''The Prophet Jeremiah'' is one of the seven

Old Testament The Old Testament (OT) is the first division of the Christian biblical canon, which is based primarily upon the 24 books of the Hebrew Bible, or Tanakh, a collection of ancient religious Hebrew and occasionally Aramaic writings by the Isr ...

prophets painted by the

Italian Italian(s) may refer to: * Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries ** Italians, a Romance ethnic group related to or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom ** Italian language, a Romance languag ...

High Renaissance In art history, the High Renaissance was a short period of the most exceptional artistic production in the Italian states, particularly Rome, capital of the Papal States, and in Florence, during the Italian Renaissance. Most art historians stat ...

master

Michelangelo Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni (6March 147518February 1564), known mononymously as Michelangelo, was an Italian sculptor, painter, architect, and poet of the High Renaissance. Born in the Republic of Florence, his work was inspir ...

(c. 1510–12) on the

Sistine Chapel ceiling The Sistine Chapel ceiling (), painted in fresco by Michelangelo between 1508 and 1512, is a cornerstone work of High Renaissance Renaissance art, art. The Sistine Chapel is the large papal chapel built within the Vatican City, Vatican betwee ...

. The

Sistine Chapel The Sistine Chapel ( ; ; ) is a chapel in the Apostolic Palace, the pope's official residence in Vatican City. Originally known as the ''Cappella Magna'' ('Great Chapel'), it takes its name from Pope Sixtus IV, who had it built between 1473 and ...

is in

Vatican Palace The Apostolic Palace is the official residence of the Pope, the head of the Catholic Church, located in Vatican City. It is also known as the Papal Palace, the Palace of the Vatican and the Vatican Palace. The Vatican itself refers to the build ...

, in the

Vatican City Vatican City, officially the Vatican City State (; ), is a Landlocked country, landlocked sovereign state and city-state; it is enclaved within Rome, the capital city of Italy and Bishop of Rome, seat of the Catholic Church. It became inde ...

. This particular

fresco Fresco ( or frescoes) is a technique of mural painting executed upon freshly laid ("wet") lime plaster. Water is used as the vehicle for the dry-powder pigment to merge with the plaster, and with the setting of the plaster, the painting become ...

is the first one on the left from the side of the

High Altar An altar is a table or platform for the presentation of religion, religious offerings, for sacrifices, or for other ritualistic purposes. Altars are found at shrines, temples, Church (building), churches, and other places of worship. They are use ...

. The person of

Jeremiah Jeremiah ( – ), also called Jeremias, was one of the major prophets of the Hebrew Bible. According to Jewish tradition, Jeremiah authored the Book of Jeremiah, book that bears his name, the Books of Kings, and the Book of Lamentations, with t ...

is imagined as lost in anguished meditation. Although the painting portrays Jeremiah as lamenting over the Destruction of Jerusalem, critics have interpreted the figure as a self-portrait by

, with the artist lamenting over the weight of his sins. Or perhaps Michelangelo is bemoaning his situation being forced by Julius II to paint when he wished to sculpt. Michelangelo spent 4 years on the Sistine ceiling during which time he escaped Rome and the job a few times when he fled to his hometown, Florence. Note that Raphael added the figure of Michelangelo/Heraclitus to his own fresco of the

School of Athens A school is the educational institution (and, in the case of in-person learning, the building) designed to provide learning environments for the teaching of students, usually under the direction of teachers. Most countries have systems of f ...

and Raphael "copied" Michelangelo's own self-portrait and gave Michelangelo/Heraclitus boots (Michelangelo was known to have worn boots and didn't often remove them) and the bowed head on hand that Michelangelo had given himself. Influential English critic

Roger Fry Roger Eliot Fry (14 December 1866 – 9 September 1934) was an English painter and art critic, critic, and a member of the Bloomsbury Group. Establishing his reputation as a scholar of the Old Masters, he became an advocate of more recent ...

used the figure to illustrate his emotional elements of design, or how formal elements such as mass and space produce emotion:

Notes

References

*Fry, Roger. 1920. "Vision and Design." London: Chatto & Windus. "An Essay in Æsthetics." 11–24. Accessed online on 13 March 2012 at https://www.scribd.com/doc/52044301/Roger-Fry-Vision-and-design

See also

Notes

References

See also