6 ms·

Michelangelo's first painting, created when he was 12 or 13

372 points by bookofjoe 10mo ago

worldsavior 10mo ago
Other than the drawing skill here, it's interesting why a kid thinks about demons attacking god. And why demons look like that for him.
- gjm11 10mo ago
  It looks like the figure they're attacking is meant to be St Anthony, rather than God.
  - sejje 10mo ago
    ... The painting is titled "The Torment of St Anthony," and the article didn't forget to include that detail.
- mcgannon2007 10mo ago
  It isn't an original work, but actually a painted version of a famous engraving by Martin Schongauer. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Temptation_of_St_Anthony_(Schongauer) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Temptation_of_St_Anthony_(...
  - maxbaines 10mo ago
    Thankyou
  - basch 10mo ago
    I am by no means an expert art historian but I'm not sure I 100% follow the logic of their conclusion. "pentimenti, or correction marks, a common indication that “a painting is not a copy, but an original work created with artistic freedom.”" How often are they analyzing copies made by 12 year old. Is a 12 year old more likely to have made errors or drifted from the source during the process of the copy? Could the corrections be attempts to bring the painting closer to its source, because it wasnt close enough?
    - tlb 10mo ago
      If you're copying from another painting, you don't paint a figure and then decide to move it a centimeter to the left. But original paintings often have such changes.
  - BeaverGoose 10mo ago
    The engraving is much better too. Shame we don't appreciate Schongauer as much as Michelangelo.
    - MontyCarloHall 10mo ago
      Of course it's much better, Schongauer was ~25 when he did the engraving. Michelangelo was 12 when he copied it. Likewise, it goes without saying that Haydn's symphonies circa 1765 were much better than Mozart's from the same time, since Haydn was ~30 years old and Mozart was ~10 years old. The remarkable thing about the early painting/symphonies isn't the absolute quality of the work, it's that they showcase the artists' intrinsic baseline talents, which they would then leverage as their skills improved with maturity to become some of the greatest artists of all time.
    - deleted 10mo ago
      [deleted]
    - dointheatl 10mo ago
      You know this isn't the only thing Michelangelo painted, right?
- dabluecaboose 10mo ago
  At this point in his life, Michaelangelo was probably apprenticed to Ghirlandaio. This wasn't a freeform doodle, but likely something of a homework assignment. It was common for young artists to be given famous works to copy, or common religious scenes to remake.
- lacunary 10mo ago
  It's just a reflection of his education. Even today, many children are raised with religious education that includes stories of demons attacking people. Kids love scary stuff; monsters, battle, etc.
- razakel 10mo ago
  As the article says, it's based on Schongauer's The Temptation of St. Anthony. There's even a version by Salvador Dali.
  - Oarch 10mo ago
    There are many versions, it's a popular theme. I saw 4 or 5 together in the Museum of Western Art in Tokyo recently.
  - agos 10mo ago
    there's a cool background to Dali's Temptation of St. Anthony. In 1946, 11 surrealist painters were asked to submit a painting to be used in a film (Albert Lewin's "The Private Affairs of Bel Ami"). Among the contestants were Max Ernst (who won), Leonora Carrington, Dalì, Stanley Spencer, Dorothea Tanning. Among the judges was Marcel Duchamp. The painting is then shown in color - the only color scene in an otherwise black and white movie. I think the reason why they specifically wanted the temptation of Saint Anthony had to do with censorship, but sadly I can't remember the details
- Maken 10mo ago
  Demons look like that in Medieval and Renaissance paintings. "Red dude with horns" didn't become the standard depiction of demons until much later.
  - williamdclt 10mo ago
    In modern representations, I think you'd be hard-pressed to find red-dude-with-horns. Seems like we shifted towards hot-dude-with-something-off (Lucifer series, Good Omens), when we do see red-dude-with-horns I feel like it's meant to be somewhat ironic/on-the-nose (south park, preacher).
    - dahart 10mo ago
      Hehe, not that that hard pressed. IMDB has a whole horned-demon category keyword: https://m.imdb.com/search/title/?keywords=horned-demon&explore=keywords https://m.imdb.com/search/title/?keywords=horned-demon&explo.... And those results don’t even include South Park, nor Hellboy. If I Google image search for “Satan” I get nothing but red horned demons for pages. There have always been wolf-in-sheep’s-clothing stories about The Devil too, it’s just a separate category.
- gwbas1c 10mo ago
  It makes me wonder what his home environment was like where he could put such detail into a painting. Something like that isn't made in an afternoon or weekend; and it definitely requires parents to provide resources and moral support.
- lotsofpulp 10mo ago
  12 years old is pretty old for a kid. I remember trying to reason through my grandparents’ religious beliefs at or before age 9, and they had taught me about lots of different demons, gods, etc.
al_borland 10mo ago
Surely this isn’t the first thing he ever painted, but rather the earliest known work that survived?
- andsoitis 10mo ago
  Yes probably first known work. The salient point though is that he did this at 12.
  - saberience 10mo ago
    How can they possibly know that for sure? It seems massively unlikely. We don't have any really reliable records from that time.
    - zeroonetwothree 10mo ago
      It seems like we do know the year it was painted fairly reliably, but we don't know that it was Michelangelo specifically that painted it (the article exudes more confidence that I would give based on the inherent uncertainty of these identifications).
    - dfxm12 10mo ago
      The article/video only points to this being proven by research done by Giorgio Bonsanti. If you're curious, you'll have to investigate that angle. It is frustrating that the article is so coy about the evidence around the premise of the article! But, this website and the youtube video this article is based around both lean more towards pop than investigative.
    - furyofantares 10mo ago
      What makes it massively unlikely? I could believe even quite a bit younger, there are some wildly talented children and it's easy to believe Michaelangelo to have been one.
    - deleted 10mo ago
      [deleted]
stavros 10mo ago
Do they mean that he grabbed a paintbrush one day and painted this out of the blue? Or does "painting" here mean "specifically painted on a canvas" or whatever?
- bookofjoe 10mo ago
  >... it became "the only painting by Michelangelo located anywhere in the Americas, and also just one of four easel paintings attributed to him throughout his entire career," during most of which he disparaged oil painting itself.
  - stavros 10mo ago
    How does this answer any part of my question?
    - andsoitis 10mo ago
      This is his first known work. The salient point though is that he did this at 12.
      - stavros 10mo ago
        Sure, though calling it "first" is misleading. "Earliest known" is the usual term for that.
        andsoitis 10mo ago
        Sure. But it is also obvious that you cannot possibly know that he hadn't painted ANYTHING before that. All of that misses the forest for the trees, which is he did it at an incredibly young age!
        anonymous908213 10mo ago
        It is less obvious than you think. Obvious to you and me, perhaps. But a significant portion of the population genuinely believes that you are born with the talent to just do this like it's nothing, or born with the talent to be a piano prodigy, etc, and as a result never bother to apply themselves, even though with the wealth of educational resources available today anyone[1] could make paintings of this quality if they were to put in the effort to learn. I think that article headlines that reinforce this popular misconception are rather damaging. [1] Given the level of pedantry on this site, I suppose I should say "almost anyone", since a small minority of people with severe disabilities may not be able to.
oldpersonintx 10mo ago
[dead]
fwip 10mo ago
I'm inclined to agree with the commenter on the article.
- mxfh 10mo ago
  I sure could find some experts for hire to drive up the price of my cultural artifact. Without anyone wanting to buy this and spend resources on that, finding claims to proof the contrary might be a quite futile task. The whole board of the Museum is non-experts. Nobody has any interest in devaluing that expense. In that era even attributing works definively to a single artist and not a school or workshop just feels a bit off. https://kimbellart.org/content/nuestro-kimbell https://kimbellart.org/content/nuestro-kimbell absurdly well citing reddit comment on the provenance: https://www.reddit.com/r/museum/comments/x6k3mm/comment/in893j7/ https://www.reddit.com/r/museum/comments/x6k3mm/comment/in89...
LegitShady 10mo ago
Not his first painting. Nobody picks up a brush for the first time and paints like that. Not an original work either. Just a practice masterstudy, one of many many many he'd made up to that point I'm sure.
- speff 10mo ago
  It's impressive that he did it at 12, but like you said, he had years of focused practice under his belt before he did this one. Anyone can do this level of work - they just need to actually learn it. It doesn't require someone be born with talent. Articles like this contribute towards the gatekeeping feeling people get about the arts in my opinion.
  - MontyCarloHall 10mo ago
    >Anyone can do this level of work - they just need to actually learn it. Sorry, that's like saying with enough math practice, any kid could perform at the level of young Terry Tao (e.g. teaching himself calculus at 8, winning a gold medal at the International Math Olympiad at 12). Some people are just intrinsically talented at certain things, and no amount of hard work in people lacking those intrinsic talents will get them to that level. This is indisputable when it comes to athletic talent; everyone would agree that no matter how much an average tall person practices basketball, they will never play at the level of Michael Jordan, LeBron James, or even the lowest ranked NBA player [0], for that matter. Artistic and intellectual talent is no different. [0] https://old.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/1oxpng5/til_that_in_2013_nba_player_brian_scalabrine_who/ https://old.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/1oxpng5/til_...
    - speff 10mo ago
      I didn't say anyone can become Michelangelo. I said anyone can do this level of work. That is, the exact same thing he did when he was 12, which is a master study. He didn't create the design - he copied a previous work and added color to find out what Schongauer's thought process was when making the original piece.
pstuart 10mo ago
I wonder how many Michelangelos we'd have today if we didn't have electronic distraction devices and only had old school tech for "entertainment"
- TheCycoONE 10mo ago
  Most of human history we didn't have electronic distraction devices and we have one Michelangelo; the answer is probably not as many as the question implies.
  - Lerc 10mo ago
    I don't think such genius is inhibited so much by distraction as it is by lack of support. Either that or genius has coincidentally clustered around where the resources have been. The world could be so much more vibrant if everyone was supported and nurtured. In such a world, many might find much less need to distract themselves with trivialities.
    - pstuart 10mo ago
      I agree that support is crucial, but stand by the "danger" of distraction. Digital distraction is a drug, and like other drugs has pros and cons -- I don't mean to demonize it. But it cannot be ignored. We've collectively arrived at point where we could have a post-scarcity society where the arts could be a driving force for so many of us. It's painful to see these possibilities and know that they are out of reach because of the sociopaths who have power over us.
- zppln 10mo ago
  Also consider the tools and materials available today. I don't know much about Michelangelo, but I imagine people's opportunity for sheer iteration (due to availability of qualitys pens, pappers, ink etc) is magnitudes higher (and cheaper) today.
- Ekaros 10mo ago
  I don't think there is that significant amount of artists that do not draw because entertainment. Artist communities online are doing pretty fine. There might not be enough money for all of them, but drawing is still popular enough hobby.
agumonkey 10mo ago
well the man would have loved to have a chat with H.P. Lovecraft it seems
- soupfordummies 10mo ago
  Yeah… was not really expecting that!
  - GuB-42 10mo ago
    I also didn't expect that, but then I realized that's the work of a teenage boy with a catholic education! Teenage boys love badass, edgy stuff. And what's badass and edgy in Catholicism? Demons! As for the art style, it is the style that was popular at the time. In a sense, it is not so different from today's kids drawing scenes inspired from their favorite comic. Of course, the painting here shows incredible talent, he is Michelangelo after all, but that doesn't make him less of a kid.
    - agumonkey 10mo ago
      as a 20th century dude, i expected edgy medieval stuff to be more like knights in armor with 2 swords and dragons.. but maybe that is a distortion from our era.. maybe most of what people talked about was god, good and evil
owlninja 10mo ago
What a crazy coincidence... I had not been to the Kimbell art musesum that is only about 20 minutes away from me in many years. We had a family outing this weekend to go see the Torlonia Collection exhibit there and this painting was just sitting there in their permanent collection! I even got to listen to the guided tour group that happened to be at that painting as I was walking by.
- psbp 10mo ago
  The Caravaggio was incredible too.
  - owlninja 10mo ago
    Yes it was! Truly amazing.
- chicagojoe 10mo ago
  The Torlonia collection was recently in Chicago and had some truly stunning pieces. The Ostia relief was tucked away in a corner and I nearly missed it. The traveling exhibition is well worth seeing for anyone remotely interested in ancient history.
amarant 10mo ago
Something about this painting is reminiscent of the way I(and I'm sure many others) would paint my comic-book heroes at around that age, albeit perhaps lacking some of Michelangelo's talents and skills. This painting makes me feel like the bible was pretty much a comic book to the adolescent Michelangelo, and I like that thought. He later went on to paint the ceiling of a huge temple dedicated to his equivalent of Charles Xavier. I bet that felt pretty cool for him =)
- Mouvelie 10mo ago
  Fun fact ! Michelangelo hated doing the ceiling thing. https://www.dutchfinepaintings.com/michelangelos-sistine-chapel-ceiling-fun-facts/ https://www.dutchfinepaintings.com/michelangelos-sistine-cha...
- phyzix5761 10mo ago
  He hated painting the Sistine Chapel ceiling because he saw himself primarily as a sculptor. You can read some of the graphic language he used to describe his perspective of having to do it. Also, he was constantly in pain and would go temporarily blind from holding his head in certain positions for hours at a time.
- mylons 10mo ago
  my father made reading The Agony and The Ecstasy a requirement to go to Italy when I was a sophomore in high school. It's a thick tome, but a great read if you're a curious kid. as the others said Michelangelo hated doing that painting. He's a very tragic, albeit heroic to me, man. I'd recommend that book if you're at all fascinated by him.
- scandox 10mo ago
  St Anthony was alive in the high middle ages. So not a biblical figure. Much closer to the artists own time. Edit: as below a more famous and earlier St Anthony was indeed much closer to the time of the gospels
  - smithkl42 10mo ago
    There were two St. Anthony's. The one in this painting is the first St. Anthony. He was celebrated by Athanasius in a widely read biography and was famous for fighting off demons in the Egyptian desert. He lived from ~251-356 AD. (But yes, a post-Biblical figure.)
ojciecczas 10mo ago
One thing is to invent such a picture, the other is to copy it almost 1:1 and add some touch, which was the case.
tummler 10mo ago
If my 12-year-old painted that, I would call a priest for an exorcism.
- hackitup7 10mo ago
  Seriously. Both because of the talent but also because wtf Mikey don't you want to draw a knight in shining armor or a cow or something.
  - lo_zamoyski 10mo ago
    I'm willing to bet this was assigned to him as part of his training or something, but I don't know that. On the subject of the content, in actual seriousness, this was a pre-modern, pre-secularized age before the traditionally religious was privatized and viewed as some kind of optional quirky fantasy for adults, subject to taste, one as good as the other. So, moral instruction would have been more overt and crisp, and the subject matter prominent in public. The challenges and difficulties of the moral life would have been taught and spoken of more openly. I know the OP is joking, but this would be no cause for alarm, as the image is noble in its content. It depicts St. Anthony's triumph over the demonic. It does not glorify the demonic or debase the good. In this context, Man's fallen state predisposes him toward sin. He is tempted to do things he should not and knows he should not. Add to that the malice and opportunism of the fallen angels - the demons - who, while on a short divine leash, nonetheless can exploit the weaknesses and evil in men to lead them toward their doom. The image would then be received as quite inspiring, perhaps helping to inspire and concentrate the viewer's own efforts to resist temptation, combat evil, and to progress on his own journey of conquering the self.
- nwatson 10mo ago
  His painting is based on a prior work, an engraving by Martin Schongauer ... "The Temptation of St Anthony" ... see here https://www.wikiart.org/en/martin-schongauer/the-temptation-of-st-anthony https://www.wikiart.org/en/martin-schongauer/the-temptation-... ... So he was re-rendering a religious folk story.
herbertl 10mo ago
It's mentioned in the article that this is a (really good!) painted version of The Torment of Saint Anthony, an engraving by Martin Schongauer. Michelangelo would go on to find his first patron, a Cardinal named Raffaele Riario, by forging a sculpture and artificially aging it (which, back then, was a conventional practice to demonstrate expertise and skill: https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/how-a-forged-sculpture-boosted-michelangelos-early-career https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/how-a-forged-sculpture...) Dishonesty aside, both stories are reminders that there's a power to doing stuff with your own two hands (not genning it), as well as not to let today's emphasis on originality take away from using imitation/transcription to practice your craft: https://herbertlui.net/in-defense-of-copycats/ https://herbertlui.net/in-defense-of-copycats/
mythical_39 10mo ago
Wonder if we replace the demons with the various things which today try to capture our attention? Or the massive chemical swings we self-induce, and how those might tear at (or help??) our soul?
- lo_zamoyski 10mo ago
  The first presupposition behind this painting is that Man is fallen. That means we have a predisposition to sin, that is to say, to voluntarily choose to do what we should not - in short, sin is an abuse of free will, which can only be licitly used to choose the good. A person might feel the temptation to do something he should not. We are enticed. It seems to promise happiness. "I could have X, if I only did this evil thing Y." Do we give in? Do we indulge? When we do, we have sinned. We have lost the spiritual battle. Ultimately, the smoke evaporates, the mirrors crumble, and we are left with empty hands and the damage done, above all to ourselves. Then, there is the fallenness of some angels, the demons, immaterial beings of various species of superior intellect and power who - while on a short leash - are still able to act on fallen men in malicious ways to lead them toward self-destruction. This "short leash" should be expanded. If God did not constrain the power of the demons, it is anyone's guess the devastation of the universe they could wreak. But since God is master of all creation, even the demons are pressed into the service of the good, but instrumentally. Even evil is made to further the divine plan. Thus, God permits the demonic assaults on St. Anthony as a kind of spiritual training for him, part of which involves developing a greater surrender of self to God. Now, someone who doesn't believe in demons won't find demonic activity and role in human sin compelling. I suspect that is the motivation behind your question. Someone who doesn't can at least recognize the struggle with various temptations and the struggle of the moral life. In that sense, if these are the sorts of things you struggle with, then you may find the image you have in mind helpful. But, of course, to know how one should act and choose, one should also know where one is going. St. Anthony knew his destination, and this destination is not arbitrary. That's what he suffered for and a large part of the reason how he came to know how to move in that direction and why he was able to bear it all.
Nifty3929 10mo ago
If you just want to see the painting without all the ads: https://cdn8.openculture.com/2026/01/14225354/1920px-Michelangelo_Buonarroti_-_The_Torment_of_Saint_Anthony_-_Google_Art_Project-scaled-1.jpg https://cdn8.openculture.com/2026/01/14225354/1920px-Michela...
- 2b3a51 10mo ago
  Also on Wikimedia at various resolutions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Michelangelo_Buonarroti_-_The_Torment_of_Saint_Anthony_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Michelangelo_Buonarroti_-... I've cropped that little blue sailing ship at the bottom of the canvas to make a wallpaper.
- ASalazarMX 10mo ago
  Jesus Christ, you can see he was going to be an unusual artist by the way he focused on that gaping demon butthole. Edit: the butthole is in the original engraving his painting is based on, so not his own vision, fortunately I guess. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Temptation_of_St_Anthony_(Schongauer) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Temptation_of_St_Anthony_(...
  - CGMthrowaway 10mo ago
    That's just typical 12 year old stuff
  - palmotea 10mo ago
    > Jesus Christ, you can see he was going to be an unusual artist by the way he focused on that gaping demon butthole. You know, that might actually be the demons mouth. There are eyes and whiskers and stuff next to it. And if that's the case, it would mean the demon's butthole has teeth.
    - mikestorrent 10mo ago
      Many such cases
  - 10mo ago
futurist654 10mo ago
[flagged]
Jerry2 10mo ago
This is just a summary of the the Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Torment_of_Saint_Anthony https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Torment_of_Saint_Anthony
Fh_ 10mo ago
Must be his earliest work we know, not the first painting he did, because this is too good.
- ninalanyon 10mo ago
  Too right! There must have been dozens of works before that one.
- luxuryballs 10mo ago
  yeah it’s more like the earliest one that was worth preserving or considering “a finished piece” however that worked back then, the first shippable code
racl101 10mo ago
That picture was always freaky to me as a kid.
iambateman 10mo ago
I’m enjoying the thought of seeing this in the state fair art gallery next to the other seventh grade art. It’s wild that someone could be that good that young.
apetrovic 10mo ago
I don't want to compare anyone to Michelangelo, but the opening sentence of the aticle is more than flawed. My daughter got some painting classes in that age, and I saw work of some gifted kids. A bit better than "directionless doodles, chaotic comics, and a few unsteady-at-best school projects".
smokel 10mo ago
I don't trust this for one bit. For the owners there is quite the incentive to label this as the work of a genius. But in reality, this is just pretty complex for a 12 year-old to produce by yourself. Edit: as others have pointed out, and if I were to actually read the article carefully before commenting, the composition is not attributed to Michelangelo. So it is just a copy. Quite the achievement, but possible for a twelve-year old. I once confronted a gallery owner who was proudly presenting a newly discovered work by Mondriaan [1]. An original black and white photo in an old newspaper [2] was shown as proof of authenticity. But many details such as the creases in fabric differ in the original and the new painting. No OpenCV required to see that. Mind you, the picture is already framed with Mondriaan standing next to it. Unlikely that he's still working on it. Instead of responding, the gallery owner simply turned away. [1] https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bb/Cavalini_Mondriaan_1901.jpg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bb/Cavalini... [2] https://www.vrt.be/vrtnws/nl/2022/03/02/nieuwe-werken-mondriaan-opgedoken/ https://www.vrt.be/vrtnws/nl/2022/03/02/nieuwe-werken-mondri...
- deleted 10mo ago
  [deleted]
- sltkr 10mo ago
  I don't have an opinion on whether the attribution is correct, but I don't think the complexity of the composition is a strong argument against it considering the artist was copying the engraving by Schongauer exactly (maybe even painting on top of it?) which takes a lot of the complexity out of it.
- abdulhaq 10mo ago
  You might be right but the gallery owner has probably learnt that disputing the authenticity of his pieces with walk in punters rarely leads to a fruitful discussion
- prox 10mo ago
  Just to engage with your “12 year old to produce by yourself” , here are some examples of art made by Picasso in his early teens to mid teens. It’s absolutely possible to be that good. Especially in the middle ages / early renaissance with the work you did for guilds and working for masters as an apprentice. At eleven years old: https://www.pablo-ruiz-picasso.net/work-3939.php https://www.pablo-ruiz-picasso.net/work-3939.php At fourteen at his sisters wedding: https://www.pablo-ruiz-picasso.net/work-9.php https://www.pablo-ruiz-picasso.net/work-9.php At fifteen https://www.pablo-ruiz-picasso.net/work-11.php https://www.pablo-ruiz-picasso.net/work-11.php
officehero 10mo ago
I'm surprised at how few parents understand what it takes to create a great artist. You need to start when they're 5 (or preferably younger), put them in a workshop with great artists/pedagogues etc. (costly!) where they work full time (forget school), evaluate potential and there is a tiny chance they themselves will become great. Annoyed by parents talking about their 5 year olds as "too young" or when they recommend their teenager to 'pursue their dream' when they don't provide a fraction of above. It's still possible but odds go down dramatically.
- roadside_picnic 10mo ago
  Many of the comments here are expressing disbelief that this could have been created by a 12 year old, but people fail to recognize that, not only did Michelangelo have tremendous natural talent, but grow up in a world where, as a child, he was allowed to spend enormous amounts of his time and energy studying with professional artists. He wasn't being dropped off a school at 7am, squirming in a chair until 3pm, playing video games before dinner and then doing homework until bed all while squeezing in a bit of time for sketching. The vast majority of people probably benefit more from our current structure, but it does make it much less likely to have "genius" of the type we see in Michelangelo, Mozart, etc.
  - watwut 10mo ago
    > at the age of 13, Michelangelo was apprenticed to Ghirlandaio. The next year, his father persuaded Ghirlandaio to pay Michelangelo as an artist, which was rare for someone that young He was literally getting education in art. It is not like there was no structure.
    - roadside_picnic 10mo ago
      The apprenticeship was after this was painted. Prior to engaging in formal training he largely ignored school and spend his time painting and seeking out other painters to learn from: > As a young boy, Michelangelo was sent to the city of Florence to study grammar under the Humanist Francesco da Urbino. Michelangelo showed no interest in his schooling, preferring to copy paintings from churches and seek the company of other painters. [0] You can search other sources and you'll find the same: prior to apprenticeship he was not formally enrolled in any form of art education. 0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michelangelo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michelangelo
jihadjihad 10mo ago
The interesting thing in Michelangelo's case is that he viewed himself primarily as a sculptor. He was more or less forced against his will to paint the Sistine Chapel. And yet he was a master of the medium.
doctorhandshake 10mo ago
This visually resembles Falling Bough by Walton Ford https://www.kasmingallery.com/artworks/4717-walton-ford-falling-bough-2002/ https://www.kasmingallery.com/artworks/4717-walton-ford-fall...
throwpoaster 10mo ago
Press X to Doubt.
BiraIgnacio 10mo ago
Related https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Agony_and_the_Ecstasy_(novel) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Agony_and_the_Ecstasy_(nov... Great book!
ada1981 10mo ago
This is my all time favorite motif! St. Anthony is a fascinating figure. Father of wilderness monasticism, left Egypt to hear god, spent the night in a cave fighting the devil and won; the patron saint of psychedelics or at least Ergotism, the affliction of entire towns when the grain was infected with ergot fungus, which would later by synthesized into LSD. I am actually in the process of curating a museum quality coffee table book in collaboration with Getty of at least 117 of the variations on this theme from Dali to Bosch to Michelangelo. (1/17 is St. Anthony's day, and my birthday, and my name is Anthony - coincidentally). Shoot me an email if you'd like to collaborate or would like an update when the project officially launches! a+st@175g.com
taco_emoji 10mo ago
that's metal as hell
owenversteeg 10mo ago
Comments here are interesting. Of course it’s a copy, he was 12. For pretty much of all of human history, to make art you would first consume large amounts of it to develop taste and then make many copies to develop skill and style. The average modern-day artist (writer, painter, poet, etc) does this far less than ever before, to the point where we have forgotten that’s how learning works.
- turbonaut 10mo ago
  A certain type of modern day artist voraciously consumes art in order to develop its taste, skill and style. More so than ever in history. The names of these artists are less traditional, however, eg Nano Banana.
- bigbuppo 10mo ago
  I would say they still do this... it's just called "fan art" now.
sebmellen 10mo ago
I've seen this painting a couple of times a week for the past few years, since I live within walking distance of the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth, where it's held. It's super tiny in person, but it's very cool to see it. “Fort Worth” probably doesn't conjure to mind a very lively art scene, but in the museum district here we have the Fort Worth Modern Art Museum, the Kimbell Art Museum, and the Amon Carter Museum of American Art, all within walking distance of each other. Each one is worth a visit.
- OhMeadhbh 10mo ago
  Ft Worth hits above it's weight WRT high art. The Kimbell, the Modern, the Amon Carter... all world class. (And if you're an architecture nut, the main Kimbell building was designed by Louis I. Kahn and is a delight to wander around in.) The local symphony is better than you would expect, given the city's size. I have too many memories of dead friends and family to want to live in Fort Worth, but if you get a job offer in Tarrant County, it's not just pickup-trucks, guns and C&W clones trying to be extras on Landman. (And pickup-trucks and C&W clones aren't as bad as you might think. And I lived there for decades and was, surprisingly, shot when visiting a different city.)
nephihaha 10mo ago
Teenagers still love drawing demons and monsters so I suppose it fits!
debbiedowner 10mo ago
Checkout the movie "The Lost Leonardo" for a glimpse into the weird world of art attribution. tl;dw is that there are big financial incentives to attributing one way or another.
leiaru13 10mo ago
Interesting if true. This painting seems like it's largely in the style of Northern Renaissance painters and has been considered to be the work of Martin Schongauer. Allegedly, he was initially trained as an engraver and made 100+ prints, so it is possible that the painting got misattributed due to the original print: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/b7/Schongauer_Anthony.jpg/1280px-Schongauer_Anthony.jpg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/b7/Sc...
mlvljr 10mo ago
[dead]

372 points by bookofjoe 10mo ago

Other than the drawing skill here, it's interesting why a kid thinks about demons attacking god. And why demons look like that for him.

gjm11 10mo ago
It looks like the figure they're attacking is meant to be St Anthony, rather than God.
- sejje 10mo ago
  ... The painting is titled "The Torment of St Anthony," and the article didn't forget to include that detail.
mcgannon2007 10mo ago
It isn't an original work, but actually a painted version of a famous engraving by Martin Schongauer. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Temptation_of_St_Anthony_(Schongauer) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Temptation_of_St_Anthony_(...
- maxbaines 10mo ago
  Thankyou
- basch 10mo ago
  I am by no means an expert art historian but I'm not sure I 100% follow the logic of their conclusion. "pentimenti, or correction marks, a common indication that “a painting is not a copy, but an original work created with artistic freedom.”" How often are they analyzing copies made by 12 year old. Is a 12 year old more likely to have made errors or drifted from the source during the process of the copy? Could the corrections be attempts to bring the painting closer to its source, because it wasnt close enough?
  - tlb 10mo ago
    If you're copying from another painting, you don't paint a figure and then decide to move it a centimeter to the left. But original paintings often have such changes.
- BeaverGoose 10mo ago
  The engraving is much better too. Shame we don't appreciate Schongauer as much as Michelangelo.
  - MontyCarloHall 10mo ago
    Of course it's much better, Schongauer was ~25 when he did the engraving. Michelangelo was 12 when he copied it. Likewise, it goes without saying that Haydn's symphonies circa 1765 were much better than Mozart's from the same time, since Haydn was ~30 years old and Mozart was ~10 years old. The remarkable thing about the early painting/symphonies isn't the absolute quality of the work, it's that they showcase the artists' intrinsic baseline talents, which they would then leverage as their skills improved with maturity to become some of the greatest artists of all time.
  - deleted 10mo ago
    [deleted]
  - dointheatl 10mo ago
    You know this isn't the only thing Michelangelo painted, right?
dabluecaboose 10mo ago
At this point in his life, Michaelangelo was probably apprenticed to Ghirlandaio. This wasn't a freeform doodle, but likely something of a homework assignment. It was common for young artists to be given famous works to copy, or common religious scenes to remake.
lacunary 10mo ago
It's just a reflection of his education. Even today, many children are raised with religious education that includes stories of demons attacking people. Kids love scary stuff; monsters, battle, etc.
razakel 10mo ago
As the article says, it's based on Schongauer's The Temptation of St. Anthony. There's even a version by Salvador Dali.
- Oarch 10mo ago
  There are many versions, it's a popular theme. I saw 4 or 5 together in the Museum of Western Art in Tokyo recently.
- agos 10mo ago
  there's a cool background to Dali's Temptation of St. Anthony. In 1946, 11 surrealist painters were asked to submit a painting to be used in a film (Albert Lewin's "The Private Affairs of Bel Ami"). Among the contestants were Max Ernst (who won), Leonora Carrington, Dalì, Stanley Spencer, Dorothea Tanning. Among the judges was Marcel Duchamp. The painting is then shown in color - the only color scene in an otherwise black and white movie. I think the reason why they specifically wanted the temptation of Saint Anthony had to do with censorship, but sadly I can't remember the details
Maken 10mo ago
Demons look like that in Medieval and Renaissance paintings. "Red dude with horns" didn't become the standard depiction of demons until much later.
- williamdclt 10mo ago
  In modern representations, I think you'd be hard-pressed to find red-dude-with-horns. Seems like we shifted towards hot-dude-with-something-off (Lucifer series, Good Omens), when we do see red-dude-with-horns I feel like it's meant to be somewhat ironic/on-the-nose (south park, preacher).
  - dahart 10mo ago
    Hehe, not that that hard pressed. IMDB has a whole horned-demon category keyword: https://m.imdb.com/search/title/?keywords=horned-demon&explore=keywords https://m.imdb.com/search/title/?keywords=horned-demon&explo.... And those results don’t even include South Park, nor Hellboy. If I Google image search for “Satan” I get nothing but red horned demons for pages. There have always been wolf-in-sheep’s-clothing stories about The Devil too, it’s just a separate category.
gwbas1c 10mo ago
It makes me wonder what his home environment was like where he could put such detail into a painting. Something like that isn't made in an afternoon or weekend; and it definitely requires parents to provide resources and moral support.
lotsofpulp 10mo ago
12 years old is pretty old for a kid. I remember trying to reason through my grandparents’ religious beliefs at or before age 9, and they had taught me about lots of different demons, gods, etc.

al_borland 10mo ago

Surely this isn’t the first thing he ever painted, but rather the earliest known work that survived?

andsoitis 10mo ago
Yes probably first known work. The salient point though is that he did this at 12.
- saberience 10mo ago
  How can they possibly know that for sure? It seems massively unlikely. We don't have any really reliable records from that time.
  - zeroonetwothree 10mo ago
    It seems like we do know the year it was painted fairly reliably, but we don't know that it was Michelangelo specifically that painted it (the article exudes more confidence that I would give based on the inherent uncertainty of these identifications).
  - dfxm12 10mo ago
    The article/video only points to this being proven by research done by Giorgio Bonsanti. If you're curious, you'll have to investigate that angle. It is frustrating that the article is so coy about the evidence around the premise of the article! But, this website and the youtube video this article is based around both lean more towards pop than investigative.
  - furyofantares 10mo ago
    What makes it massively unlikely? I could believe even quite a bit younger, there are some wildly talented children and it's easy to believe Michaelangelo to have been one.
  - deleted 10mo ago
    [deleted]

stavros 10mo ago

Do they mean that he grabbed a paintbrush one day and painted this out of the blue? Or does "painting" here mean "specifically painted on a canvas" or whatever?

bookofjoe 10mo ago
>... it became "the only painting by Michelangelo located anywhere in the Americas, and also just one of four easel paintings attributed to him throughout his entire career," during most of which he disparaged oil painting itself.
- stavros 10mo ago
  How does this answer any part of my question?
  - andsoitis 10mo ago
    This is his first known work. The salient point though is that he did this at 12.
    - stavros 10mo ago
      Sure, though calling it "first" is misleading. "Earliest known" is the usual term for that.
      - andsoitis 10mo ago
        Sure. But it is also obvious that you cannot possibly know that he hadn't painted ANYTHING before that. All of that misses the forest for the trees, which is he did it at an incredibly young age!
        anonymous908213 10mo ago
        It is less obvious than you think. Obvious to you and me, perhaps. But a significant portion of the population genuinely believes that you are born with the talent to just do this like it's nothing, or born with the talent to be a piano prodigy, etc, and as a result never bother to apply themselves, even though with the wealth of educational resources available today anyone[1] could make paintings of this quality if they were to put in the effort to learn. I think that article headlines that reinforce this popular misconception are rather damaging. [1] Given the level of pedantry on this site, I suppose I should say "almost anyone", since a small minority of people with severe disabilities may not be able to.

oldpersonintx 10mo ago

[dead]

fwip 10mo ago

I'm inclined to agree with the commenter on the article.

mxfh 10mo ago
I sure could find some experts for hire to drive up the price of my cultural artifact. Without anyone wanting to buy this and spend resources on that, finding claims to proof the contrary might be a quite futile task. The whole board of the Museum is non-experts. Nobody has any interest in devaluing that expense. In that era even attributing works definively to a single artist and not a school or workshop just feels a bit off. https://kimbellart.org/content/nuestro-kimbell https://kimbellart.org/content/nuestro-kimbell absurdly well citing reddit comment on the provenance: https://www.reddit.com/r/museum/comments/x6k3mm/comment/in893j7/ https://www.reddit.com/r/museum/comments/x6k3mm/comment/in89...

LegitShady 10mo ago

Not his first painting. Nobody picks up a brush for the first time and paints like that. Not an original work either. Just a practice masterstudy, one of many many many he'd made up to that point I'm sure.

speff 10mo ago
It's impressive that he did it at 12, but like you said, he had years of focused practice under his belt before he did this one. Anyone can do this level of work - they just need to actually learn it. It doesn't require someone be born with talent. Articles like this contribute towards the gatekeeping feeling people get about the arts in my opinion.
- MontyCarloHall 10mo ago
  >Anyone can do this level of work - they just need to actually learn it. Sorry, that's like saying with enough math practice, any kid could perform at the level of young Terry Tao (e.g. teaching himself calculus at 8, winning a gold medal at the International Math Olympiad at 12). Some people are just intrinsically talented at certain things, and no amount of hard work in people lacking those intrinsic talents will get them to that level. This is indisputable when it comes to athletic talent; everyone would agree that no matter how much an average tall person practices basketball, they will never play at the level of Michael Jordan, LeBron James, or even the lowest ranked NBA player [0], for that matter. Artistic and intellectual talent is no different. [0] https://old.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/1oxpng5/til_that_in_2013_nba_player_brian_scalabrine_who/ https://old.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/1oxpng5/til_...
  - speff 10mo ago
    I didn't say anyone can become Michelangelo. I said anyone can do this level of work. That is, the exact same thing he did when he was 12, which is a master study. He didn't create the design - he copied a previous work and added color to find out what Schongauer's thought process was when making the original piece.

pstuart 10mo ago

I wonder how many Michelangelos we'd have today if we didn't have electronic distraction devices and only had old school tech for "entertainment"

TheCycoONE 10mo ago
Most of human history we didn't have electronic distraction devices and we have one Michelangelo; the answer is probably not as many as the question implies.
- Lerc 10mo ago
  I don't think such genius is inhibited so much by distraction as it is by lack of support. Either that or genius has coincidentally clustered around where the resources have been. The world could be so much more vibrant if everyone was supported and nurtured. In such a world, many might find much less need to distract themselves with trivialities.
  - pstuart 10mo ago
    I agree that support is crucial, but stand by the "danger" of distraction. Digital distraction is a drug, and like other drugs has pros and cons -- I don't mean to demonize it. But it cannot be ignored. We've collectively arrived at point where we could have a post-scarcity society where the arts could be a driving force for so many of us. It's painful to see these possibilities and know that they are out of reach because of the sociopaths who have power over us.
zppln 10mo ago
Also consider the tools and materials available today. I don't know much about Michelangelo, but I imagine people's opportunity for sheer iteration (due to availability of qualitys pens, pappers, ink etc) is magnitudes higher (and cheaper) today.
Ekaros 10mo ago
I don't think there is that significant amount of artists that do not draw because entertainment. Artist communities online are doing pretty fine. There might not be enough money for all of them, but drawing is still popular enough hobby.

agumonkey 10mo ago

well the man would have loved to have a chat with H.P. Lovecraft it seems

soupfordummies 10mo ago
Yeah… was not really expecting that!
- GuB-42 10mo ago
  I also didn't expect that, but then I realized that's the work of a teenage boy with a catholic education! Teenage boys love badass, edgy stuff. And what's badass and edgy in Catholicism? Demons! As for the art style, it is the style that was popular at the time. In a sense, it is not so different from today's kids drawing scenes inspired from their favorite comic. Of course, the painting here shows incredible talent, he is Michelangelo after all, but that doesn't make him less of a kid.
  - agumonkey 10mo ago
    as a 20th century dude, i expected edgy medieval stuff to be more like knights in armor with 2 swords and dragons.. but maybe that is a distortion from our era.. maybe most of what people talked about was god, good and evil

owlninja 10mo ago

What a crazy coincidence... I had not been to the Kimbell art musesum that is only about 20 minutes away from me in many years. We had a family outing this weekend to go see the Torlonia Collection exhibit there and this painting was just sitting there in their permanent collection! I even got to listen to the guided tour group that happened to be at that painting as I was walking by.

psbp 10mo ago
The Caravaggio was incredible too.
- owlninja 10mo ago
  Yes it was! Truly amazing.
chicagojoe 10mo ago
The Torlonia collection was recently in Chicago and had some truly stunning pieces. The Ostia relief was tucked away in a corner and I nearly missed it. The traveling exhibition is well worth seeing for anyone remotely interested in ancient history.

amarant 10mo ago

Something about this painting is reminiscent of the way I(and I'm sure many others) would paint my comic-book heroes at around that age, albeit perhaps lacking some of Michelangelo's talents and skills. This painting makes me feel like the bible was pretty much a comic book to the adolescent Michelangelo, and I like that thought. He later went on to paint the ceiling of a huge temple dedicated to his equivalent of Charles Xavier. I bet that felt pretty cool for him =)

Mouvelie 10mo ago
Fun fact ! Michelangelo hated doing the ceiling thing. https://www.dutchfinepaintings.com/michelangelos-sistine-chapel-ceiling-fun-facts/ https://www.dutchfinepaintings.com/michelangelos-sistine-cha...
phyzix5761 10mo ago
He hated painting the Sistine Chapel ceiling because he saw himself primarily as a sculptor. You can read some of the graphic language he used to describe his perspective of having to do it. Also, he was constantly in pain and would go temporarily blind from holding his head in certain positions for hours at a time.
mylons 10mo ago
my father made reading The Agony and The Ecstasy a requirement to go to Italy when I was a sophomore in high school. It's a thick tome, but a great read if you're a curious kid. as the others said Michelangelo hated doing that painting. He's a very tragic, albeit heroic to me, man. I'd recommend that book if you're at all fascinated by him.
scandox 10mo ago
St Anthony was alive in the high middle ages. So not a biblical figure. Much closer to the artists own time. Edit: as below a more famous and earlier St Anthony was indeed much closer to the time of the gospels
- smithkl42 10mo ago
  There were two St. Anthony's. The one in this painting is the first St. Anthony. He was celebrated by Athanasius in a widely read biography and was famous for fighting off demons in the Egyptian desert. He lived from ~251-356 AD. (But yes, a post-Biblical figure.)

ojciecczas 10mo ago

One thing is to invent such a picture, the other is to copy it almost 1:1 and add some touch, which was the case.

tummler 10mo ago

If my 12-year-old painted that, I would call a priest for an exorcism.

hackitup7 10mo ago
Seriously. Both because of the talent but also because wtf Mikey don't you want to draw a knight in shining armor or a cow or something.
- lo_zamoyski 10mo ago
  I'm willing to bet this was assigned to him as part of his training or something, but I don't know that. On the subject of the content, in actual seriousness, this was a pre-modern, pre-secularized age before the traditionally religious was privatized and viewed as some kind of optional quirky fantasy for adults, subject to taste, one as good as the other. So, moral instruction would have been more overt and crisp, and the subject matter prominent in public. The challenges and difficulties of the moral life would have been taught and spoken of more openly. I know the OP is joking, but this would be no cause for alarm, as the image is noble in its content. It depicts St. Anthony's triumph over the demonic. It does not glorify the demonic or debase the good. In this context, Man's fallen state predisposes him toward sin. He is tempted to do things he should not and knows he should not. Add to that the malice and opportunism of the fallen angels - the demons - who, while on a short divine leash, nonetheless can exploit the weaknesses and evil in men to lead them toward their doom. The image would then be received as quite inspiring, perhaps helping to inspire and concentrate the viewer's own efforts to resist temptation, combat evil, and to progress on his own journey of conquering the self.
nwatson 10mo ago
His painting is based on a prior work, an engraving by Martin Schongauer ... "The Temptation of St Anthony" ... see here https://www.wikiart.org/en/martin-schongauer/the-temptation-of-st-anthony https://www.wikiart.org/en/martin-schongauer/the-temptation-... ... So he was re-rendering a religious folk story.

herbertl 10mo ago

It's mentioned in the article that this is a (really good!) painted version of The Torment of Saint Anthony, an engraving by Martin Schongauer. Michelangelo would go on to find his first patron, a Cardinal named Raffaele Riario, by forging a sculpture and artificially aging it (which, back then, was a conventional practice to demonstrate expertise and skill: https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/how-a-forged-sculpture-boosted-michelangelos-early-career https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/how-a-forged-sculpture...) Dishonesty aside, both stories are reminders that there's a power to doing stuff with your own two hands (not genning it), as well as not to let today's emphasis on originality take away from using imitation/transcription to practice your craft: https://herbertlui.net/in-defense-of-copycats/ https://herbertlui.net/in-defense-of-copycats/

mythical_39 10mo ago

Wonder if we replace the demons with the various things which today try to capture our attention? Or the massive chemical swings we self-induce, and how those might tear at (or help??) our soul?

lo_zamoyski 10mo ago
The first presupposition behind this painting is that Man is fallen. That means we have a predisposition to sin, that is to say, to voluntarily choose to do what we should not - in short, sin is an abuse of free will, which can only be licitly used to choose the good. A person might feel the temptation to do something he should not. We are enticed. It seems to promise happiness. "I could have X, if I only did this evil thing Y." Do we give in? Do we indulge? When we do, we have sinned. We have lost the spiritual battle. Ultimately, the smoke evaporates, the mirrors crumble, and we are left with empty hands and the damage done, above all to ourselves. Then, there is the fallenness of some angels, the demons, immaterial beings of various species of superior intellect and power who - while on a short leash - are still able to act on fallen men in malicious ways to lead them toward self-destruction. This "short leash" should be expanded. If God did not constrain the power of the demons, it is anyone's guess the devastation of the universe they could wreak. But since God is master of all creation, even the demons are pressed into the service of the good, but instrumentally. Even evil is made to further the divine plan. Thus, God permits the demonic assaults on St. Anthony as a kind of spiritual training for him, part of which involves developing a greater surrender of self to God. Now, someone who doesn't believe in demons won't find demonic activity and role in human sin compelling. I suspect that is the motivation behind your question. Someone who doesn't can at least recognize the struggle with various temptations and the struggle of the moral life. In that sense, if these are the sorts of things you struggle with, then you may find the image you have in mind helpful. But, of course, to know how one should act and choose, one should also know where one is going. St. Anthony knew his destination, and this destination is not arbitrary. That's what he suffered for and a large part of the reason how he came to know how to move in that direction and why he was able to bear it all.

Nifty3929 10mo ago

If you just want to see the painting without all the ads: https://cdn8.openculture.com/2026/01/14225354/1920px-Michelangelo_Buonarroti_-_The_Torment_of_Saint_Anthony_-_Google_Art_Project-scaled-1.jpg https://cdn8.openculture.com/2026/01/14225354/1920px-Michela...

2b3a51 10mo ago
Also on Wikimedia at various resolutions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Michelangelo_Buonarroti_-_The_Torment_of_Saint_Anthony_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Michelangelo_Buonarroti_-... I've cropped that little blue sailing ship at the bottom of the canvas to make a wallpaper.
ASalazarMX 10mo ago
Jesus Christ, you can see he was going to be an unusual artist by the way he focused on that gaping demon butthole. Edit: the butthole is in the original engraving his painting is based on, so not his own vision, fortunately I guess. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Temptation_of_St_Anthony_(Schongauer) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Temptation_of_St_Anthony_(...
- CGMthrowaway 10mo ago
  That's just typical 12 year old stuff
- palmotea 10mo ago
  > Jesus Christ, you can see he was going to be an unusual artist by the way he focused on that gaping demon butthole. You know, that might actually be the demons mouth. There are eyes and whiskers and stuff next to it. And if that's the case, it would mean the demon's butthole has teeth.
  - mikestorrent 10mo ago
    Many such cases
- 10mo ago

futurist654 10mo ago

[flagged]

Jerry2 10mo ago

This is just a summary of the the Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Torment_of_Saint_Anthony https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Torment_of_Saint_Anthony

Fh_ 10mo ago

Must be his earliest work we know, not the first painting he did, because this is too good.

ninalanyon 10mo ago
Too right! There must have been dozens of works before that one.
luxuryballs 10mo ago
yeah it’s more like the earliest one that was worth preserving or considering “a finished piece” however that worked back then, the first shippable code

racl101 10mo ago

That picture was always freaky to me as a kid.

iambateman 10mo ago

I’m enjoying the thought of seeing this in the state fair art gallery next to the other seventh grade art. It’s wild that someone could be that good that young.

apetrovic 10mo ago

I don't want to compare anyone to Michelangelo, but the opening sentence of the aticle is more than flawed. My daughter got some painting classes in that age, and I saw work of some gifted kids. A bit better than "directionless doodles, chaotic comics, and a few unsteady-at-best school projects".

smokel 10mo ago

I don't trust this for one bit. For the owners there is quite the incentive to label this as the work of a genius. But in reality, this is just pretty complex for a 12 year-old to produce by yourself. Edit: as others have pointed out, and if I were to actually read the article carefully before commenting, the composition is not attributed to Michelangelo. So it is just a copy. Quite the achievement, but possible for a twelve-year old. I once confronted a gallery owner who was proudly presenting a newly discovered work by Mondriaan [1]. An original black and white photo in an old newspaper [2] was shown as proof of authenticity. But many details such as the creases in fabric differ in the original and the new painting. No OpenCV required to see that. Mind you, the picture is already framed with Mondriaan standing next to it. Unlikely that he's still working on it. Instead of responding, the gallery owner simply turned away. [1] https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bb/Cavalini_Mondriaan_1901.jpg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bb/Cavalini... [2] https://www.vrt.be/vrtnws/nl/2022/03/02/nieuwe-werken-mondriaan-opgedoken/ https://www.vrt.be/vrtnws/nl/2022/03/02/nieuwe-werken-mondri...

deleted 10mo ago
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sltkr 10mo ago
I don't have an opinion on whether the attribution is correct, but I don't think the complexity of the composition is a strong argument against it considering the artist was copying the engraving by Schongauer exactly (maybe even painting on top of it?) which takes a lot of the complexity out of it.
abdulhaq 10mo ago
You might be right but the gallery owner has probably learnt that disputing the authenticity of his pieces with walk in punters rarely leads to a fruitful discussion
prox 10mo ago
Just to engage with your “12 year old to produce by yourself” , here are some examples of art made by Picasso in his early teens to mid teens. It’s absolutely possible to be that good. Especially in the middle ages / early renaissance with the work you did for guilds and working for masters as an apprentice. At eleven years old: https://www.pablo-ruiz-picasso.net/work-3939.php https://www.pablo-ruiz-picasso.net/work-3939.php At fourteen at his sisters wedding: https://www.pablo-ruiz-picasso.net/work-9.php https://www.pablo-ruiz-picasso.net/work-9.php At fifteen https://www.pablo-ruiz-picasso.net/work-11.php https://www.pablo-ruiz-picasso.net/work-11.php

officehero 10mo ago

I'm surprised at how few parents understand what it takes to create a great artist. You need to start when they're 5 (or preferably younger), put them in a workshop with great artists/pedagogues etc. (costly!) where they work full time (forget school), evaluate potential and there is a tiny chance they themselves will become great. Annoyed by parents talking about their 5 year olds as "too young" or when they recommend their teenager to 'pursue their dream' when they don't provide a fraction of above. It's still possible but odds go down dramatically.

roadside_picnic 10mo ago
Many of the comments here are expressing disbelief that this could have been created by a 12 year old, but people fail to recognize that, not only did Michelangelo have tremendous natural talent, but grow up in a world where, as a child, he was allowed to spend enormous amounts of his time and energy studying with professional artists. He wasn't being dropped off a school at 7am, squirming in a chair until 3pm, playing video games before dinner and then doing homework until bed all while squeezing in a bit of time for sketching. The vast majority of people probably benefit more from our current structure, but it does make it much less likely to have "genius" of the type we see in Michelangelo, Mozart, etc.
- watwut 10mo ago
  > at the age of 13, Michelangelo was apprenticed to Ghirlandaio. The next year, his father persuaded Ghirlandaio to pay Michelangelo as an artist, which was rare for someone that young He was literally getting education in art. It is not like there was no structure.
  - roadside_picnic 10mo ago
    The apprenticeship was after this was painted. Prior to engaging in formal training he largely ignored school and spend his time painting and seeking out other painters to learn from: > As a young boy, Michelangelo was sent to the city of Florence to study grammar under the Humanist Francesco da Urbino. Michelangelo showed no interest in his schooling, preferring to copy paintings from churches and seek the company of other painters. [0] You can search other sources and you'll find the same: prior to apprenticeship he was not formally enrolled in any form of art education. 0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michelangelo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michelangelo

jihadjihad 10mo ago

The interesting thing in Michelangelo's case is that he viewed himself primarily as a sculptor. He was more or less forced against his will to paint the Sistine Chapel. And yet he was a master of the medium.

doctorhandshake 10mo ago

This visually resembles Falling Bough by Walton Ford https://www.kasmingallery.com/artworks/4717-walton-ford-falling-bough-2002/ https://www.kasmingallery.com/artworks/4717-walton-ford-fall...

throwpoaster 10mo ago

Press X to Doubt.

BiraIgnacio 10mo ago

Related https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Agony_and_the_Ecstasy_(novel) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Agony_and_the_Ecstasy_(nov... Great book!

ada1981 10mo ago

This is my all time favorite motif! St. Anthony is a fascinating figure. Father of wilderness monasticism, left Egypt to hear god, spent the night in a cave fighting the devil and won; the patron saint of psychedelics or at least Ergotism, the affliction of entire towns when the grain was infected with ergot fungus, which would later by synthesized into LSD. I am actually in the process of curating a museum quality coffee table book in collaboration with Getty of at least 117 of the variations on this theme from Dali to Bosch to Michelangelo. (1/17 is St. Anthony's day, and my birthday, and my name is Anthony - coincidentally). Shoot me an email if you'd like to collaborate or would like an update when the project officially launches! a+st@175g.com

taco_emoji 10mo ago

that's metal as hell

owenversteeg 10mo ago

Comments here are interesting. Of course it’s a copy, he was 12. For pretty much of all of human history, to make art you would first consume large amounts of it to develop taste and then make many copies to develop skill and style. The average modern-day artist (writer, painter, poet, etc) does this far less than ever before, to the point where we have forgotten that’s how learning works.

turbonaut 10mo ago
A certain type of modern day artist voraciously consumes art in order to develop its taste, skill and style. More so than ever in history. The names of these artists are less traditional, however, eg Nano Banana.
bigbuppo 10mo ago
I would say they still do this... it's just called "fan art" now.

sebmellen 10mo ago

I've seen this painting a couple of times a week for the past few years, since I live within walking distance of the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth, where it's held. It's super tiny in person, but it's very cool to see it. “Fort Worth” probably doesn't conjure to mind a very lively art scene, but in the museum district here we have the Fort Worth Modern Art Museum, the Kimbell Art Museum, and the Amon Carter Museum of American Art, all within walking distance of each other. Each one is worth a visit.

OhMeadhbh 10mo ago
Ft Worth hits above it's weight WRT high art. The Kimbell, the Modern, the Amon Carter... all world class. (And if you're an architecture nut, the main Kimbell building was designed by Louis I. Kahn and is a delight to wander around in.) The local symphony is better than you would expect, given the city's size. I have too many memories of dead friends and family to want to live in Fort Worth, but if you get a job offer in Tarrant County, it's not just pickup-trucks, guns and C&W clones trying to be extras on Landman. (And pickup-trucks and C&W clones aren't as bad as you might think. And I lived there for decades and was, surprisingly, shot when visiting a different city.)

nephihaha 10mo ago

Teenagers still love drawing demons and monsters so I suppose it fits!

debbiedowner 10mo ago

Checkout the movie "The Lost Leonardo" for a glimpse into the weird world of art attribution. tl;dw is that there are big financial incentives to attributing one way or another.

leiaru13 10mo ago

Interesting if true. This painting seems like it's largely in the style of Northern Renaissance painters and has been considered to be the work of Martin Schongauer. Allegedly, he was initially trained as an engraver and made 100+ prints, so it is possible that the painting got misattributed due to the original print: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/b7/Schongauer_Anthony.jpg/1280px-Schongauer_Anthony.jpg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/b7/Sc...

mlvljr 10mo ago

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