano, Latin Politianus was an Italian Renaissance classical scholar and poet, one of the revivers of Humanist Latin...
.
Battle of the Centaurs was a remarkable sculpture in several ways, presaging Michelangelo's future sculptural direction. Michelangelo had departed from the then current practices of working on a discrete plane to work multidimensionally. It was also the first sculpture Michelangelo created without the use of a bow drill
Bow drill
The bow drill is an ancient tool. While it was usually used to make fire, it was also used for primitive woodworking and dentistry. It consists of a bearing block or handhold, a spindle or drill, a hearth or fireboard, and a simple bow...
and the first sculpture to reach such a state of completion with the marks of the subbia chisel
Chisel
A chisel is a tool with a characteristically shaped cutting edge of blade on its end, for carving or cutting a hard material such as wood, stone, or metal. The handle and blade of some types of chisel are made of metal or wood with a sharp edge in it.In use, the chisel is forced into the material...
left to stand as a final surface. Whether intentionally left unfinished or not, the work is significant in the tradition of "non finito
Non finito
Non finito is a sculpting technique literally meaning that the work is unfinished. Non finito sculptures appear unfinished because the artist only sculpts part of the block, leaving the figure appearing to be stuck within the block of material. It was pioneered by Donatello during the Renaissance...
" sculpting technique for that reason. Michelangelo regarded it as the best of his early works, and a visual reminder of why he should have focused his efforts on sculpture.
Background
Palazzo Medici Riccardi
The Palazzo Medici, also called the Palazzo Medici Riccardi after the later family that acquired and expanded it, is a Renaissance palace located in Florence, Italy.-History:...
. Michelangelo chose to work in marble rather than the more expensive bronze to keep down costs. Bertoldo's work, The Equestrian Battle in the Ancient Manner—also known as Battle (with Hercules)—was a recreation of a damaged Roman battle sarcophagus
Sarcophagus
A sarcophagus is a funeral receptacle for a corpse, most commonly carved or cut from stone. The word "sarcophagus" comes from the Greek σαρξ sarx meaning "flesh", and φαγειν phagein meaning "to eat", hence sarkophagus means "flesh-eating"; from the phrase lithos sarkophagos...
and required liberal imagination to fill in the gaps left by the damaged original. Bertoldo took other liberties with his source material and seems to have himself been inspired by the Antonio del Pollaiolo engraving Battle of the Nudes
Battle of the Nudes (engraving)
The Battle of the Nudes or Battle of the Naked Men, probably dating from 1465–1475, is an engraving by the Florentine goldsmith and sculptor Antonio del Pollaiuolo which is one of the most significant old master prints of the Italian Renaissance...
.
The young sculptor never finished the work. While a number of biographies have attributed this to the loss of power of the Medici family, contemporary Michelangelo biographer Eric Scigliano argues that Michelangelo had plenty of time to finish the sculpture if he had chosen to and points out that this was only the first of several "non finito" sculptures, preceding the Taddei Tondo
Taddei Tondo
The Taddei Tondo is a circular relief sculpture by the Italian Renaissance artist Michelangelo Buonarroti. The sculpture is located in the Royal Academy of Arts in Piccadilly, central London, England...
and Pitti Tondo. He also notes that Michelangelo expressed no dissatisfaction with the work.
Whether or not the sculpture was intentionally left incomplete, Michelangelo regarded this sculpture as the best of his early works. He kept it, though he destroyed or abandoned many of his other pieces, and remarked to his biographer Ascanio Condivi
Ascanio Condivi
Ascanio Condivi was an Italian painter and writer. Generally regarded as a mediocre artist, he is primarily remembered as the biographer of Michelangelo.-Biography:...
later in his life that looking at it made him regret the time he'd spent in pursuits other than sculpture.
Subject and theme
According to Condivi, the poet Poliziano suggested the specific subject to Michelangelo, and recounted the story to him. The battle depicted takes place between the Lapiths and the Centaurs at the wedding feast of PirithousPirithous
In Greek mythology, Pirithous - Πειρίθοος was the King of the Lapiths in Thessaly and husband of Hippodamia, at whose wedding the famous Battle of Lapiths and Centaurs occurred....
. Pirithous, king of the Lapith, had long clashed with the neighboring Centaurs. To mark his good intentions Pirithous invited the Centaurs to his wedding to Hippodamia
Hippodamia (wife of Pirithous)
Hippodamia and δαμάζειν damazein , "Tamer of horses"; also known as Deidamia ), daughter of Atrax or Butes, was the bride of King Pirithous of the Lapiths. At their wedding, Hippodamia, the other female guests, and the young boys were almost abducted by the Centaurs. Pirithous and his friend,...
, whose name ("Hippo," Ιππο, literally translates as "horse"), and may suggest some connection to them.Some of the Centaurs, over-imbibed at the event, and when the bride was presented to greet the guests, she so aroused the intoxicated centaur Eurytion
Eurytion
In Greek mythology Eurytion , "widely-honoured", was a name attributed to six individuals....
that he leapt up and attempted to carry her away. This led not only to an immediate clash, but to a year-long war, before the defeated Centaurs were expelled from Thessaly
Thessaly
Thessaly is a traditional geographical region and an administrative region of Greece, comprising most of the ancient region of the same name. Before the Greek Dark Ages, Thessaly was known as Aeolia, and appears thus in Homer's Odyssey....
to the northwest.
The myth was a popular subject for Greek sculpture and painting. The Greek sculptors of the school of Pheidias perceived the battle of the Lapiths and Centaurs as symbolic of the great conflict between order and chaos and, more specifically, between the civilized Greeks and Persian "barbarian
Barbarian
Barbarian and savage are terms used to refer to a person who is perceived to be uncivilized. The word is often used either in a general reference to a member of a nation or ethnos, typically a tribal society as seen by an urban civilization either viewed as inferior, or admired as a noble savage...
s". Battles between Lapiths and Centaurs were depicted in the sculptured friezes on the Parthenon
Parthenon
The Parthenon is a temple on the Athenian Acropolis, Greece, dedicated to the Greek goddess Athena, whom the people of Athens considered their virgin patron. Its construction began in 447 BC when the Athenian Empire was at the height of its power. It was completed in 438 BC, although...
and on Zeus' temple at Olympia
Olympia, Greece
Olympia , a sanctuary of ancient Greece in Elis, is known for having been the site of the Olympic Games in classical times, comparable in importance to the Pythian Games held in Delphi. Both games were held every Olympiad , the Olympic Games dating back possibly further than 776 BC...
.
Scigliano suggests that Michelangelo's Battle of the Centaurs also reflects the themes of "Greeks over barbarians" and "civilization over savagery", but in Michelangelo's work he sees, in addition. the triumph of "stone over flesh". He notes that in the work itself, Michelangelo depicts his combatants using rocks against one another, and suggests that the sculptor could not have missed the coincidence that the name of the human fighters—Lapith—reflects the Latin word for stone (lapis) and the Italian word for stone plaque (lapide).
Composition and technique
The relief consists of a mass of nude figures, writhing in combat, placed underneath a roughed out strip in which the artist's chisel marks remain visible. Architectural historian Howard Hibbard says that Michelangelo has obscured the centaurs, as most of the figures are represented from the waist up. One of the few identifiable centaurs is visible in the bottom center, his leg extending between the legs of the twisting figure above him. According to Hibbard, Michelangelo has also obscured a lone female figure in the piece, while Hippodamia can be seen among the figures in the center right.Battle of the Centaurs was an early turning point and a harbinger of Michelangelo's future, sculptural technique. Michelangelo biographers, Antonio Forcellino and Allan Cameron, say that Michelangelo's relief, while created in a classical tradition, departed significantly from the techniques established by masters such as Lorenzo Ghiberti
Lorenzo Ghiberti
Lorenzo Ghiberti , born Lorenzo di Bartolo, was an Italian artist of the early Renaissance best known for works in sculpture and metalworking.-Early life:...
and Donatello
Donatello
Donato di Niccolò di Betto Bardi , also known as Donatello, was an early Renaissance Italian artist and sculptor from Florence...
. Rather than working on discrete, parallel planes as his predecessors had done, Michelangelo carved his figures dynamically, within "infinite" planes. Forcellino and Cameron describe this break with modern practice as Michelangelo's "own personal revolution", and they point specifically to the left of the relief where a twisting figure becomes "something of an artistic manifesto." Particularly striking is the composition of the figure's upper limbs, which deviate from the carefully articulated norms. Also remarkable, according to them, is the manner in which Michelangelo sculpted independently of his preparatory drawings, freeing him from the constraints of two-dimensional vision and allowing him to merge the figures fluidly and multi-dimensionally.
Battle of the Centaurs was also the first sculpture for which Michelangelo eschewed the use of the bow drill. Finer details of the relief were probably achieved with the use of a toothed chisel called a gradina. The smooth figures of the foreground contrast strongly with the roughly-hewn background, created with a subbia chisel. A traditional sculptor's tool, the subbia produced punched marks that had never before been left as a final surface in a work completed to this degree. Georgia Illetschko insisted in 2004, these unfinished surfaces are "a conscious compositional element.", and not due to a lack of time. According to Scigliano, it was an important development in the non finito sculpting technique.