Art Companion: Chapter 33, From Touch to Sight: The Conceptual Genius of Michelangelo

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Your Eyes Experience What Your Hands Would Feel

255 Michelangelo, Pieta, 1519-20. WC.

In this study, we examine Michelangelo’s remarkable ability to translate touch through drawing. It is much more miraculous than it sounds. His drawings make our eyes experience what our hands would feel.

One element of Michelangelo's genius lies in his ability to elevate two-dimensional art by depicting tactile sensations that would not normally be seen. In his drawings, Michelangelo portrays the figure with a heightened sense of depth and form, drawing the dips and peaks in such a way that they are deeper and higher than what we can perceive visually, yet accurately representing what we would feel when touching the figure. Through drawing the human body by how it would feel he offers us a special empathy that we would not otherwise experience. Human touch serves as an important form of nonverbal and nonvisual communication, conveying emotions, feelings, and intentions in ways that words and sight alone cannot.

Touch also releases oxytocin, which promotes feelings of trust, empathy, and closeness, reducing stress and anxiety levels. Studies have shown that positive touch has been linked to improved mood, reduced feelings of loneliness, and overall psychological well-being.[1] Michelangelo is elevating visual drawing to include these physio-emotional values given by touch. By imbuing his drawings with a sense of touch he took a huge leap in aesthetic evolution.

256 Michelangelo. With my markup.

In the middle of the blue circle is a darkened shadow drawn under the ribcage. I would like you to feel your ribcage, feel the solidness of it, and as you move your hand below the ribs, just above and off-center from your belly, you will feel a quite significant cavity. Notice how Michelangelo drew that compression.

If you continue to feel below that area, you will sense a valley between the mounds of your stomach and your obliques. That valley is the softer shadow running through the bottom of the blue circle.

Switching to the red circle, notice the pinched tendon in the pocket of the inner elbow. The odd thing here is that the arm is totally relaxed. We might see this tendon if the arm were under duress, but we are not going to see it in a relaxed arm. Yet, if we locate this pocket on our own relaxed arm, we do indeed feel a tendon with a very deep cavity off to the side of it. Hence, the tendon of a living, relaxed arm is perceptible to our sense of touch but not to our eye.

257 Michelangelo, Christ on the Cross, detail, 1541, black and white chalk. WC.

258 Michelangelo. With my markup. Wrist indent.

The examples of this type of transformation are everywhere in Michelangelo’s drawings. Here, I have chosen a little, deep pocket below the thumb and nestled just above the wrist bone. It’s uncanny, but when I feel that spot on my wrist, it feels exactly like in the drawing, yet my forearms are not nearly so formed. Again, Michelangelo accentuates the depth of the cavity and does not merely skim across the surface.

259 Michelangelo, Study of Haman for the Sistine Chapel, 1511, red chalk. WC.

260 Michelangelo. With my markup. Ribcage and elbow.

The drawing, Haman, is one of the amazing studies for the figures of the Sistine Chapel. If you feel your upper breastbone and where it meets the thorax at the base of the throat, you can get a sense of some of the ribs and planes of muscle, and the deep cavity of the thorax.

Once when I was visiting the Louvre and seeing Michelangelo’s Captives, which at that time were in the subterranean vaults, a young woman turned the corner, walked down the steps, and looked overwhelmed by the sculptures. She unconsciously started feeling her chest and the bone structure to it. She, like many millions of other people, connected to Michelangelo, communicating through the sense of touch.

In the blue circle, notice the distinct the knob (the lateral epicondyle), on the inside of the arm adjacent to the elbow (olecranon). Hold out your arm and feel that area—the joint of the elbow feels like it's made out of stone.

These drawings are masterpieces and can be studied for their light and shadow, movement, and form. But I think it is Michelangelo’s communication of touch that took drawing onto a dramatically new conceptual level of art; one in which your eyes experience what your hands would feel. Through emulating a sense of touch, you can convey more than just visual perception.

One of the most rewarding studies in painting and drawing is discovering how a thought, perception, or emotion is transformed into a drawing or painting. Michelangelo’s drawings serve as great exemplars of those transformations.

Postscript: I am always learning; these are two of my recent ink drawings implementing what I have learned from studying Michelangelo. Lastly, it's worth noting that even at the highest levels of artistic innovation, foundational techniques continue to serve as invaluable tools. For instance, I introduced a massage visualization technique as a basic way to bring out form in Chapter 2. Yet now, we're employing an advanced version of it in discussing Michelangelo's mastery. It's a fascinating way of going full circle, from basics to the pinnacle of art.

261 Newberry, Morani Elbow 2, 2022, ink. 

262 Newberry, Morani Elbow 3, 2022, ink. 

Practice #1

As always, it is crucial to reinforce your understanding through practice. Use a fine ink pen, like the Bic recommended earlier, and yourself as a model, or enlist a model who has no problem being touched. Utilize the massage technique mentioned in Chapter 2—both imagining massaging the area and literally massaging it—to guide how your lines will dip and rise over the forms. As you draw, pay attention to any bumps or protrusions, and then use your sense of touch to determine whether they are hard projections like bones or soft curves. If it is a bone, try to accentuate its surface shape in your drawing. If it is a curve, focus on drawing it in a flowing or smooth way, capturing its softness and malleability.

Practice #2

As always, it is crucial to reinforce your understanding through practice. Using pen and paper, use a high-definition photo reference of an athlete with very little fat. With this reference, you want to clearly see the distinction between a muscle, tendon, and a bone. It is also important there is clear definition of light and shadows. Use the massage technique from chapter 2, with the minute focus on the hills and valleys of the anatomy's details. I did this for my previous two drawings. However, you might still have to double-check the anatomy by using yourself as a hands-on proxy.

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[1] Holland, T. M., Facts About Touch: How Human Contact Affects Your Health and Relationships, April 28, 2018, https://www.dignityhealth.org/articles/facts-about-touch-how-human-contact-affects-your-health-and-relationships

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About the Author

Michael Newberry is a creative figurative artist who has exhibited in New York, Los Angeles, Seattle, Athens, and Rome. With a solo career spanning artistic, teaching, and art writing fields, he has garnered appreciation from artists and collectors, some as far away as Japan and Australia. His figures tell stories that resonate with those seeking a realm where thought, emotion, and senses intertwine. The journey through Newberry's art can be transformative. Of his growing collection of over 1,100 works, 800 have found loving homes.

Praise for the Author

Michael Newberry is a life-long artist, who has often advocated for the figurative arts through philosophical articles and reviews. He speaks ​plainly and from the heart but with a razor sharp knowledge of art history and theory. 'Evolution Through Art' is a clear-headed contemplation of art history and its relationship to our evolution and humanity. And it offers a moral platform for figurative artists to advocate for themselves while bringing beauty and humanity back into the arts.

- Brett Holverstott

Aside from the grasp, clarity and expertise in Michael's work, his ability to communicate with words, sets him apart. He is a natural teacher as well as an artist. This book, like all his others, is a gem. 

- Martine Vaugel, Sculptor

The Art Studio Companion is brought to life on the strength of an inimitable human spirit that is an excellently-blended alloy of artistic creator, teacher, curator, critic, historian, and analyst... a timeless work of art, crafted to keep the truth and honesty of art alive. 

- Abiodun Olaku, Artist

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