SPEAKER_00 0:09

Am I recording? You are listening to Stuff About Things, an art history podcast. Okay, let's bango. Hello and welcome to Stuff About Things, an art history podcast. My name is Lindsay, and today is a very special episode. I mean, maybe not for you, but it is for me, because this is the podcast's tenth episode. Double digits, y'all. Which for someone who just randomly started making a podcast, aka me, that's a pretty cool milestone. It has been about a month since my last episode, and for that I am truly sorry. I really am trying to get on a bi-weekly schedule. I can promise that the next episode, episode 11, will be up within two weeks, because I have already written it and will record it immediately after this one. And that is because episodes 10 and 11 both focus on the same work of art. Michelangelo's Bruges Madonna. Originally I had planned to do only one episode on this work of art, but I recognize that most people probably don't want to listen to an hour plus long podcast, and um, I just love this sculpture too much to cut things short. Feel free to listen to both episodes in a row or to split them up, or you know, don't listen to either of them, whatever. The bottom line is do what you want. In this episode, episode 10, I will be giving a historical overview and interpretation of the Bruges Madonna, including a little background about its creator, Michelangelo. In the next episode, episode 11, I will tell you the story of the Bruges Madonna and World War II, namely its kidnapping by the Nazis and subsequent rescue by the group known as the Monuments Men. Now I love this sculpture, and not just because it was a subject of my master's thesis, though it was, but rather because it is a beautiful sculpture that everyone, including art historians, seem to forget about because it's off the beaten trail in terms of all of Michelangelo's other works, which are in Italy. And that, basically, is how my master's thesis became one of the more comprehensive sources on this particular sculpture, which is still very odd to me, but I'm nonetheless extremely proud of it. For this episode, I'm going to get into a little bit of everything. You will learn about Michelangelo, you'll learn about the Bruges Madonna, obviously, and you will also learn about the sculpture's function as an altarpiece. In episode 11, I will then talk about the Bruges Madonna's place in history, namely as one of the artworks kidnapped by history's most diabolical jerk-faced loser. And I'll give you a hint, his name rhymes with Schmadehof Schittler. To begin, let's address the elephant in the room, Mr. Michelangelo Bonarotti. Michelangelo is, hands down, one of the most famous artists ever. Like, ever. He is so famous, it is kind of annoying. But, unlike most dead white guys of the Renaissance, I actually like Michelangelo. I envision him as this grumpy, crotchety old man who just throws small chunks of marble at a passerby when he's bored. To be fair, that depiction may not be entirely historically accurate, but I think it's not not historically accurate. Let's just say by the time he was 80, he was a little bit grumpy. Before anyone tries to get sassy with me, I am perfectly aware that Michelangelo's name is actually pronounced Michelangelo, but we hear it's stuff about things like to keep the pretension to a minimum. So we will continue with the tried and true pronunciation of Michelangelo. Michelangelo Bonarotti was born in 1475 in a small town about 50 miles southeast of Florence, Firenze, in the wonderful country of Italia. He was born into a family of minor nobles down on their luck, which is to say the Renaissance equivalent of like pretty solid middle class. How then did Michelangelo become an artist? Remember, being an artist in the Renaissance was not the greatest career option. If anything, Michelangelo becoming an artist was a major social step down from his dad's position as a minor noble and banker. Thankfully, Michelangelo was a pretty decent baby artist, and his dad had some connections, so Michelangelo rose to the ranks pretty quickly, beginning with an apprenticeship with one of Florence's greatest painters of the 15th century, Domenico Girlandaio. Michelangelo was supposed to be one of Guirlandaio's apprentices for something like three years. But after only one year, Mickey Ange was like, no thanks, dude, can't learn me nothin'. And he went to go live with the most prominent family in all of Florence, the Medici. The so-called Masters of Florence, as the Netflix series so eloquently puts it. Sidebar. In terms of historical accuracy, that show is trash. In terms of visuals and hot actors, that show is stunning. After living with the Medici for a couple of years, Michelangelo eventually found his way to Bologna in 1494. And in Bologna, he worked on the Ark of St. Dominic with Niccolo dell'Arca. Perhaps you've heard of this fellow. If not, you should definitely listen to episode 4 of this podcast: Self-Promotion for the Win. After living and working in Bologna for a little while, Michelangelo made his way down to Rome, where he helped to find work. And, uh, spoiler, he did. A friend of Michelangelo's introduced him to one Cardinal Jean de Billier. Fun fact, this dude is French and will be hereto called Mr. French Cardinal. Mr. French Cardinal needed a sculpture to adorn the tomb he was planning for himself, which happened to be in St. Peter's Basilica, one of the most famous and important churches in the entire world. Until it got the Renaissance version of bulldozed to make room for new St. Peter's, which, coincidentally, Michelangelo would have a hand in designing some 50 years later. But for now, in the late 1490s, Michelangelo is tasked with creating a tomb sculpture for Mr. French Cardinal. And um I think it's safe to say that he succeeds. How do we know that he succeeded in making this tomb sculpture, you ask? Well, because the sculpture in question is the Pietà, which is, to put in highly refined art historical terms, super duper mega famous. The Pietà is a representation of the Madonna, Jesus' mother, mourning over his corpse after he has been crucified. While depressing in terms of subject matter, the Pietà is also ridiculously beautiful, and it has earned its place in history as one of the greatest sculptures of all time. Can I get a mic drop? Get it, Mike? Like Michelangelo? Ugh, sorry about that one. After creating the Pietà, Michelangelo goes back to Florence, and it's in Florence, between the years of 1501 and 1504, that Michelangelo creates his second masterwork in marble. A massive, way, way larger-than-life-sized rendering of David, the youth from Biblical Stories who slayed the giant Goliath. Except, Michelangelo's David is not a youth. He's like 17 feet tall and looks like he's in his early twenties. And he's kind of cute. In the year 1503, Michelangelo is finishing the David when something else happens. But before getting into what that something else is, and it's the Bruge Madonna. Let me put this timeline in perspective. Michelangelo lived for a freaking long time. He lived until the ripe old age of 88, which is ridiculous for a Renaissance person. I mean, those people dropped like flies. Plagues, syphilis, childbirth, maybe being burned as a witch. I mean, there were a ton of ways to die as a Renaissance person. So if you made it past like 60, you were basically a walking miracle. And Michelangelo once again made it to 88. The Pieta and the David come very early in Michelangelo's life and work. And by the time 1503 rolls around, Michelangelo is only 28 years old. It is around 1503 when Michelangelo somehow, somehow, comes into contact with two Flemish cloth merchants and brothers who hailed from Bruges, named Jan and Alexander Mouscron. I mean, technically their last name should probably be pronounced something like Mouscron, but that's hard to say, so Mouscron it is. We know that Michelangelo met these two brothers from Bruges because of bank records. Bankers, if they are good and law-abiding, keep records. Amazingly, even though they date back to the 16th century, we still have some of those bank records. Even more amazingly is the fact that Michelangelo and the Mouscron brothers shared the same bankers, the Balducci brothers. And in the Balducci brothers' ledger books, you can actually see debits being taken out of the Mouscron account and deposited into Michelangelo's. It's from those ledger books that we can see that in December of 1503, the Mouscron paid Michelangelo 50 ducats. That's a good word, ducats, paid Michelangelo 50 ducats for a statue. In October of 1504, there's another payment of 50 ducats, followed by several smaller payments for shipping materials and eventually the cost for actually shipping the statue to Bruges. In case you haven't caught on yet, the sculpture that we are talking about is the Bruges Madonna. The Bruges Madonna is a freestanding marble sculpture of the Madonna and Baby Jesus. It is slightly smaller than Life Size, standing at a height of about four and a half feet, and it is one of the most gorgeous sculptures that I have ever seen. Mind you, I am biased, but it is ridiculously good looking. Part of its beauty comes from Michelangelo's handling of the marble. But even more so is Michelangelo's conception and visualization of the relationship between mother and child in the statue. The sculpture shows the Madonna sitting on a rocky outcropping of some sort, and the Christchild, who is about a toddler's age, lumbers down from between her legs. It looks as if someone did a stop-motion capture of a kid who just slid out of his mother's lap. The Christchild wraps his hand around the Madonna's thigh to balance himself. His other hand holds hers as he eases himself down, with his little foot catching slightly in the material of his mother's dress. It's such a human interaction rendered so beautifully in marble, and the longer that you look at it, or at least the longer that I look at it, the more I am just like which is the sound happening in my mind as it blows up from how awesome this sculpture is. Before we move any further, let me recap the Bruges Madonna's early history. The sculpture was paid for in several installments by the Mouscron brothers of Bruges, between the years of 1503 and 1506. The statue left Italy in 1506 to sail to Bruges. After the sculpture leaves Italy by boat, there is a period of eight years where we just have absolutely no documentation on the sculpture at all, but that changes in 1514. In 1514, our friend Jan Muscran commissioned a new altar to be built in the Mouscran family chapel in Bruges's Church of Our Lady, or the Onze Live Wauakuk. And no, I do not know Dutch, and that probably was not right at all. In this document dated to 1514, Jan Muscran specifies that this new altar is to include a sculpture of the Madonna that is, quote, very precious. Of course, Jan is talking about the Bruges Madonna, which was in place in the family chapel no later than 1521, when the famous German artist Albrecht Dürr wrote that he saw Michelangelo's Madonna while passing through Bruges. The statue is also mentioned in various biographies of Michelangelo that were written during the 16th and 17th centuries, but it's clear that the individuals writing those biographies, who were all Italian, had never actually seen the sculpture. One of the biographers, Ascanio Condivi, said that the Bruges Madonna was made of bronze, which isn't right at all. And he was one of the more accurate biographers. Overall, the Bruges Madonna lived out a fairly quiet existence in Bruges for the next three centuries, only to be disrupted by the Napoleonic Wars of the early 19th century and, of course, World War II. But you'll have to tune in to episode 11 to find out more about that. Today, the Bruges Madonna continues to grace an altar in the Mouscron family chapel, now referred to as the Chapel of the Blessed Sacrament. The chapel and the church in general have undergone serious changes and renovations since the statue's installation in the early 16th century. The Bruges Madonna is now part of a much larger altarpiece that takes up most of the chapel wall. While others might disagree and have disagreed with me on this, I happen to think that the current altarpiece setup is quite striking, though it does tend to overwhelm the sculpture of the Bruges Madonna, which, as I said, is under life size. Regardless, I think it is very cool that the sculpture retains its function as an altarpiece, given that many of Michelangelo's sculptures have been removed from their original contexts and therefore their original functions. And yes, I did just say functions, because many works of art were created with a specific function in mind. They were meant to do something other than just decorate a church or make something look nice, though that might certainly be a secondary function of a work of art. In the case of the Bruges Madonna, its function was and continues to be as an altarpiece. An altarpiece refers to something, usually a painting or a sculpture, or a combination of all sorts of things, that sits above an altar and is used to illustrate and dramatize the mass. Of course, lots of religions use altars, but for the sake of this discussion, I am referring specifically to altars in Catholic churches that are used during Catholic Masses. In most Catholic Masses, Catholics partake in a sacrament called communion, during which they consume a wafer and a sip of wine that represents Christ's sacrifice for the sins of man. Traditional Catholics, which is to say, Catholics who follow the teachings and belief of the Catholic Church by the book, truly believe that the little bread wafer and the sip of wine are actually the body and blood of Christ. That those substances, even though they outwardly are not changed, have somehow transformed into Christ Himself. Those of us who are not Catholic are probably like, what? But seriously, this is a thing that traditional Catholics believe. Though of course there are more casual Catholics who maybe have a different idea of what happens during Mass. But what does that have to do with anything? I believe that Michelangelo designed the Bruges Madonna to illustrate the events of the Mass, specifically to reinforce the concept or belief that the bread and wine literally become the body and blood of Christ. When you look at the sculpture above an altar, it literally looks like the Christ child is climbing down onto the altar. Let me repeat that. A toddler baby Jesus is about to crawl down onto the surface where his body and blood are being laid out for the consumption of the faithful to erase their sins. Talk about symbolic. But wait a second. If this sculpture is meant to convey Christ sacrificing himself for the sins of man, why did Michelangelo show him as a toddler? Well, that's where the plot twist comes in. I love a good plot twist. The sculpture is called the Bruges Madonna. Bruges Madonna. And that's for a pretty good reason. This sculpture isn't about the Christchild. It's about the Madonna, which is fitting, given that the Mouscron family chapel, as well as the church overall, were both dedicated to the Madonna, to Christ's mother. While the Christchild plays an active role in the sculpture, I mean he's the one doing the moving, the Madonna is the primary figure in this work. First things first, Michelangelo gives a little shout-out to childbirth by placing the Kiddo Christ between the Madonna's legs, giving the viewer a not so subtle reminder of how Christ became man. Yes, according to the Bible, God did will Christ to become man, but the Madonna did the damn thing, and she gets kudos for that. Additionally, Michelangelo makes the Madonna the Christ child's literal support as he embarks on his journey. His little chubby arm slips around her thigh as he steps down, and his little chubby hand holds hers. For me, that's the most beautiful part of the sculpture, the intertwined hands. It's such a touching gesture, especially when you realize that as the Christchild moves away, their hands will have to separate, and the Madonna won't stop him. She will let him, her son, go. And here's the biggie. The Madonna is not looking at the Christchild, as you would imagine a mother would if their child was using them as a human jungle gym. Instead, she stares down at something in front of them both, which in this case happens to be the altar. Obviously, a statue is just a statue and not an actual person. But this whole setup implies that the Madonna is a witness to her son's sacrifice. She knows what is going to happen to the Christ child when he steps down onto the altar. She knows what his destiny is, and she is willing to let him go because that is what must be done. The Madonna therefore becomes this sort of all-knowing figure who is destined to watch her son be sacrificed on the altar in front of her over and over and over again, even though she has yet to let him go. There are therefore two sacrifices at play here: that of the Christ child who is stepping down onto the table that represents his martyrdom, and that of the Madonna, who is allowing her son to embark on a journey that she knows will end in death. Now I realize that this all sounds like a lot to get from a single sculpture, but it's all there. And Michelangelo was a genius. Now I don't like to throw that word around a lot, but in Michelangelo's case, I think it's true. Obviously, he knew the technical aspects of carving marble and painting frescoes and whatever else. But what he also knew how to do more than anything was to tell a story. The Bruges Madonna is an excellent example of how fantastic Michelangelo was at being a storyteller, which he achieved by considering both the sculpture as well as its setting, which in this case was above an altar. Ultimately, as an altar piece, the Bruges Madonna supports the sacrament that Catholics partake in and reinforces concepts of sacrifice, grief, and selflessness that are inherent to that ritual. In other words, it functions. And it does it while looking amazing. The Bruges Madonna is one of Michelangelo's lesser known works, even though, in my opinion, It's one of his most beautiful. So why isn't it better known? Well, the Bruges Madonna was the only sculpture by Michelangelo to leave Italy during his lifetime, which is cool. Except not really, because anyone who wants to see stuff by Michelangelo doesn't go to Belgium. They go to Italy. The David, the Pietà, the Sistine Chapel, the Moses, it's all in Rome or Florence. Also, historically speaking, by the time the Bruges Madonna arrived in Bruges around 1506, the city wasn't what it used to be. The main channel had silted over, which really stunted trade, meaning that there weren't so many people coming and going who would have seen the statue. Now though, Bruges is a tourist hub. It's just that not many of those tourists go specifically to see the Bruges Madonna. However, that seems to be changing. In the recent decade or so, there has been way more interest in the Bruges Madonna due to the fact that it was one of the artworks stolen by the Nazis during World War II. There have been all sorts of books, movies, and documentaries about Nazi art theft and restitution. And the Bruges Madonna is part of that story, so it's getting a little bit more attention these days. I will go into the Bruges Madonna during World War II in episode 11, so if you're interested in learning more, that's where you should go. As for the Bruges Madonna today, you can still visit the sculpture in the Moose Grand Chapel in the Church of Our Lady in Bruges, though in the past few years the church has been undergoing major alterations. As of the summer of 2016, the Bruges Madonna was still on display in the Moosegrond Chapel, though you did have to pay a teeny tiny fee to see it. I am not positive if the sculpture is still on display, or if it's been temporarily removed from the chapel during that part of the church's restoration. I would encourage you to check with TripAdvisor, the church's website, or the Bruges City website to confirm if the statue will be available for you to visit, if and when you make it to Bruges. To end this episode, I wanted to share a story with you, and that story is mine. I was in Bruges two years ago, just after I'd finished my master's thesis. I was there for a conference, and I went to see the statue every single day that I was there. And on my last day, the fifth day, someone at the church randomly approached me and asked me if I spoke English, which um I do. She then took me past the security ropes and into the chapel, which usually you cannot enter, you can just look at it, and we proceeded to read the noon prayers and petitions in Dutch, and then I did it in English, while the Bruges Madonna was just ten feet away, and it was super cool. But the coolest thing happened after the petitions when I had gone back to sit down in the chairs where people go to either pray or, in my case, look at the statue. While I was sitting there, a young mother and her two small children came and sat next to me, and the mother complimented my English, which I appreciated because it is my first language. We then proceeded to have a quiet conversation for about 20 minutes, in which I learned that the woman and her son and daughter were all Muslim. And I had assumed that they were Muslim because the woman, whose name I unfortunately cannot remember, was wearing a hijab or a veil that some Muslim women wear to cover their heads in public. The woman very kindly asked me to explain the Bruges Madonna to her and her children, and I did the best that I could. And at one point the woman asked me why the Madonna was wearing a veil. I said that I wasn't totally sure because that was true. But I explained that sometimes women wear veils to Catholic Mass to symbolize their piety and humbleness before God. More likely, it probably has something to do with the Madonna being a symbol of the Church and the Church being the symbolic bride of Christ and blah blah blah blah blah. That's hard to explain. After I had explained all of this, the woman turned to her daughter and touched her own hijab. She proceeded to explain to her daughter that Michelangelo's Madonna wore a veil just like mommy's, but that the Madonna's veil meant something different than mommy's did. And this little girl lit up and then proceeded to tell me why mommy wears a hijab and how someday she'll wear one too. And I was fascinated by all of it. Hearing and being a part of that conversation was so meaningful to me because it demonstrated firsthand what I know to be true, which is that art can help us bridge differences. It can help teach us about different cultures and religions, and it can get two strangers from completely different parts of the world to come together and have a simple, civil, and meaningful conversation. It has been a full two years since that conversation took place in the Church of Our Lady in Bruges, and I still think about that woman and her children all of the time. Especially when I see an image of the Bruges Madonna. Because without that sculpture, that conversation would have never happened. And I am so glad that it did. That is all I have on the Bruges Madonna for this episode. If you want to hear more about this sculpture, please listen to episode 11, which will cover the Bruges Madonna's kidnapping and recovery during World War II. As for Gus Corner this week, Gus is doing great. He was very excited to be able to see his five-month-old human niece, Madeline, this past weekend. And during her visit, he was a very good boy, though he did steal a sock off of her foot. Oops. What's more, Gus is still sneaking into famous works of art. This week he infiltrated Peter Bruegel's Peasant Wedding, Andrea Montaigne's Agony in the Garden, and Edward Manet's The Repose. And there may or may not be another familiar face in that last one. And it's me. As Gus's humble assistant, I have posted all of those images as well as all of the related images, links, and sources for this episode on the podcast's website. Stuff about things podcast.wordpress.com. So head on over there and have a look. If you enjoyed this episode, I would super appreciate it if you would subscribe and leave a review for the podcast on iTunes. Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you in advance. And please feel free to reach out to me on the podcast's website or at the podcast's email, stuffaboutthingspodcast at gmail.com. I absolutely love hearing from listeners and I will always reply. As always, a big thanks to hooksounds.com and freemusicarchive.org for the music used in the intro and the outro, including Fox Brandenburg Concerto number four by Kevin McLeod and the Jaunty Tune entitled Success Dreams. That is all from me this episode. I thank you so much for listening, and I hope that you take the time to look at something beautiful today.