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[AfterHours]

Michelangelo...

His artist page now features 24 rated works, more to yet be added

I added several updated images (ex: David, Pieta, Laurentian Library, St. Peter's, also those to all the newly added works...). The David and Pieta especially show a bit better the elements I take up in my analysis of them. For example, the Pieta images help illustrate the sensuousness and the bond between them, and the serenity in Jesus' face poetically balanced in and by hers. Or for example, the David now includes several variations of disposition, the "metamorphosis" of his face/emotion/psyche, and a difficult-to-find head-on direct photo of his face because this is currently blocked by a column in the museum and can't be seen this directly without a camera perched high enough in between in order to capture it.

Most extensive revision of images (including some added links, 360 panoramas, a link to further historical info...) has been St. Peter's (which I also updated the architect particulars in the title, fwiw). This included me going back through studies of St. Peter's fairly extensively and I am considering a rating upgrade. In regards visual art, it may be the greatest work of the Baroque (that isn't necessarily a new concept for me, just emphasizing that point here). Over all Arts, within the Baroque period, it was perhaps only surpassed by Bach's greatest masterpieces, perhaps one or two others (like Handel's Messiah) and maybe Vivaldi's Four Seasons. Part of what makes it astounding is it is both extravagantly "magniloquently" Baroque while also still measured and anchored to the (more measured) sublimity and refinement of the High Renaissance (so it is simultaneously very extravagant while, for the most part not going "overboard" -- remaining a sense of the "measured" and sublime -- because it fuses rather seamlessly these periods of architecture/design). The most profound aspect of it, probably, is Michelangelo's central Dome, which even in person looks rather unreal, "practically CGI" (an elevated separate reality/vision) due to how massive, its dramatic elevation, and the fusion of Renaissance/Baroque interior design, judicious beauty of color, how it seems to practically "float" anew extending from but yet above the main body of physical space. The High Renaissance-Mannerist-Baroque is additionally added in regards emotionality by Michelangelo's revisions to the overall design which fuses all the space to its central space (in other words, from most positions and views inside, adjacent spaces are "activated" by his plan both seamlessly, poetically and majestically, forcefully -- adjacent halls and chapels segue from others and the central space, always in view of and in extending of it (whereas earlier plans had these spaces more closed off, segregated). This also occurs from Maderno's Nave which, although a later addition to Michelangelo's plan, nevertheless maintains, extends, its emotionality and primary purpose or artistic integrity by employing it rather seamlessly to a Latin Cross from the earlier Greek cross, and extending, revealing, seguing its adjacent chapels in a similar "activated" way. Basically, this is High Renaissance/Mannerist architecture leading into the Baroque (more colorful, activated, vibrant, expressive).

Along with study of St. Peter's came an update to Bernini's page, where I've now added his two most significant sculptures from inside the Basilica: St Peter's Chair and the Baldachinno, each now rated separately with images and links on his page. I may go ahead and add some more of Bernini, other key works.

Along with a possible upgrade to St. Peter's rating (as architecture), I am still pondering a possible upgrade to Michelangelo's Pauline Chapel paintings duo, and now to his Pieta, the Sagrestia Nuova, possibly the Bacchus, possibly the Rondanini Pieta (which I already upgraded its ranking a little bit, still among the 7.3s).
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