Angel with candlestick

Cast of Angel with candelabra sculpted by Michelangelo Buoarroti. The original is situated in Bologna at the Church of St. Domenico.  The subject had to represent a winged angel, kneeling and with a candlestick on the raised knee, in which to place votive candles on the sides of the actual sarcophagus. Michelangelo sculpted a solid and compact figure, full of potential energy, which moves decisively away from the balanced and refined forms, typical of the early Renaissance, which Niccolò had used for the other candlestick, with the appearance of a gentle and melancholy girl. Michelangelo’s massive and masculine angel seems to want to lean forward, creating a large and dynamic drapery in his garment, anything but ethereal and rhythmically undulating; his strength, already in the sixteenth century, is retained within an ideal cubic spatial form.