Michelangelo and the Reform of Art

Michelangelo and the Reform of Art by Nagel, Alexander. hardcover edition. ISBN: 8580000185553.

Michelangelo was acutely conscious of living in an age of religious crisis and artistic change, and for him the two issues were related. Michelangelo and the Reform of Art explores Michelangelos awareness of artistic tradition as a means of understanding his relation to the profound religious uncertainty of the sixteenth century. Concentrating on Michelangelos lifelong preoccupation with the image of the dead Christ, Alexander Nagel studies the artists associations with reform-minded circles in early sixteenth-century Italy, and reveals his sustained concern over the fate of religious art.