{"id":174,"date":"2017-03-22T17:49:29","date_gmt":"2017-03-22T17:49:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.history.qmul.ac.uk\/litcaricature\/?p=174"},"modified":"2024-10-02T08:43:10","modified_gmt":"2024-10-02T08:43:10","slug":"michelangelo-a-self-caricature","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.history.qmul.ac.uk\/litcaricature\/2017\/03\/22\/michelangelo-a-self-caricature\/","title":{"rendered":"Michelangelo: a self-caricature"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Caricature misshapes the masks that society\u00a0applies to the human face. This is why artists use deformation to build self-representations that contradict the social stereotypes of self-fashioning. In one of his poems, Michelangelo Buonarroti portrays his physical and psychological dejection creating a proper self-caricature: bluish coloured eyes, rotten teeth, a face that is fit to terrify, damaged clothes, injured ears and laboured breathing. The self-caricature involves not just the body of the artist, but also his own work of art: his writings become valueless scribblings, and his sculptures are seen as useless rag-dolls.<!--more--><\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_175\" style=\"width: 610px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-175\" class=\"size-full wp-image-175\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.history.qmul.ac.uk\/litcaricature\/files\/2017\/03\/12_Rembrandt_self-portrait.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"600\" height=\"775\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogs.history.qmul.ac.uk\/litcaricature\/files\/2017\/03\/12_Rembrandt_self-portrait.jpg 600w, https:\/\/blogs.history.qmul.ac.uk\/litcaricature\/files\/2017\/03\/12_Rembrandt_self-portrait-232x300.jpg 232w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-175\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Rembrandt, Self Portrait as Zeuxis, 1662, Amsterdam, Rijks Museum. Source: Wikimedia Commons, public domain.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>In a way that could remind of Rembrandt&#8217;s ruthless\u00a0self-portraits, the artist exposes, as Agamben would say, his <em>bare life<\/em> as a denial of the supreme, idealised, spiritual beauty of his works.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Gli occhi di biffa macinati e pesti,<br \/>\ni denti come tasti di stormento<br \/>\nc\u2019al moto lor la voce suoni e resti.<br \/>\nLa faccia mia ha forma di spavento;<br \/>\ni panni da cacciar, senz\u2019altro telo,<br \/>\ndal seme senza pioggia i corbi al vento.<br \/>\nMi cova in un orecchio un ragnatelo,<br \/>\nne l\u2019altro canta un grillo tutta notte;<br \/>\nn\u00e9 dormo e russ\u2019 al catarroso anelo.<br \/>\nAmor, le muse e le fiorite grotte,<br \/>\nmie scombiccheri, a\u2019 cemboli, a\u2019 cartocci,<br \/>\nagli osti, a\u2019 cessi, a\u2019 chiassi son condotte.<br \/>\nChe giova voler far tanti bambocci,<br \/>\nse m\u2019han condotto al fin, come colui<br \/>\nche pass\u00f2 \u2019l mar e poi affog\u00f2 ne\u2019 mocci?<br \/>\nL\u2019arte pregiata, ov\u2019alcun tempo fui<br \/>\ndi tant\u2019opin\u00efon, mi rec\u2019a questo,<br \/>\npovero, vecchio e servo in forz\u2019altrui,<br \/>\nch\u2019i\u2019 son disfatto, s\u2019i\u2019 non muoio presto.<\/p>\n<p>Rime, <em>capitolo 267, vv. 37-55<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Caricature misshapes the masks that society\u00a0applies to the human face. This is why artists use deformation to build self-representations that contradict the social stereotypes of self-fashioning. In one of his poems, Michelangelo Buonarroti portrays his physical and psychological dejection creating &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.history.qmul.ac.uk\/litcaricature\/2017\/03\/22\/michelangelo-a-self-caricature\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":175,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,15,8,18],"tags":[24,27,28,47,65,48,50,49],"class_list":["post-174","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-16th-century","category-historical-figures","category-paintings","category-poetry","tag-face","tag-italy","tag-man","tag-michelangelo","tag-rembrandt","tag-rime","tag-self-caricature","tag-self-portrait"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.history.qmul.ac.uk\/litcaricature\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.history.qmul.ac.uk\/litcaricature\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.history.qmul.ac.uk\/litcaricature\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.history.qmul.ac.uk\/litcaricature\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.history.qmul.ac.uk\/litcaricature\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=174"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.history.qmul.ac.uk\/litcaricature\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":327,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.history.qmul.ac.uk\/litcaricature\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174\/revisions\/327"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.history.qmul.ac.uk\/litcaricature\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/175"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.history.qmul.ac.uk\/litcaricature\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=174"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.history.qmul.ac.uk\/litcaricature\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=174"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.history.qmul.ac.uk\/litcaricature\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=174"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}