Bill Viola - Michelangelo

4:19 p.m.

04/09/19 - It’s quite common now to enhance a detail of an artwork and transform it into an artwork in itself. This aims is to make a certain area of a painting visible, for viewers to enjoy it at its best. The result is certainly interesting: in all modern artwork there’s something from the past that repeats itself constantly. German historian Aby Warburg said that in a fragment of Cezánne or de De Kooning there are some bits of Chardin or Franz Hals.
With this in mind, London’s Royal Academy of Arts presented an exhibition that reunited Michelangelo (Italy, 1475-1564) and Bill Viola (USA, 1951) with the common subjects of Life – Death – Rebirth.

In the exhibition, photography was forbidden not to interfere with the dim lighting proposed by the montage department. As all of Bill Viola’s works are videos, the galleries were particularly dark, while Michelangelo’s drawing had a more direct spotlight. Most of the pieces by the Italian Master belonged to the collection of the Queen of England.

The Messenger, by Bill Viola (1996) - See video here

Studies for Christ in the Pietá of Úbeda for Sebastiano del Piombo, by Michelangelo

Since his early years, Viola explores the technical possibilities of the video, connecting them with metaphysic and spiritual issues. The images present a certain reminiscence with the Medieval and Renaissance art and, combined with contemporary technology, they transmit a sense of spirituality. Michelangelo, maybe the greatest artist to represent the Western cannon, in spite of having always worked for the Church, developed his art with freedom and that particular feature of his described as "terribilitá". His most intimate nature can be found in his drawings and that’s why they were selected as the meeting point in which the Present looks towards the Past, because that’s where “survival” prevails, as Aby Warburg explains.