Kimstu, that wasn’t sarcasm…I really didn’t know that and I find it fascinating. The joke part was the part where I called her a sista.
ETA: I noticed in my earilier post I linked to the same article twice. My mistake.
Oh I see, my bad. But yeah, in fact, she does look kind of bronze-y.
The best female torso in the pic is actually Adam’s flexed shin and knee. Check it ooooout!
Heh. Michaelangelo had a problem with giving his male subjects really small wangs. Supposedly his statue of David isn’t packing much below the belt, either.
As I recall (and as the Cracked article doesn’t make clear), the theory about the God-collection being a brain was that God isn’t instilling life into Adam (who already seems to be alive – with eyes open and hand raised), but intelligence, hence the brain. I’m not sure I buy it, but it does explain why Adam already seems to be alive. The only other explanation would seem to be that this is the moment after his animation, and we all just missed the Real Thing.
Would Michaelangelo have given them a bigger wang than he had himself?
One joke in National Lampoon’s “Are You a Homo?” quiz was a picture of David with the caption “circle the body part(s) you think are out of proportion.” I didn’t catch on to the real joke until I read an art history book many years later.
Yes, Michaelangelo had a thing for muscular-torso’ed men in nice, flexed positions. As opposed to da Vinci, who loved painting angelic, smooth-faced young ladies; and IIRC it was Donatello whose version of David as a young lad is considered almost obscene, but wasn’t he arrested for allegedly molesting some boy in Florence… Ah those renaissance artists!
I rememeber seeing some statue of a second-rate renaissance sculptor when I was in Italy, and the torso did look like a muscular man with minor chesticles attached. My thought was either (a) he liked that or more likely (b) he was not important or charming enough to persuade women to pose naked for him, or (c) that was as good-looking a model as he could persuade.
I recall reading an alleged quote from the classical Greek about endowment that suggested being hung like a horse was considered gross and inappropriate in their society, sort of like being excessively hairy all over. I wonder what the renaissance take on that attribute was? IIRC David was the first nude male sculpture of its time, so probably it would not be a good idea to “push the limits” much further than he did.
If you look at classic Greek and Roman art you will find that most male genitalia are, indeed, modest. Often to the point of nonexistence.
But before you try to make something of that, note that there was also a lot of representation of extremely large, out-of-proportion phalli. Sometimes these were in the form of satyrs or grotesque dwarves, or the god Priapos. But you also hadlarge-phallused statues of the god Hermes, and the marker stones named Herms after him (or it might be vice-versa), which classically had a head and an erection and nothing else. So the Greeks and Romans had both options – cham,pions like Achilles with socially discrete endowments, along with gods and grotesqueries with enormous ones. Kinda like having Vogue and Cosmo as far as boobs go.
“Supposedly”? You can’t look at a picture?
The weirdest thing I ever saw anyone say about the creation of Adam painting was in a church magazine, a letter to their editor.
The previous month the magazine had started a series of article on how different people viewed creation, and about the Biblical accounts.
Next month, in the letters, a woman complained about the Adam painting that had been included as an illustration. She literally didn’t recognize it as a work by one of the world’s greatest artists. She said “I didn’t like that picture of one man reaching out longingly to another! That’s what I call homosexuality!”
She also bitched about Michelangelo’s picture of Adam and Eve being scourged from the Garden. * “I didn’t appreciate the picture of Adam and Eve in the buff either!”* Umm, didn’t the Bible SAY they were naked and unashamed?
If God had meant human beings to be naked, we’d be BORN that way!
You’re expecting rational thought from someone who not only reads but writes letters to a church magazine? :dubious:
Apparently female models were rare and expensive during that time. I’ve found a few cites that make the point that they were rare and expensive, but I’ve never found one that explains why (I can guess at a few reasons of course, but never came across the expert opinion on the reason).
Another little factoid about economics driving artistry. Apparently blue paint was extraordinarily expensive up until the 19th century and thus, used very sparingly unless the patron had the money to pay for it.
(Can’t find an online cite, but it came from this issue of SciAm last year:
Origins: The Start of Everything - Scientific American)
I hadn’t noticed how little blue was used in pre-19th century art until I read this!
So in light of that, can you imagine how expensive this was:
http://www.cedcc.psu.edu/khanjan/europe_images/025_sistine%20chapel.jpg
(And upon reflection, if the Pope was willing to pay a truckload of money for blue paint, you’d think he’d be willing to shell out the bux for naked female models. But that said, maybe Mike was trying to chisel him - maybe he realized that the pope would notice if he didn’t meet the blue paint requirements, but being so chaste, he wouldn’t notice the nuances of the female form!)
It looks small straight-on, but is supposed to look bigger when viewed from above. Also, an optical illusion changes David’s facial expression depending on the height one views it from. This was all in the Cracked article.
“being so chaste”?
Wasn’t Michaelangelo’s patron one of the popes known for having illegitimate children? checks wiki And, apparently publicly slandered for being a sodomite. Hm.
So maybe Mike was just playing to his audience.
I believe the appropriate Straight-Dope meme to invoke about the chasteness is: Whoosh!
But that’s funny about “playing to his audience”!