Chalking It Up

LONG BEFORE HE EVER put a chisel to stone, Michelangelo was drawing, on whatever surface he could find, with whatever material he could get his hands on: bits of charcoal, red chalk, a quill dipped in ink. The act of drawing meant far more to him and to his contemporaries than simply recording what they saw: the Italian term disegnocould also mean an outline, a design, or a Machiavellian plot. For Tuscan artists of the 15th and 16th centuries, disegno, in its full range of significance, stood at the heart of their activity no matter what their eventual medium would be. Throughout their lives, as they progressed from child apprentices to adult masters, drawing sharpened their minds as much as their eyes and their dexterity, and the same combination of mental, visual, and manual acuity—that is, disegno—also applied to arts such as weaving, tapestry, and lacemaking, all of which depend as crucially on a master strategy as they do on skilled fingers.

No wonder, then, that the Cleveland Museum of Art has called its new exhibition of Michelangelo drawings “Michelangelo: Mind of the Master.” Focused on a choice group of drawings from the Teylers Museum