I’ve had the distinct pleasure of seeing both of these works by Michelangelo in person, and I was knocked out by both.

The first is the finished (and somewhat controversially restored) Libyan Sibyl form the astonishing ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican in Rome.

To my mind, it is the highpoint of that remarkable series of frescoes. The figure is dynamically twisted, her form palpably dimensional in space. You can almost hear the draperies of her gown slide across one another as she moves. Even looking up to the height of the ceiling from the floor of the chapel, it is a stunning work.

The preliminary drawing for the same figure is in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, and is stunning in a different, but to me, equally powerful way. It is one of my favorite old master drawings.

There is no intention here of producing a finished piece to please someone else. This drawing is the result of intense observation and masterful economy of notation, from which the artist would pull information for painting the fresco.

Michelangelo has posed his model in that dynamic twist, using a male model to represent the muscular back of the Sibyl as she lifts the leaves of her enormous book. In the drawing, even as he searches for just the right line and position, he has distilled both the linear and tonal essence of the form to one of the finest examples of the art of pure drawing I’ve ever seen.

A sibyl is a priestess, ostensibly one capable of prophecy. The Libyan Sibyl, according to classical mythology, is one who foresaw a day when “that which is hidden shall be revealed”.

In his portrayals of the Libyan Sibyl, both dramatically finished and intimately personal, Michelangelo has revealed the essence of his art.

Fred Danziger is an artist originally from Western Pennsylvania and now based in Philadelphia, where he is also a member of the faculties of The Art Institute of Philadelphia and The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. He is also a visiting instructor at Rutgers University and Rosemont College.

Over his long career, Danziger has experimented with a variety of approaches and subjects, not just in phases, but in an apparently restless exploration throughout the years. Danziger has recently moved to a new web presence, and in the transition phase you can still access his archives of older work, which are fascinating for the variety of the work.

I had the chance yesterday to see a show at the Rodger LaPelle Galleries here in Philadelphia, in which a fine variety of Danziger’s work is showcased, from large scale landscapes and cityscapes to small plein air studies.

The matter of scale is one that is difficult to convey in images, and scale is one of the areas in which Danziger appears to enjoy experimenting. Some of his works are quite large, such as The Four Seasons (images above, third down), which is 44 x 96″, and 16th and Market (second down) which is 36 x 44″; others are small plein air pieces that are 5 x 7″ or 8 x 10″.

I find the drama of scale particularly effective in his intimate landscape subjects of leaves and grasses, like Autumn Drift (above, top) which is 36 x 50″ and Dewpoint (fifth down), which is 22 x 34″. These are just magical; the scale reinforces the contemplative subtlety of the work, reminiscent of Durer’s famous studies of turf and wildflowers.

Danziger’s accomplished portrait subjects often incorporate elements of cityscape, and his still life subjects feel continuous with his focus on the close up details of the landscape.

My schedule made me late in getting to the show at the Rodger LaPelle Galleries this month, so my notice to those of you in the Philadelphia area who might be able to get there is a bit short. The show ends this Sunday, September 30th, but it’s well worth trying to see it if you have the chance.

There is a short video on YouTube by John Thornton Fred Danziger: One Simple Idea, which features an interview with Danziger on the occasion of a previous show at the Rodger LaPelle galleries in 2009.

[Suggestion courtesy of Tom Jackson]

Though it has been known of for some time, a painting known as the “Isleworth Mona Lisa” was officially unveiled in Geneva yesterday by the Mona Lisa Foundation.

The painting was uncovered by an English art collector, Hugh Baker, in 1913, and kept in his studio in Isleworth, London for several years, which is how the name was appended.

The Mona Lisa Foundation, a Swiss consortium, has kept the painting in a bank vault in Switzerland for the last 40 years. Backed by a research physicist from the U.S., a forensic image expert and an Italian expert on Leonardo’s work, the foundation has put forward a 300 page publication documenting their investigation and suggesting that the painting was indeed painted by Leonardo, and is the first portrait of the Italian noblewoman, portraying her at a younger age.

It is larger than the hyper-famous painting in the Louvre, and is painted on canvas rather than on wood, Leonardo’s usual preferred surface.

This, and other factors have led other experts to call the suggested attribution into question. They assert that the painting is likely a copy painted by another artist shortly after the original, in which the copyist has projected a younger version of the subject (see my recent post on the Mona Lisa copy from Da Vinci’s workshop in the Prado in Madrid).

In this version, the woman’s expression is less enigmatic, obviously a smile (though still, as I have pointed out, asymmetrical in the degree to which each side is turned up).

The Mona Lisa Foundation website has a variety of images and resources, including an interactive comparison in which they have juxtaposed the two versions, with the facial features matched up as closely as possible, allowing you to reveal more or less of each version with a slider.

It will be interesting to see if other experts are permitted access to the Isleworth painting and, if so, what conclusions are drawn.

I will say one thing, which is usually the bottom line for me in my assessment of any work in which attribution is in question — whatever the results from the experts regarding who painted it, this looks like a beautiful painting.