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 hint of Isaiah’s specific physical features. Isaiah’s prophecies provide a few details about his family—his wife (8:3) and children (7:3, 14; 8:3, 18)—but none about his own image. Thus, every artist who wishes to paint a picture of a biblical figure who, like Isaiah, is not physically described, must rely on his own personal style to combine reality and imagination to produce a unique creation.
As a sculptor, Michelangelo imagined his images in stone. In his portrait of Isaiah, he seems to be trying to avoid reality, to create his prophet entirely from his own imagination. Michelangelo’s Isaiah is a creation of the mind, not a portrait whose roots are in reality. Michelangelo was aware that his human portraits are not an imitation of nature. In one of his sonnets (he was also a poet), he sheds light on his working technique:
Michelangelo did not rely on an actual figure to create his prophet. He might not even have 018claimed any resemblance to what the prophet really looked like. From the book of the prophet, we learn that Isaiah was the son of Amoz from Jerusalem, that he lived in Judah during the reigns of the kings Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz and Hezekiah in the second half of the eighth century B.C. (Isaiah 1:1). But that Isaiah is not the object of Michelangelo’s portrayal.
Yet it would be a mistake to conclude that Michelangelo did not portray the prophet Isaiah at all. Michelangelo’s image of Isaiah is surely an appropriate picture of someone who delivers God’s message. That is the well from which Michelangelo’s portrait draws its power.
Georgio Vasari in his famous Lives of the Artists (first published in 1550, during Michelangelo’s life) described Michelangelo’s Isaiah this way:
“He who examines the prophet Isaiah will see features truly borrowed from nature herself, the real mother of art. One of the limbs is crossed over the other; he has laid one hand within a book, at the place where he has been reading; he rests the elbow of his other arm on the volume, and leans his cheek on his hand. He replies to the call on his attention, made by one of the boys standing behind him, by a mere turn of the head, without disturbing himself further. From this figure, at a word, the observer who studies it well in every part may acquire all the rules demanded to constitute the guiding precepts of a good painter.”3
Vasari’s description helps us to appreciate that Michelangelo’s Isaiah personifies prophecy. One modern critic has suggested that Michelangelo’s Isaiah is not only the artist’s private, personal image of the prophet, but is also a portrayal of the birth of prophetic inspiration.4
On the other hand, we can see it as a portrait of a self-contained young man who sits on a throne-like chair in a somewhat rotary movement—contrapposto, to use the art critic’s term. In his hand he holds a book; his place is marked by his fingers; the content seems to be concealed by the almost closed pages. The left hand points in the same direction as his face, which is turned to the side as if to listen to a voice or perhaps to see a vision, almost as if he were obeying a call. Two young children stand behind him and stare at his face.
Does Michelangelo intend to give us a generalized image of the prophet Isaiah, or has the artist focused on a specific prophecy that for him symbolizes Isaiah’s message?
The formal character of the portrait as well as the fact that Michelangelo inserted the name of the prophet in the composition suggests that the artist intended a generalized portrait of the prophet and that he did not intend to portray a specific prophecy. Michelangelo’s Isaiah seems to be the personification of an idea rather than an image of a prophet who is proclaiming a narrated prophecy. Yet there is a specific prophecy that Michelangelo seems to have had in mind. When Judah appears unwilling to heed his call, Isaiah decides to record his prophecies in a book and to await the Lord’s judgment:
“ ‘Bind up the message, seal the instruction with My disciples.’ So I will wait for the Lord, who is hiding His face from the House of Jacob, and I will hope in Him. Here stand I and the children the Lord has given me as signs and portents in Israel from the Lord of Hosts, who dwells on Mount Zion” (Isaiah 8:16–18).
In Michelangelo’s portrait we see numerous details from the prophecy: the closed book, the children who are a sign, and the wait for the divine call.
Michelangelo’s powerful portrait must be seen on both these levels.
Michelangelo’s Isaiah obviously exerted a strong influence on the artist’s contemporaries, including the young Raphael. Vasari describes how Raphael was affected by Michelangelo’s Isaiah:
“The sight [of the Sistine ceiling] thus afforded him caused Raphael instantly to paint anew the figure of the prophet Isaiah, which he had executed in the church of Saint Agostino…. In this work he profited to so great an extent by what he had seen in the works of Michelangelo, that his manner was thereby inexpressibly ameliorated and enlarged, receiving thenceforth an obvious increase of majesty.”5
In some respects, Raphael’s Isaiah is almost an exact copy of Michelangelo’s. In both, the prophet sits on a throne-like chair, with his body, draped in a robe, facing the viewer; the prophet’s face tilts toward his right; his right hand reaches across his body to hold a text on his left side; and behind him stand two young children.
But Raphael’s Isaiah is not an abstract image nor a mere symbol. He illustrates a particular image, the likeness of a person.
While Michelangelo depicts a closed book to symbolize the prophet, Raphael prefers an open text on a scroll. To intensify the contrast, Raphael inserts on the scroll an appropriate Isaianic verse that includes the word “Open”:
“Open the gates, and let
A righteous nation enter,
[A nation] that keeps faith.”
(Isaiah 26:2)
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Yet Raphael does not illustrate this particular prophecy. The painting does not include even a hint of the open gates, the righteous nation or any other component of the specific prophecy.
To some extent, Raphael contradicts Michelangelo’s image of Isaiah—the young competitor obviously did so intentionally. Where Michelangelo seals God’s words and awaits the future to bring fulfillment of the prophecy, Raphael unfolds the scroll and opens the gates to the faithful. Thus, although the two images are so similar, on the one hand, they are also very different in content and message. For Michelangelo, Isaiah’s prophecy is sealed; for Raphael, it is an open scroll. This is a remarkable transformation of an idea. Raphael has portrayed a prophet whose words are meant to reach not only the prophet’s historical audience, but, even more importantly, the viewers of Raphael’s painting. Despite the close similarities in the paintings, there is an enormous gap between them. Each reflects the artist’s own personality, and they are poles apart: Michelangelo’s Isaiah is closed, hidden, far from the people of Isaiah’s time and far from the people of the viewer’s time; Raphael’s Isaiah is contemporary and open, calling for the community to take up the prophetic message.
Michelangelo correctly read Isaiah’s prophecy; he captured a specific verse that, for him, symbolized Isaiah’s prophecy. Raphael, on the other hand, while taking much from the master, portrayed a diametrically opposite aspect of Isaiah’s prophecy.
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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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.
2.
Creighton Gilbert, tr., Complete Poems and Selected Letters of Michelangelo (Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 1980), Sonnet 44, p. 28.
3.
Giorgio Vasari, Lives of the Painters, Sculptors and Architects, vol. 4, tr. A.B. Hinds (London: Everyman’s Library, 1866), p. 100.
4.
Salmi Mario, The Complete Works of Michelangelo (New York: Renal and Comp, 1967) p. 209.
