Michelangelo's "The Torment of Saint Anthony" - in Ft. Worth

Ivory tower art comes to the people

"The Torment of Saint Anthony" (AP Photo/The Kimbell)

I enjoy fine art for a variety of reasons. I can appreciate technique and an artist’s prodigious technical skill, but more than anything else, I want to be transported. I want to walk into a painting and live that moment for as long as the temporal window in space/time will allow (I’m a parent; window’s gotta close sometime).

I found some exciting news about one of humanity’s greatest artists, Michelangelo. It seems that what experts believe to be his earliest work, “The Torment of Saint Anthony,” has been purchased by an art museum for display. Where is it? The Louvre? The Guggenheim? Try the Kimbell Art Museum. They must have paid more than an installment loan’s worth of cash; they may have even placed themselves i n need of debt relief.

But it’s Michelangelo

The Associated Press reports that the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth will display this rare Michelangelo painting. The Kimbell did not disclose the price they paid for “The Torment of Saint Anthony,” a 15th-century oil and tempera painting on wood panel. The work depicts demons struggling to hurl the ascending Saint Anthony from infinite sky to a special prison they have no doubt prepared for him in Tartarus (or a similar mythological realm; call it Hades, Hell, Purgatory or what you will). Michelangelo is believed to have painted this when he was 12 or 13 years old. ... click here to read the rest of the article titled "Michelangelo's "The Torment of Saint Anthony" - in Ft. Worth"