VISUAL ARTS + MUSEUMS

The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston presents a MFAH  Special Lecture: Young Michelangelo: The Path to the Sistine, at the Caroline Wiess Law Building.  Presented by critic, curator, and art historian, Dr. John T. Spike, (pictured) author of more than twenty significant books on Italian Renaissance and Baroque art and artists including Caravaggio (second edition 2010), and the newly released Young Michelangelo: The Path to the Sistine.

Young Michelangelo: The Path to the Sistine, a prodigiously informative and astonishingly vivid portrait of the artist´s first 33 years, "promises more intrigue than the best adventure novel," writes Publishers Weekly.

From the apprentice who at the age of thirteen draws copies that are indistinguishable from his master´s originals; to the miracle of the Pietà; to the completion of the David, a task considered impossible; to the young man´s return to Rome at the age of 33 to undertake the vast ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, Young Michelangelo probes the early biography of Michelangelo, whose genius was revealed against the turbulent backdrop of the major events of his era—including the bonfire of the vanities, the Rome of the Borgias, the siege of Florence, and the burning of Savonarola at the stake.

In this richly illustrated lecture, Dr. John T. Spike follows several of the major themes that emerge in this formative period of Michelangelo´s life and work. A book signing follows. Thank you for supporting the MFAH by purchasing Young Michelangelo: The Path to the Sistine through the MFAH Retail Shop.

This lecture is also presented as the Artful Thursday on November 18, at 6:30 p.m.

Lectures are free and open to the public with general museum admission. Museum members always receive free admission. A reception follows each talk.