MICHELANGELO'S BACCHUS AND THE ART OF SELF-FORMATION

This article argues that Michelangelo's Bacchus was conceived as a sculptural essay in the art of self‐formation as the artist undertook to establish his reputation in Rome, and that the innovative sculpture continued to function ‘auto‐biographically’ in later decades as it stood in the sculpture garden of the Galli family. Both theological‐philosophical and poetic‐artistic dimensions of self‐formation or ‘metamorphosis’ are seen as integral to understanding the sculpture's role in Michelangelo's self‐imaging. The study proposes, moreover, that as Michelangelo engaged in moral, intellectual and artistic self‐creation in carving the Bacchus, he simultaneously challenged viewers of the work actively to engage in a dialectical process of self‐formation. The sculpture's unusual multiple‐view composition, with satyr, animal skin and tree trunk, and its rocky base are seen as central to a reading of the sculpture.