Michelangelo and His Drawings

Michelangelo was a master draftsman whose striking and powerful drawings are not only an important part of his artistic heritage in their own right but are also a means of viewing his designs that have not otherwise survived. In this book Michael Hirst describes and analyzes Michelangelo’s drawings in light of the many purposes for which the artist made them, thereby reaching for the first time a full understanding of their character and appearance. The product of thirty years of careful thought and examination of the original drawings, it provides the reader with new insights into the working methods and the mental processes of one of the most original of all artists.
“A book on [Michelangelo’s] drawings … which has been needed for decades. ... His short book is based on a deep familiarity not just with the drawings which have been assigned to Michelangelo, but with every aspect of his career. It demonstrates how much such an investigation can reveal about an artist’s creative process, and it ought to be read by anyone interested in Michelangelo or in Renaissance drawings. Whether he is discussing Michelangelo’s efforts to teach his students how to draw, or the ways in which he developed his narrative compositions, or the place of life drawing in his working procedure, Hirst’s analysis is illuminating and persuasive.”—Charles Hope, New York Review of Books
“A book that aims to give the general reader a brief, comprehensible, jargon-free account of the function of draftsmanship in Michelangelo’s achievement.”—John Russell, New York Times
“Hirst, perhaps the foremost living authority on Michelangelo’s drawings, has written an informative, insightful, and eminently readable book….An important contribution to Michelangelo scholarship.”—Choice
Michael Hirst is Reader in the History of Art at the Courtauld Institute, London.