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What the Anatomical Drawings of Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci Reveal
- Sutithi
- 2 days ago
- 7 min read
Updated: 21 hours ago
Drawing accurate figures depends on how well an artist studies human form and structures. Without this knowledge, the drawings lack the spirit and vitality, and the portrayal looks superficial. That’s why art and anatomy became inseparable parts of realistic paintings during the 15th- to 16th-century Renaissance revival.
The tradition of scientific drawings was getting popular in Milan and Florence while stalwarts like Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo took the trend forward. They sketched human nudes, complex muscular curves, showing vital organs with blood vessels and arteries with precision.
Leonardo, the polymath of the Italian Renaissance, was intrigued by anatomical research from 1487, and he made numerous sketches from human embryos to intricate nervous systems, the studies he focused on for the rest of his artistic journey.
Michelangelo was the one who participated in public dissection of condemned criminals from his early teens. He grew fond of the dissection of corpses and nurtured his obsession while he met many physician-philosophers in the court of his patron, Lorenzo de’ Medici. At the age of 18, he started dissecting dead bodies on his own to study human anatomy drawings in detail.
In this blog, we will follow the greatest minds behind these anatomical masterpieces to know the struggles and aspirations behind the awe-stirring Sistine Chapel ceiling frescoes or why Leonardo could never realize the perfect human form!
What are Anatomical Drawings?
Anatomical drawings are based on the study of the human body in minute detail; it includes careful observation of organs, muscles, bones, and nerves that work in coordination; anatomical understanding of the structure, proportion, and placement of various elements in the body help artists draw figures realistically. Without this precision and detail, the portraits would miss the depth and credibility.
Why was Anatomy Becoming a Popular Subject of Art?
During the Italian Renaissance, artists were looking to draw lifelike figures in the correct proportion, and that’s how they turned toward studying anatomy. Not only were they interested in portraying the surface of a living body, they wanted to show how nerves and muscles work underneath the surface.
Leonardo da Vinci started this tradition of anatomical drawings with his ‘Vitruvian Man’ in 1490, in search of an ideal form of the human body. There were other iconic creators, like Michelangelo Buonarroti, and Albrecht Dürer of the Northern Renaissance fame (famous for his detailed animal studies) who created intense, analytical human anatomy drawings to give their creations a ‘real life feel.’ They wanted to know how bodies moved in natural ways with the pull of gravity.
Michelangelo Figure Drawings: His Unfinished Sketches and Perspective Drawings
Michelangelo was ever fond of drawing from his early teens. He took the trend of practicing actual human figures which was then a Florentine fashion, quite seriously. Initially, he used to draw figures in pen and ink, but later he got fascinated with finely ground chalks, in both red and black colors.
Being a painter, sculptor, and an architect of great caliber, Michelangelo approached his heroic depiction of male nudes differently from his architectural forms or sculptures. His frescoes and unfinished cartoons of the Battle of Cascina and a thousand more sketches show how he approached the drawings in sequences.
For two-dimensional drawings —
After finalizing the designs, he would copy them onto the actual surface of panels or walls with the help of full-size cartoons. There were pricks in the designs, which later could be transferred to the original surface by dusting charcoal or pigments.
For three-dimensional drawings —
He studied models made of wax, clay, or wood to better understand the angles of a real human figure, because drawings could only show one figure at a time.
Michelangelo's human anatomy drawings reached at the peak of their brilliance with painting scenes from the Book of Genesis onto the Sistine Chapel ceiling, as commissioned by Pope Julius II in 1508. The 5,700 square feet of the elaborate and the most labor-intensive frescoes were mostly done by Michelangelo, with the menial preparatory designs assigned to his pupils.
The unmissable genius of a painter and architect still awestruck visitors after five hundred years. Michelangelo painted the high scaffolds while debris fell into his face, and he completed most of the works within four years.
Studying the Human Body: From Muscles and Bones to Kidney
Many of unfinished Michelangelo paintings and poems suggest that he was interested in understanding kidney functions more closely as he suffered from a terminal illness relating to kidney stones.
In one of his frescoes of the Sistine Chapel, ‘Separation of Land and Water,’ the Creator’s cloak resembles the shape of the bisected right kidney.
His use of the renal outline in a scene representing the separation of Land from Water suggests that Michelangelo was likely familiar with the anatomy and function of the kidney as it was understood at the time.
Leonardo da Vinci Anatomical Drawings: Anatomical Investigations of Corpses
Leonardo’s scientific curiosity might have stemmed from the early Renaissance quest for scientific naturalism. Artists wanted society to treat them as intellectual creators with a knowledge of math and science rather than just laborers with special skills. After da Vinci moved to Milan, he got intrigued to study the human body in depth. He worked in monastery hospitals and medical schools and dissected more than 30 corpses, bearing the unbearable stench to reveal some fascinating anatomical findings.
Early Studies of Leonardo da Vinci: Dissection of Animals and Human Proportion
Leonardo’s initial anatomical sketches and dissections showed animals as well. Initially, he could not avail human bodies to dissect, so he started with animals, like bear, dog, monkey, or frog, later mapping them onto his study of human structure.
Human Dissections and Detailed Anatomical Records
Unlike the most famous Renaissance artists, Leonardo da Vinci wanted to know beyond human structure: he wanted to study the senses and feelings flowing in a body through the nervous system, reproductive system, investigating bones, muscles, and organs.
He was obsessed with knowing the phenomena of life and obtained a human skull in 1489, cut it into pieces for further investigation. He recorded his findings in a small notebook. But a skull could hardly help him progress into studying the nervous system in detail, without a proper human brain.
Later around 1509, Leonardo conducted intense neurological study of the brain to abandon the ancient notion about the relationship with ventricles and nerves.
From 1490 onwards, he was thoroughly immersed in deep anatomical investigations. In his notebook once Leonardo wrote about his the experience of dissecting an old man immediately after his death:
“This old man, a few hours before his death, told me that he was over a hundred years old, and that he felt nothing wrong with his body other than weakness. And thus, while sitting on a bed in the hospital of Santa Maria Nuova in Florence, without any movement or sign of distress, he passed from this life. And I dissected him to see the cause of such a sweet death.”
The detailed anatomical investigation of the deceased man’s organs helped him describe the signs of coronary disease and cirrhosis of the liver.
Illustrative Innovations Inspired by Engineering and Architecture
In 1490, Leonardo came up with his phenomenal drawing of the ‘Vitruvian Man’ – an exploded view of a man, projected through squares and circles, with the body parts divided in equal proportions.
Leonardo’s use of multiple angles was borrowed from engineering influences and architectural techniques as evident from his anatomical illustrations. Later he found anatomical discrepancies in his study of human proportion to arrive at the perfect ‘divine human’ body, and abandoned his attempt.
Leonardo’s Unfinished Treatise and Legacy
He couldn’t finish the ‘Battle of Anghiari’ frescoes because it took much time to realize the meticulous drawings of the Florentine soldiers and the horses in a fierce battle. He focused on the complex musculature of the men in rest and in action. The murals for the Palazzo della Signoria in Florence remained incomplete. This had happened quite often in his career.
In his last years, he mainly focused on embryology and anatomical research of the heart, based on his dissection of an ox, similar to a human heart. He started understanding the intricate functionalities of the arterial chambers and valves, blood flow, to know blood circulation more intensely. But he couldn’t let go of the ancient beliefs regarding the coronary functions and thus the conflicting ideals and observations abruptly put an end to his groundbreaking research.
Renaissance Anatomical Drawing: From Muscles to Masterpieces
With close observations and scientific research, both the remarkable Renaissance rivals bridged art and science. There were differences in focus as Leonardo was more obsessed with his scientific curiosity, while Michelangelo tried to enhance his sculptural vision, drawing life-like figures in accurate muscular details.
How the Unfinished Legacies Inspire Art, History, and Future Generations: The Lasting Influence
Unfortunately, most of Leonardo’s old anatomy sketches were lost to the world due to his excessive perfectionism, conflicting investigations with ancient beliefs, lack of organization and luck. Had he published his most significant anatomy works, the world would have known his genius.
On the other hand, Michelangelo was greatly protective of his works and burned a significant part of his drawings and manuscripts all through his career. When he died, only a few were retrieved from his walnut chest to be revealed to the world.
Still, their legacies live on. The energy of Michelangelo's figure drawings and Leonardo da Vinci's anatomical sketches, and even some of their unfinished projects continue to inspire future generations of artists to continue scientific research into art, picking up where the ancient Greeks and Romans left off.
