It looks like the figure they're attacking is meant to be St Anthony, rather than God.

It isn't an original work, but actually a painted version of a famous engraving by Martin Schongauer.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Temptation_of_St_Anthony_(...

At this point in his life, Michaelangelo was probably apprenticed to Ghirlandaio. This wasn't a freeform doodle, but likely something of a homework assignment. It was common for young artists to be given famous works to copy, or common religious scenes to remake.

It's just a reflection of his education. Even today, many children are raised with religious education that includes stories of demons attacking people. Kids love scary stuff; monsters, battle, etc.

As the article says, it's based on Schongauer's The Temptation of St. Anthony. There's even a version by Salvador Dali.

Demons look like that in Medieval and Renaissance paintings. "Red dude with horns" didn't become the standard depiction of demons until much later.

It makes me wonder what his home environment was like where he could put such detail into a painting. Something like that isn't made in an afternoon or weekend; and it definitely requires parents to provide resources and moral support.

12 years old is pretty old for a kid. I remember trying to reason through my grandparents’ religious beliefs at or before age 9, and they had taught me about lots of different demons, gods, etc.

Yes probably first known work. The salient point though is that he did this at 12.

and also keep in mind, you probably make many sketches before putting brush to canvas...

>... it became "the only painting by Michelangelo located anywhere in the Americas, and also just one of four easel paintings attributed to him throughout his entire career," during most of which he disparaged oil painting itself.

I assume by "painting" they mean something akin to "published work" but it very well could just be his earliest "known work".

At this time kids spent their lives training under other masters. By this time he's been painting and assisting full time for many years already.

Still impressive of course, but remember that it's not straightforward to compare how things are today with other time periods.

No. He was an apprentice to a master which would have shown him tools and techniques.

I sure could find some experts for hire to drive up the price of my cultural artifact.

Without anyone wanting to buy this and spend resources on that, finding claims to proof the contrary might be a quite futile task.

The whole board of the Museum is non-experts. Nobody has any interest in devaluing that expense.

In that era even attributing works definively to a single artist and not a school or workshop just feels a bit off.

https://kimbellart.org/content/nuestro-kimbell

absurdly well citing reddit comment on the provenance:

https://www.reddit.com/r/museum/comments/x6k3mm/comment/in89...

It's impressive that he did it at 12, but like you said, he had years of focused practice under his belt before he did this one. Anyone can do this level of work - they just need to actually learn it. It doesn't require someone be born with talent.

Articles like this contribute towards the gatekeeping feeling people get about the arts in my opinion.

You shouldn’t be getting downvoted. If people would read the article they’d see it’s not an original.

Most of human history we didn't have electronic distraction devices and we have one Michelangelo; the answer is probably not as many as the question implies.

Also consider the tools and materials available today. I don't know much about Michelangelo, but I imagine people's opportunity for sheer iteration (due to availability of qualitys pens, pappers, ink etc) is magnitudes higher (and cheaper) today.

I don't think there is that significant amount of artists that do not draw because entertainment. Artist communities online are doing pretty fine. There might not be enough money for all of them, but drawing is still popular enough hobby.

They're making art all around you. Some of them are extraordinarily famous.

Movies, video games, music.

There are plenty, but the value of Michelangelo’s brand is in its’ scarcity.

Children today are expected to go to school and get a well rounded education. They don’t start specializing as apprentice to some master at an early age

They are busy making other stuff. Its OK if you don't appreciate their work.

I'm not educated in painting but will just assume it's similar to music and someone like Mozart. I genuinely believe you wouldn't get as many as you'd imagine. There were few people making music at that time and only a small portion of the population ever had the chance to listen to it (.5-1% around 1750, 5-10% around 1850). We didn't get 10x the number of Mozarts. We got some people who were as talented as him for sure and pushed boundaries and some got famous for it We also got many talented people who wrote very great music which doesn't get played at all anymore, many of those didn't push the boundaries.

Even with people like Beethoven who're seen as disruptors and wildly popular by general audiences there were talented disruptors at the time who actually did things he's 'known' for and they don't get played at all. Bach himself had largely fallen into obscurity for +-100 years. There's probably only so many Michelangelos or Mozarts people can be taught about in middle school, high school, university.... I believe it's more about the institutions that basically allowed someone like mozart or michelangelo some kinda 'patronage oligopoly', something which barely exists these days. Free market didn't really exist here well into the 1800s, even then you still had gatekeepers. In the end history picked a few winners very loosely related to their 'musical worth'.

Yeah… was not really expecting that!

The Caravaggio was incredible too.

The Torlonia collection was recently in Chicago and had some truly stunning pieces. The Ostia relief was tucked away in a corner and I nearly missed it. The traveling exhibition is well worth seeing for anyone remotely interested in ancient history.

Fun fact ! Michelangelo hated doing the ceiling thing.

https://www.dutchfinepaintings.com/michelangelos-sistine-cha...

He hated painting the Sistine Chapel ceiling because he saw himself primarily as a sculptor. You can read some of the graphic language he used to describe his perspective of having to do it. Also, he was constantly in pain and would go temporarily blind from holding his head in certain positions for hours at a time.

my father made reading The Agony and The Ecstasy a requirement to go to Italy when I was a sophomore in high school. It's a thick tome, but a great read if you're a curious kid.

as the others said Michelangelo hated doing that painting. He's a very tragic, albeit heroic to me, man. I'd recommend that book if you're at all fascinated by him.

St Anthony was alive in the high middle ages. So not a biblical figure. Much closer to the artists own time.

Edit: as below a more famous and earlier St Anthony was indeed much closer to the time of the gospels

Seriously. Both because of the talent but also because wtf Mikey don't you want to draw a knight in shining armor or a cow or something.

His painting is based on a prior work, an engraving by Martin Schongauer ... "The Temptation of St Anthony" ... see here https://www.wikiart.org/en/martin-schongauer/the-temptation-... ...

So he was re-rendering a religious folk story.