Two Master Portraits of Isaiah

Home > Magazines > Bible Review > December 1988

Two masterful portraits of the prophet Isaiah were painted in Rome at the beginning of the 16th century. The first, by Michelangelo (see below), was painted on the Sistine chapel ceiling between 1500 and 1510.1 The second, by Raphael (see front cover), was painted in the Church of Saint Agostino barely two years after Michelangelo completed his Isaiah at the Vatican (1512–13). Created so closely in time and place, the two portraits are clearly related. Yet they reflect quite independent visions. What kind of portraits did each artist create? An artist would search the Bible in vain for any […]

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Endnotes

The entire program of the Sistine ceiling was created by Michelangelo during the years 1508–12; however, the prophet Isaiah is one of the early illustrations that was completed by 1510, before Michelangelo abandoned the painting for a while.

Creighton Gilbert, tr., Complete Poems and Selected Letters of Michelangelo (Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 1980), Sonnet 44, p. 28.

Giorgio Vasari, Lives of the Painters, Sculptors and Architects, vol. 4, tr. A.B. Hinds (London: Everyman’s Library, 1866), p. 100.

Salmi Mario, The Complete Works of Michelangelo (New York: Renal and Comp, 1967) p. 209.

Vasari, Lives, vol. 3, pp. 161–162.