Michelangelo's Times of Day a Study of their Genesis

* This study was aided by a grant from the American Philosophical Society. I am very grateful to Meyer Schapiro, who read the final draft of the paper and suggested a number of improvements, and to Anna E. Holman and Rosamund Field for their never failing help with the English phrasing.

Abstract

An anonymous reviewer, writing a hundred years ago, characterized Michelangelo's Times of Day as “the purest development of subjective art the world has perhaps seen.”¹ The remark is not surprising; nor is it beside the point. For there was nothing in earlier or contemporary art to prepare for the appearance of these tormented, writhing bodies. And, though his way of putting it grates a little on our ears, in a sense the reviewer was right to say that to bring these statues forth Michelangelo “retired into the innermost temple of his mind.”