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MICHELANGELO’S DRAWINGS 51drawings too, but none survive. Vasari describes the tech-
nique of theCascinacartoon: “V’erano ancora molte fig-
ure aggruppate et in varie maniere abbozzate, chi contor-
nato di carbone, chi disegnato di tratti e chi sfumato e con
biacca lumeggiatio,” from which it is evident that it was,
at least in the less defined parts, softly drawn, with the
concentration on mass rather than on contour. Indeed,
this seems also to have been true of his preparatory draw-
ings. The most extensive surviving compositional sketch,
in the Uffizi (Corpus 45 ), is drawn in soft black chalk
partly over stylus indentation, and Michelangelo seems to
have established his composition primarily in black chalk,
bringing some figure studies to a very high degree of fin-
ish in the medium. Particularly significant however is the
distinction that Michelangelo made according to the pur-
pose of the drawing. In two of the surviving chalk studies
for a background figure, the chalk is handled softly and
broadly, with the masses of the body as the primary focus
of attention (Corpus 54 and 53 verso). But in two studies
for foreground figures (Corpus 50 and 51 ), the medium,
again black chalk, is handled in a much harder manner,
with a sharp point and with strong emphasis on contours.
And certain figures upon which Michelangelo wished to
place special emphasis were worked up by him in pen
(Corpus 52 and 53 recto). Of course, accidents of survival
may convey an incorrect impression of Michelangelo’s
thought processes as they were expressed in the media
and the types of handling that he employed, but it is clear
from his paintings – notably theDoni Tondoand the Sistine
histories – that he differentiated focus and definition
between different spatial layers of his compositions.
UnlikeCascina, the very fewconcettithat survive for the
Sistine histories and the Prophets and Sibyls (Corpus 123
and 151 – 2 ), and the fairly numerous ones that survive for
the Ancestors (Cats. 9 – 16 ), are drawn in pen rather than
chalk. And a study for the drapery ofCumaeais a multi-
media drawing in pen, wash, and white-heightening
(Corpus15 4). Further studies for figures were made in
black chalk, in much the same way as they were made for
Cascina, with very broadly handled drawings to establish
the basic masses of the figure, and then tighter studies
to fix deployment of gesture and musculature. It seems
evident then that Michelangelo conceived the ceiling as
in a harder, more sculptural style thanCascina, and there
are a number of plausible reasons why he might have
done so. One, obviously, is that the shape of the ceil-
ing made it impossible to impose upon it any sort of
unified scheme. The design had to be an accumulation
of repeated arrangements comprising more or less dis-
crete forms, which could be individualised at will, but
whose basic configurations remained broadly constant:Theignudiare obvious examples of this. Light, bright
tones and sculpturesque form may also have been encour-
aged by the difficulty of seeing the inadequately lit vault
from the floor of the chapel and by a desire to harmonise
the frescoes tonally and stylistically with those executed
on the walls of the chapel in the 1480 sby, among others,
Ghirlandaio, Botticelli, and Signorelli. Of course, such
conclusions are based upon a very few survivals from the
thousands of drawings that Michelangelo must have made
for so complicated a project, and further discoveries may
modify them. But that a significant alteration took place
in Michelangelo’s preparations for his frescoes in the sec-
ond half of the ceiling may be inferred from a change in
his use of media. For even thoughconcettifor the histo-
ries,ignudi, and Ancestors painted in the second half of the
ceiling continued to be drawn in pen, the majority of the
further figure-studies were made in red chalk (Corpus 144
and15 6). Red chalk was first extensively employed in Italy
byLeonardo. This might have discouraged Michelangelo
from using it, but, significantly, he seems to have exper-
imented with red chalk even in Florence, when prepar-
ing the formally LeonardesqueDoni Tondo(Corpus15 8).
Lighter in hue, red chalk also tends to take a sharper
point than most varieties of black chalk and is gener-
ally somewhat greasier in texture, allowing a smoother
and more flowing line. Sharpened, it thus can approxi-
mate to a pen-line, although lacking the flexibility of a
quill, and to a silver-point line as well. The latter was of
little interest to Michelangelo because, although one or
two lead-point drawings by him do exist (Corpus 141 )
and although he occasionally, even as late as c.153 0, used
metal-point to block out a composition before working
over it in pen or chalk, he seems never to have been
interested in a medium that tended to work against the
liveliness that was so central to his drawings. But the legi-
bility of red chalk, its capacity, when fused or moistened,
to create passages of dark almost equivalent to black, and
to extend much more broadly in the mid and high tones
would have invigorated him. Red chalk allowed more
flexible and elastic form than black, as well as in its obvi-
ous approximation to the colour of flesh. Indeed, even
though it can hardly be put down merely to a change in
the medium employed to prepare them, it is clear that
some of the most beautiful and elastic nudes on the sec-
ond half of the Sistine ceiling were prepared in sanguine.
It is likely too that the change to red chalk also allowed
Michelangelo to economise in preparation: It was less
necessary to make loose studies in black chalk and then
to work them up in pen and wash. The whole procedure
could be undertaken on the same page. Certainly some
of the drawings made by Michelangelo at this stage are