The barely there Michelangelo

The problem with Michelangelo Public and Private: Drawings for the Sistine Chapel and Other Treasures from the Casa Buonarroti  isn't the core of the exhibit itself. Had the Seattle Art Museum stripped it of lard and presented it with the modesty it deserves, it would have been a fine thing to see in a small gallery on a rainy afternoon.

Instead, Michelangelo comes with the trappings of a major moment: a wall-sized time-line of the artist's life, extensive text, copious illustrations and an attempt to create titillating controversy.

Flashing on the Web site:

Michelangelo burned most of his sketches. Come see 12 drawings that escaped the fire.

They escaped the fire but not their admirers. The Casa Buonarroti Web site explains why the drawings are ghostly. The best of the 200 in the collection were on view from 1566 to 1960 with no time out for good behavior. The Uffizi undertook their restoration, returning them 15 years later.

Surely the Uffizi is not responsible for what happened to a preliminary sketch for The Last Judgment. The wall label notes that the artist created it in black chalk, reinforced later with pen and ink. In other words, it's an original traced into a forgery.

Make that 11 sketches. Still, they're Michelangelo's. Not for nothing did he regret his work when he was a pious old man, inclined to agree with the cleric Pietro Aretino that some of his nude figures would be "at home in some voluptuous bathhouse, certainly not the highest chapel of the world."  

As a colorist Michelangelo was the equal of Raphael, and his forms have no peers. Not before him or since has anyone matched the glory of his well-muscled males, and he did so within the context of a fully-articulated human drama. A handful of his notebook drawings is worth seeing, but it's almost impossible to do amid crowds puzzled by all the filler: little-known artists of his time or shortly after creating tributes and stray sculptures from the school of. 

This show screams minor museum in a provincial town. There's a dissatisfied buzz in the galleries from people wondering when they'll get to the good stuff or if they've already missed it or maybe they should take a tour? I doubt exit interviews will be encouraging to the marketing department.