Dying Slave, Michelangelo

Augusta Stylianou Gallery

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Dying Slave , Photo: Marie-Lan Nguye

The Dying Slave is a sculpture by the Italian Renaissance artist Michelangelo. Created between 1513 and 1516, it was to serve with another figure, the Rebellious Slave, at the tomb of Pope Julius II.[1] It is a marble figure 2.28 metres (7' 6") in height, and is held at the Louvre. The left wrist is strapped to the back of the neck, and there is a band around the chest. A monkey, only partially carved, grasps the left shin, representing art as mere "aping" (mimesis) or suggesting earthly passions. The artist and work were influenced by the late-BC Rhodian sculpture Laocoön and his Sons.

In 1976 the art historian Richard Fly wrote that the sculpture "suggests that moment when life capitulates before the relentless force of dead matter".[2]

See also

    * St Quentin (Pontormo)

References

   1. ^ Panofsky, Erwin. "The First Two Projects of Michelangelo's Tomb of Julius II". The Art Bulletin, Volume 19, No. 4, December 1937. pp. 561-579.
   2. ^ Fly, Richard. Shakespeare's Mediated World. Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press, 1976. p.30.

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