alt Hacker NewsSomething about this painting is reminiscent of the way I(and I'm sure many others) would paint my comic-book heroes at around that age, albeit perhaps lacking some of Michelangelo's talents and skills.
This painting makes me feel like the bible was pretty much a comic book to the adolescent Michelangelo, and I like that thought. He later went on to paint the ceiling of a huge temple dedicated to his equivalent of Charles Xavier.
I bet that felt pretty cool for him =)
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my father made reading The Agony and The Ecstasy a requirement to go to Italy when I was a sophomore in high school. It's a thick tome, but a great read if you're a curious kid.
as the others said Michelangelo hated doing that painting. He's a very tragic, albeit heroic to me, man. I'd recommend that book if you're at all fascinated by him.
St Anthony was alive in the high middle ages. So not a biblical figure. Much closer to the artists own time.
Edit: as below a more famous and earlier St Anthony was indeed much closer to the time of the gospels
This painting is a masterstudy of Schongauer's engraving "Saint Anthony Tormented by Demons". If you look closely you can see how its a study but not a 1:1 copy, but aside from some color and light all of this "style" was michaelangelo copying Schongauer as he learned.
Fun fact ! Michelangelo hated doing the ceiling thing.
https://www.dutchfinepaintings.com/michelangelos-sistine-cha...
He hated painting the Sistine Chapel ceiling because he saw himself primarily as a sculptor. You can read some of the graphic language he used to describe his perspective of having to do it. Also, he was constantly in pain and would go temporarily blind from holding his head in certain positions for hours at a time.