Michelangelo and Leonardo in Florence: James Hall (1504)
James Hall - author of The Artist's Studio
In the early sixteenth century, some of the world’s most famous works of art were being created, many of them in Florence and Rome. In this episode, the acclaimed art historian James Hall takes us back to 1504, to see two masters - Michelangelo and Leonardo - at work.
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In 1504 Michelangelo was finishing his monumental statue of David in Florence, the first of its size in the modern era. Meanwhile his great rival, Leonardo da Vinci, also in Florence at this time, was on the committee to decide where the statue should be placed.
The original idea of hoisting it hundreds of feet into the air to the top of the cathedral was sensibly shelved, and discussions got underway to find a less complicated location.
So the art historian James Hall, author of the book The Artist’s Studio, takes us back into the practicalities of being a working artist in the early sixteenth century. In these years of the Renaissance, the status of the artist was changing in Italy. In Florence Leonardo was instrumental in this process, especially with regards to painting.
Urbane and sophisticated, Leonardo was adept at entertaining his noble clients with wit and charm. In his writings he described the artist sitting:
before his work at the greatest of ease, well dressed and applying delicate colours with his light brush... his residence is clean and adorned with delightful pictures, and he often enjoys the accompaniment of music or the company of authors of various fine words that can be heard with great pleasure…
Sculpture, on the other hand, was a dirty, brutal occupation that demanded huge physical exertion in dust-filled workshops that echoed with noise.
Michelangelo epitomised this alternative vision of artistic creator. Fearsome, filthy and proudly lacking in any kind of gentility, he revelled in the physical danger and demands of his art, snarling that, ‘painting in oil is an art of women and of people who are lazy and wealthy.’
While at odds with one another in life, Leonardo and Michelangelo are united in death, side by side in the pantheon of artistic genius. In this episode James Hall takes us back to 1504 and up close to see the two great masters at work.
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Tania Branigan is the author of Red Memory: Living, Remembering and Forgetting China’s Cultural Revolution, which has recently been released by Faber.
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Show Notes
Scene One: 1504. Michelangelo completes his monumental sculpture of David.
Scene Two: 1504. Leonardo da Vinci sits on a committee to decide where to locate the marble David. He and Michelangelo bump into each other in the street and have an argument about Dante.
Scene Three: 1504. Leonardo and Michelangelo are commissioned to paint large battle murals in the Great Council Hall of Florence. They are given separate workplaces but never finish the commissions.
Memento: Michelangelo’s bronze life-sized statue of David which disappeared sometime after 1504.
People/Social
Presenter: Violet Moller
Guest: James Hall
Production: Maria Nolan
Podcast partner: Ace Cultural Tours
Theme music: ‘Love Token’ from the album ‘This Is Us’ By Slava and Leonard Grigoryan
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About James Hall
James Hall is an art critic, historian, lecturer and broadcaster. He was formerly Chief Art Critic of The Sunday Correspondent and of the Guardian. He contributes to the Guardian Saturday Review, The Times and Times Literary Supplement, as well as to many magazines and catalogues. He is the author of several books including The Self-Portrait: A Cultural History (Thames & Hudson, 2014), which the Sunday Times hailed as 'fascinating, erudite and beautifully produced', and The Artist's Studio: A Cultural History (Thames & Hudson, 2022).
Unknown Florentine artist, A Sculptor at Work, from Cristoforo Landino’s edition of Dante’s Divine Comedy, Florence, 1481
Biblioteca Vallicelliana, Rome. Used with permission.
Leonardo Painting The Mona Lisa
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