Max Dvořák’s Michelangelo

Abstract

It has been shown that it was Max Dvořák who introduced into art-historical research the concept of Mannerism as an independent style that dominated the second half of the 16th century. Dvořák described the art of Raphael’s pupils and of Florentine painters such as Rosso Fiorentino or Jacopo Pontormo not as a decline in artistic development, but as an expression of a change in the cultural mood that needed to be voiced in artistic form. However, the historiography of Dvořák’s conception of Mannerism has to date neglected to devote any attention to how Mannerism actually emerged: what in Dvořák’s conception of art generated the need to describe the art of the late 16th century as a separate artistic style distinct from the Renaissance? As the study shows, the answer to this question may be found in Max Dvořák’s interpretation of the late art of Michelangelo Buonarroti.