I’ve recently visited this fabulous exhibition at the Royal Academy in London. I left the gallery elated.
The Royal Academy have pit together works by Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo and Raphael and focused on the year 1504 – when all three of them briefly crossed paths in Florence and competed for patronage from wealthy patrons. The exhibition focuses on three of the greatest Renaissance works in Britain - The Taddei Tondo, The Bridgewater Madonna and The Burlington House cartoon.
I loved it and was beside myself with excitement in the world of these Renaissance greats. I especially love shows which focus on art history in some depth (such as the possible reason for the Burlington House cartoon).
Overall score: ★★★★★ 5/5
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Gallery 1 - “Michelangelo, Raphael and The Taddei Tondo”
The exhibition is split into three rooms and the first room focuses very much on the Royal Academy’s Michelangelo masterpiece The Taddei Tondo.
This tondo (meaning “round”) is the only significant marble work by Michelangelo in any permanent UK collection and it’s beautifully displayed.
The Virgin and Child with Infant St John the Baptist (The Taddei Tondo)
In this marble, the infant St John presents the baby Christ with a goldfinch (the symbol of his Passion). The baby turns away from the bird in fear. As I said, it’s the only marble sculpture by Michelangelo in Britain and despite being unfinished, it is widely regarded as one of his most important works.
Michelangelo never completed the relief, which shows different degrees of finish – e.g., the goldfinch is hardly recognisable.
The painting below gives the visitors something of a sense of Florence in that 1504 period. You get an impression for the relatively small size of the Florence while recognising its bustling metropolis-like environment to which Michelangelo, Leonardo and Raphael were drawn.
Then we’re bought forward to the period of around 1504 and we get to see some truly exquisite drawings by Michelangelo (such as the below male nude).
Michelangelo then seems to converge artistically closer to the subject matter of The Taddei Tondo – which is the Virgin and Child with the infant St John the Baptist.
We can see the process involved in creating this tondo play out in front of our eyes and this is one of the reasons why this exhibition is so powerful. (For example, the studies of the infant (St John the Baptist) by Michelangelo were partly inspired by Leonardo’s practice of producing a variety of quick sketches for inspiration and to develop ideas. These are incredibly detailed (and rare!!) sketches which show Michelangelo’s creative process.)
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It’s also extremely fascinating when we see how Raphael was very much influenced by The Taddei Tondo – even in its unfinished state. We can see the influence in many of Raphael sketches from the time. There is something really magical in looking over their shoulders, as it were, and turning to see the Tondo in situ (and being able to see the influence).
Eventually these pictures of the Virgin and child with the infant John the Baptist came to be shown in The Bridgewater Madonna and a similar theme in the Esterhazy Madonna (lent from Budapest).
