Michelangelo The Genius Who Got Better With Age | With Sarah Vowles | Curator's Corner S9 Ep1

He painted the Sistine Chapel, he sculpted the famous David, he was a poet, architect, and inventor. Everyone thought Michelangelo was a genius… except Michelangelo. And as he got older his self-doubt and search for reassurance from friends increased. Curator, Sarah Vowles, reveals how one the world’s greatest artistic geniuses coped with the challenges of getting old.
00:00 Introduction
00:21 The Fall of Phaeton www.britishmuseum.org/collect...
06:14 Crucifixion www.britishmuseum.org/collect...
10:01 Virgin and child www.britishmuseum.org/collect...
Drawing of Phaeton - Royal Collection Trust / © His Majesty King Charles III 2024

[@backwashjoe7864]

"Greek myths are big on collateral damage" needs to be on a t-shirt :))

[@scott49140]

what did she mean by this?

[@martaoliveira4393]

I thank you very much the opportunity to see. I live in Brazil and I’m not going to London , so it’s very important to us this kind of videos. 🙏🏼💖

[@Linda-9037]

I have adored Michelangelo's work all of my life I thought I had seen everything he ever did. You have let me see things that I have never seen before and explained them so well. Thank you so much. It was a rare and privileged experience to watch this video

[@shivajoshi9068]

would love to see a whole series on this! explaing each and every incident and story related to each piece that he made! thank you for this

[@mesmabelsare]

Thanks for this sensitive account of Michelangelo’s works in his last days. What an incredible life!

[@carolinh7879]

Hello! What a moving and interesting video! This not only goes out to Sarah, but all the curators and the video team! I am slowly working my way through the videos (definitely not me procrastinating an important project, lol) and I started with Egypt and hieroglyphs but I jump from Curators Corner to Curators Corner, because everyone has such interesting things to say and it is presented so charmingly, that the enthusiasm really catches on! When visiting a museum, especially big ones, I feel like it is easy to get swept up in the rush to "see everything" with the most famous pieces on an imaginary checklist. At the end of the day you feel exhausted and like you have seen a lot, but really not very much at all. I appreciate these videos so much because they focuse on only one or just a handful of objects, that might be overlooked while hunting for the Mona Lisa, and really make you *look* and engage with art. It is wonderful to remember that every single object has a story to tell - and that there are lovely, enthusiastic people that are able to tell them. This was quite long! 😅 thank you very much 💚

[@britishmuseum]

Thank you for taking the time to write! It's lovely to hear that you're enjoying our films as much as we all enjoy making them!

[@geopatriot]

One of the finest, most insightful upload of any in this serious. Thank you so much. Very enjoyable.

[@b.sylphaen]

Wonderful video, thank you!

[@audreyrice996]

Brilliant! Thanks for sharing this intimate portrait of one of our most brilliant artists.

[@victoriabarclay3556]

This is one of the most informative, interesting and beautifully presented lectures that I’ve heard in a long time

[@user-cm6vj5ls9i]

Thank you, that was wonderful. Thanks for sharing your knowledge. Wish I was in London.

[@luisinlondon]

Wonderfully conveyed. This video greatly enhanced my appreciation of the exhibition, which I have already seen. I'm definitely going back for more after this. Thank you!

[@alocino96]

Really interesting video, it's always interesting when you see a figure like Michelangelo shown in a more "human" way, you always hear people talk about such masters of their fields in an almost reverential tone but they were as human as us and had our same problems, it's beautiful seeing it reflected in their work

[@JaneParsons-so7my]

Just brilliant. So good to get up close to a drawing. Thank you! I’ve been lucky enough to see the Sistine Chapel, but alongside hundreds of other tourists.

[@eveli1593]

If I ever choose to live in London, this museum is one of the major reasons

[@av1421]

its very very over rated museum!

[@MrGrentch]

This is bloody brilliant. Thank you Sarah.

[@ananegoescu2945]

What a beast

[@chze10]

this is mind blowing, thank you. I cant wait to see the exhibition.

[@kimc8764]

Love this video! Thank you so much. It's very interesting how, in the majority of Michaelangelo's drawings of Christ, he is portrayed hanging on a stake and not on a cross.

[@feldmarshalphoto]

Thank you so, so much for the curator's talk on 28th April, it was amazing. It was a pleasure to hear some things over again in this video

[@luciusbouchard3533]

Thank you for this time capsule 💜

[@danielintheantipodes6741]

Thank you for the video. Really beautiful art.

[@marge117]

Sarah is a fabulous presenter! Poetic, beautiful interpretations. I could watch a whole series of her presenting artwork. I also appreciate that there is no music while she speaks. Some channels overlay emotional music over the information and it is very distracting. Thank you

[@mattmcdonnellart]

beautiful presentation !!

[@viviendomisabatico1587]

Thank you!

[@glenm99]

What a cool premise for an exhibition.

[@ericc461]

Thought I'd try a couple of minutes, was rapt right through. Glad I'm subscribed, or would have missed.

[@scottfraser9271]

Wonderful. Thank you so much.

[@JohnM.Powers]

Excellent comments: insightful and inspiring! Thank you.

[@CasperLCat]

It’s a miracle that these drawings (on paper ?) have survived, completely pristine, for 500 years. I wish she’d said what the material is exactly (could it be vellum ?), were the pencils like modern ones, and how they’ve been preserved for centuries.

[@steventhomas7292]

A passionate narration, execellent thanks 😍👌

[@user-wc8gi7bp6q]

This was just fantastic. Thank you for a wonderful, riveting presentation. Loved so much, wish I could be teleported to London from Down Under.

[@lilys969]

Love the new graphic titles! Lovely a refreshing for the new series!

[@algernonwolfwhistle6351]

Very good.

[@Anthony-gq7dk]

The Mozart of the brush and stone chisel .

[@bngr_bngr]

So the Sistine Chapel meant that he was in love with the Pope? Who was he in love with when he made the David? Michelangelo was worried about his status and how much more he could get his patrons to pay for his art. Even after he had an agreement with his patrons, he would ask for money or refuse to work on their projects.

[@elizabethcolareta8704]

Fabuloso Michelangelo. Interesantísima información. Sara Vowles 👏👏👏👏

[@fano503]

So interesting to see the changes of mind in his sketches with all those double layers. Gives you an insight into the process of the works. Startng off with an idea but ending in a different way. Cool

[@taxpayer1040]

A superb‘tutorial’ and thank you so much. Would really appreciate a short booklist (current) on MA.

[@yul498]

Thank you Sara, for the perfect video about hysteri.

[@Sourdo1]

'"The Greeks were big on collateral damage...". Very funny!

[@annettefournier9655]

Starting to bother him at nearly 90? Lucky man! At 66 i took a drawing course. If i worked on a drawing for 3 hours it would take 2 to 3 weeks for my hand to recover. Not to mention how it feels like fingers have the dexterity of sausages now.😮

[@5cloudwalker]

No TV or Social Media to distract him

[@melaniamonicacraciun9900]

Minute 08:30, growing old Michelangelo started to be upset, because his FAITH was very strong and he felt like betrayed, that God did not let him live longer that the others because so gifted and so eager to achieve so many things. Leonardo da Vinci as well he left so many projects undone like saying ..look Lord, I have so many things to do, you can not let me grow old, get tired and feel weak, no, I have too many things to do 😢😢😢well, it's still the biggest challenge above all, if we can increase the human life expectation, there's so much work to do, if we care to have FAITH and follow our feelings😢😢😢

[@ananegoescu2945]

The british museum, here eat some sausegaes with this

[@marciaquesenberry3803]

When I was as in Italy, three different experienced tour guides, all from Florence or Rome, two with degrees in art history, all said Michelangelo was gay, as was DaVinci. Just accepted. As it should be. Both were geniuses.

[@sabrinatirabassi3529]

"ditelo a urbino" means "tell it to urbino". You'll probably know better than me who this Urbino is. The rest of the note reads "as I promised, and if you like it, please send it back and let me finish it." Oh, and it's "schizzo", not "scizzo". I know, italian has a funny way with the letter c...

[@CuongN24]

It’s “scizzo” because it’s 16th century Italian not modern Italian, You can literally see it in the original writing

[@afonsojrf]

Nice work, but... It's amazing to think that a 50-year-old man and a 20-year-old man never had a physical relationship because one of them was Catholic.

[@sarbanimohanty4638]

❤🙏

[@user-xy2qh8tg1v]

🙏💞

[@JJONNYREPP]

Michelangelo The Genius Who Got Better With Age | With Sarah Vowles | Curator's Corner S9 Ep1 1.5.24 helios creed. akin to my fav failure icarus.

[@annazaman9657]

So that's where phaeton comes from.

[@kidmohair8151]

only one of these was meant to be seen by someone, anyone else. they and the drawings, doodles, of the other "great masters" survive because of who they were, and how they were regarded by their contemporaries. one has to wonder if Michelangelo had gone through his voluminous papers at the end of his life, if he would have allowed them to come down to us. self doubt can be brutal.

[@mariyamwaniki]

He was trying to show them moving

[@gavinbarnes6310]

Are the drawings on display his actual drawings or copies ?

[@britishmuseum]

All the drawings on display in the exhbition are by Michelangelo and original works. What's amazing is that some of them have drawings on both sides of the paper. So you get the feeling he just reached for a scrap of paper to draw on when he tried out an idea for a figure or composition.

[@tammystratford7079]

Tomaso is not a known secret child?

[@modestrocker1]

you mean his young lover - "friend"

[@LaughingBull980]

How do you know it was reciprocal?

[@vedantsriram3746]

Can You PLEASE make a Video on the Indian Artifacts at the British Museum

[@manfredicortonesi8919]

Dislike how she over reads into every detail. He was friend with a man in his 20s -> prob gay, saw it in a dream. "Yo bro let me know if you like this and i do the real version tomorrow" -> super vulnersbe. He makes a sketch of jesus because jesus was 99% of what was painted at the time -> spiritual turmoil. The sketch with thr least ammount of lines ever to draw a face -> this clearly means "[full ass sentence from the virgin mary to jesus]"

[@josephwarren3498]

Here in Arizona we respect Mike Angelo a whole bunch more than you do, by god. And anybody who calls him a gay guy just don't hunt to me. And his meditational drawings, besides, remind me of that thing that that Loyola flyer wrote about, the, uh, meditations, I guess. And you ain't gonna tell me Nacho Loyola was gay! (Very nicely presented. I've subscribed.)

[@bentleestarr1575]

She’s kidding herself and everyone else saying there was no romantic relationship. Angelo was famously gay. And to say that being Catholic and religious would have stopped someone is poppycock because even Popes throughout the period were queer. Please stop writing queer history out of history. Also to say that being Catholic and religious means you can’t be queer is upsetting. I am Catholic and gay and I can be both. 😊

[@gregoryrollins59]

You have to wonder if he ever read the bible. The apostle Paul to the hebrew congregation wrote at 6:20 that Melchizedek king of Salem was a forerunner of Jesus. Then, at 7:3, he wrote like Melchizedek Jesus had no genealogy, being without genealogy, no father or mother. This is self-evident in that Jesus never called Mary mother. He only refers to her as woman. In fact, in that drawing with John and Mary and Jesus on the stake, Jesus turned to his mother and said, "Woman, see! Your son. But then turned to the unidentified disciple and said, See! Your mother. Jewish law says it has to be a relative, so it had to be the resurrected John the Baptist. Then another time was at the wedding he took mary to at john 2:4 he said, Woman, why is that of concern to me and you? Just because the narrators refer to mary as Jesus mother doesn't mean she is. Then Mary and Jesus' brothers and sisters did not except him for who he was. Matthew 12:46-50; 13:53-58. Exodus 20:12 said honor your father and mother. Calling your mother woman is not honor. Paul explains at galatians 4:26 but the Jerusalem above is free, and she is our mother. This is who the woman is at Genesis 3:15. Jerusalem above. Jehovahs heavenly organization where Jesus came from. Peace and Ahev

[@commonwunder]

Just an artists' opinion... but I highly doubt this is the work of Michelangelo. The overall anatomy and structure, in particular... of the horses is just ridiculous. He would've seen horses every single day of his life. This piece was drawn in the style of, but not actually by his hand. With so many forgeries floating about... you need a keen eye. Even if taken as 'purely a scribble'... a master would never make these sort of foreshortening or anatomical mistakes.

[@64Pete]

So you are familiar with the anatomy of mythical horses capable of drawing the sun across the sky? Lucky you! 🤡

[@commonwunder]

@@64Pete Horses, whether mythical or the prosaic, mundane and everyday kind...have commonsensical anatomy. If you can't see those horses were drawn by someone that has never truly observed 'horses'.before... I mean really wanted to know the 'how and why' they worked... because if they had, they would never have draw horses in this way. Then you're just are woefully unaware as those that say this particular piece is a work of genius.

[@scrunkus]

"It's reasonable to suspect there was some romantic interest..." then you say all the evidence says otherwise. So why would it be reasonable to suspect a romantic interest? You immediately contradict yourself

[@inasible]

Exactly, not all devotion, obsession or blind admiration most to be sexual, could be even borderline spiritual or even religious and that could be a hell/paradise to him too

[@bngr_bngr]

Given that we have all his writings her hypothetical has no basis in facts.

[@DavidBrown-ye5xv]

He’s devout… more so than his patron pope Julius who fathered a houseful of children? More so than the scandalous sacred college? Please.

[@edv54]

"Romantic Interest" and a physical relationship are not the same thing, maybe she had the idea but came out differently

[@licorishsoil]

Seems consistent to me, she said he probably thought he was attractive, as he was gay and this man had attractive qualities, but he just never acted on it. 👍🏻

[@golDroger88]

"Michealangelo was gay... but we have no reason to assume it" It's all so tiresome. Italy should sue these buffoons for slander.

[@alyph0]

How is it slanderous to hypothesize, based on the actual person's writings, he have had feelings for someone of the same sex? Obviously we can't know for sure since we have no access to the person in question but I don't see how this is wrong. Also, how and why would an actual country go about suing someone for making claims about the sexuality of a 16th century person?

[@golDroger88]

@@alyph0 Right, because the only possible feelings between two men are sexual. So Frodo and Samvise have to be gay and not friends. It's projection and willful thinking. The slander causes economical and image damage to the country's reputation and tourism industry.

[@moomoocowsly]

"I think it's reasonable to suspect there was some romantic interest on Michelangelo's part" Based on what evidence? The fact he cared about him? "We have no evidence..." then why say it? You're a professional educator putting out videos to the public in the name of the British Museum. Who told you to start adding your own personal conspiracy theories to this content?

[@98Zai]

Show me some love letters he wrote to young women.

[@tonyevans9999]

well done hyper focussing on a single passing reference. You cease speculating, squash all ideas into your little box, and the world bores itself to sleep. Go away

[@moomoocowsly]

@@tonyevans9999 Still no evidence.

[@moomoocowsly]

@@98Zai Vittoria Colonna was the main one

[@98Zai]

@@moomoocowsly Based on what evidence? The fact he cared about her?

[@Viscount_Castlereagh]

Michaelangelo may well have been a Jehovah's Witness. However there is no proof of this as the movement didn't even exist at this time. Just thought I'd throw my pointless personal opinion in for good measure. If the lady in the video can do it why can't I?

[@vegclasma468]

Maybe because the “lady in the video” is the curator of Italian and French Prints and Drawings at the British Museum… gotta admit she’s got more credibility than someone on the internet being shocked that gay people exist. Maybe don’t go check out the Ancient Greece exhibit since you can’t seem to handle this simple fact of life yet, I wouldn’t want you to get offended or anything.

[@Viscount_Castlereagh]

@@vegclasma468 She went on to say that there was no evidence that he was gay. And that he was a devout Catholic. So surely it was a complete waste of time saying what she did, the fact that she is the Curator saying uncredible statements makes it far worse than me saying them.

[@mortenw.3575]

The ham-fisted (and self-admittedly unfounded) gay agenda hampered an otherwise splendid lecture. Be a professional, please. Leave your personal politics at home.

[@pwp8737]

isn't there a DeSantis rally that you're missing by being here? Take your MAGA crap and put it ...

[@mortenw.3575]

Than you for showing me the error of my wicked ways. I see now that I am evil and entirely wrong.

[@robbyakes8736]

PLEASE STOP OWNING OTHER CULTURES GIVE IT BACK

[@stephanies.9620]

How disrespectful of you to voice a baseless opinion that he had a male lover. As you yourself said, he was deeply religious and there is no evidence of anything more than a platonic relationship. Why mention it then? Would you disrespect a person's memory who was of a more minor religion? I think not.

[@64Pete]

Someone's triggered.

[@pwp8737]

what was disrespectful of being gay; your bigotry is showing my dear!

[@noscur]

BRITISH MUSEUM COLLABING WITH CRIMINALS IN ADOR, MIN HEE JIN AND NEW JEANS. This is desperation.😅

[@jonerlandson1956]

i think there is something to an artist that uses his own paint mixes...