The Father of All Art Curmudgeons

Copyright © Edward Riojas

Leave it to a curmudgeon.

Artists can add immense beauty to the world, and thrive on attempting the same. For some reason that lies deeply embedded in our noodles, we can’t leave well enough alone or accept the visually mundane. It’s part of our DNA. But when others take issue with what an artist produces; or criticizes, second guesses, or otherwise gets high-handed with creativity, then sparks fly. Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni, known mostly by his first name, was the crème de la crème when it came to being an art curmudgeon.

Michelangelo disdained recreating likenesses of patrons, and aimed instead for ideal visages. This issue once came to a head when Michelangelo finished the imposing sepulchers of Giuliano di Lorenzo de' Medici and Lorenzo di Piero de' Medici in the Medici Chapel. Neither heroic sculpture bore resemblance to the interred. The moneyed family pushed him on the point. Michelangelo famously responded, “Who will care what they look like in 1,000 years?”

"The Last Judgement" [detail], showing

Biagio da Cesena, at right.

Michelangelo. 1536-1541.

(Sistine Chapel, Vatican City)

Apparently, however, the artist didn’t always take his own advice. Michelangelo also endured constant criticism for innumerable details while working on frescos in the Sistine Chapel. There was too much nudity. There were too many muscled figures. There was not enough decorum. There was too much foreshortening of figures.

Chief among his detractors was Biagio da Cesena, the Pope's Master of Ceremonies. da Cesena’s annoyance must have been great indeed, because Michelangelo painted the official’s likeness, from memory, on the donkey-eared body of Minos next to the rest of the damned in “The Last Judgement.” The likeness was instantly recognized by all, including the livid da Cesena, who stormed into the Pope’s presence and demanded that the pontiff do something about it.

The Pope, in a rare moment of Divine inspiration, reminded da Cesena that the Pope’s jurisdiction went only so far as purgatory. Correcting things in hell was quite another matter.