Animate Tracings in Michelangelo's Paper Modani

• In Event: Building with Paper: The Materiality of Renaissance Architectural Drawings II

Abstract

This paper opens an inquiry into Michelangelo's idiosyncratic, yet nonetheless rigorously ordered, exercise of the classical vocabulary through a close examination of his 1:1 scaled paper modani. Unlike those of his contemporaries, Michelangelo's profile templates exhibit no evidence of the use of compass or rule, a realization that has led scholars to conclude that he drew them freehand. However, new observations reveal that his modani were constructed by means of a deliberate working method of cutting and tracing. Although Michelangelo did not rely on geometric instruments, manipulative tracing nevertheless generated a sequential order of guide marks, ticks, and smears. While tracing, he would freely shift or flip the template, trace only part of it, or combine it with other sketches or tracings. Far from capricious inventions, his extraordinary implementation of paper modani provides a wealth of clues as to how Michelangelo conceived the elastic and anatomical potential of the classical vocabulary.

Author

• Jonathan Foote, Aarhus Universitet