After a three year gestation, our Dialogues with Michelangelo idea became fully formed and emerged as Pliant History. Early iterations began at a January Ragdale Foundation residency, bathing in the embrace of the winter light.
We were compelled to "assume the poses" of the ultimate authority of the depiction of the human figure, Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni (1475-1564). What was the nature of this comparison we were driven to reproduce? We began the research on the Old Testament Prophets and Greek Sibyls, why Michelangelo chose those figures and rendered them so compellingly on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.
What were their origins, their utterances, their cultural place.
What were their origins, their utterances, their cultural place.
What was the iconography of the accessories of power: the robes and vestments, the beards, books and thrones; the gestures and their meaning....onward, year after year....
