Why did Michelangelo add such a....er, mannish quality to his paintings of women?

Question

but not to the pieta sculptures?

HAVE YOU SEEN THE PIETA SCULPTURES OBVIOUSLY HE KNEW WHAT AN ATTRACTIVE WOMAN LOOKED LIKE

Answer 1

Most of the Old Master Painters that were commissioned by the Church to paint or to do a sculpture it was decided by the papal how they wanted it to look. In addition, besides the fact that painting was considered a science not just an expression. the anatomical features fell in and out of favor as they do today. To look too thin after WWII, to look bone thin made one look like you were maybe in a Concentration Camp. Also, like a suntan, meant you were poor and worked in the fields. Being pale in color was a sign of wealth, along with being fat.

Answer 2

Perhaps you are looking at the paintings with a 21st century weltanschaaung and that the perceptions of beauty were different back then.

Interesting blurb about himself as a painter from Wikipedia:

"Michelangelo Buonarroti was commissioned by Pope Julius II in 1508 to repaint the ceiling, originally representing golden stars on a blue sky; the work was completed between 1508 and 1 November 1512. He painted the Last Judgment over the altar, between 1535 and 1541, being commissioned by Pope Paul III Farnese. Michelangelo felt that he was a more developed sculptor than a painter, but he accepted the offer."

An interesting tangent on a contemporary of Michangelo -- Leonardo da Vinci. I saw a story on Dateline NBC where researchers who have studied the Mona Lisa and his other paintings noticed a striking comparison -- to his own self-portrait!! The art world has been puzzled by who may have been the model for this most famous of portraits -- if their research is correct their predecessors may have been looking at persons of the wrong gender.

Answer 3

well, he did do it to sculptures. if you look at the scultpures in the medicci chapel, the burrial chamber of the elder mediccis, the women are very masculin. historians believe that he had little if any interaction with women, and that he never saw a women in an *anatomical* way

Answer 4

Are you sure his models were women? Shakespearean actors were all men, even in the female roles.

Answer 5

he didnt know the female form well. He didnt have nude models posing for him.