Critical Archive of the Visual and Related Arts
Michelangelo
Italian; 15th-century, 16th-century
London, England: The National Gallery
82%
The Entombment. c1500. Oil on wood
It's a shame that this is unfinished. Curiously, there's an incomplete painting by Andrea in Cleveland that I don't feel the same way about, probably because the quality of Andrea's work derives much less from its resolution in a technical or structural sense than from its gestural power and suggestiveness. But Michelangelo is all about structure, and looking at this panel you're left wishing that (for instance) a leftward-facing Madonna rückenfigur was there in the bottom right corner to lock the composition into place, or that the sashes on the torsos bracketing Christ were painted in so as to bind the main figure group together, or that even one single color combination felt resolved. (What on earth could've reined in St. John's screaming red vestments?) What's here, however, is remarkable: the central arabesque of Christ's limp body vibrates through to every fact of the composition, with not only all the figures but even the zig of the stairs in the midground and the zag of the road off in the distance responding to the savior's form. (TFS, 2025)