Explore the Context about the Studies of a Reclining Male Nude of the Critical sketches in this artwork.
Context Michelangelo heavily studied the human body and dissected numerous cadavers in his artistic career, and over time became captivated by the male torso. In his treatises on painting and sculpture, Leon Battista Alberti, defined the male figure as a "geometrical and harmonious sum of its parts". Michelangelo however, felt that the torso was the powerhouse of the male body, and therefore warranted significant attention and mass in his art pieces. Thus, the torso in the Study represents an idealization of the male form, "symbolic of the perfection of God's creation before the fall".
God cadaver torso the fall Leon Battista Alberti man Michelangelo treatises on painting and sculpture