Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
• From Room 9, exit at the near end, entering Room 8.
(See “National Gallery” map,
here
.)
The “Big Three” of the High Renaissance—Leonardo (whom we saw earlier), Michelan-
gelo, and Raphael—were the painters who finally conquered realism. But these three
Florence-trained artists weren't content just to copy nature, cranking out photographs-on-
canvas. Like Renaissance architects (which they also were), they carefully composed their
figures on the canvas, “building” them into geometrical patterns that reflected the balance
and order they saw in nature.
Michelangelo—
The Entombment
(c. 1500-1501)
Michelangelo, the greatest sculptor ever, proves it here in this “painted sculpture” of
the crucified Jesus being carried to the tomb. Florentine artists like Michelangelo were
inspired by ancient statues of balanced, anatomically perfect, nude Greek gods. Like a
chiseled Greek god, this musclehead in red ripples beneath his clothes. Christ's naked
body, shocking to the medieval Church, was completely acceptable in the Renaissance
world, where classical nudes were admired as an expression of the divine.
