Pyramid of Five Men
1543
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art
1543
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art
Pyramid of Five Men is a 1543 by Juste de Juste, a Renaissance work, held at Cleveland Museum of Art.
This engraving shows five men stacked in a pyramid shape. Their bodies twist and strain like a human pyramid at a circus. Their muscles bulge under rough lines, not smooth curves. No one knows how Juste de Juste learned to draw like this. He probably never met Michelangelo, but copied his bold figures from prints. His men look more like acrobats than gods. Check out this wild print at the Cleveland Museum of Art.
Although almost nothing is known about Juste de Juste, he was probably among a circle of artists working at Fontainebleau in France in the 1540s. This eccentric composition seems to reference the twisting, turning, and balancing bodies found on the Sistine Chapel ceiling as well as the muscular nude body types associated with Michelangelo. However, the composition itself is a unique invention not derived from any specific part of the ceiling or indeed from life studies.
Read the full account in the museum source.
Juste de Juste (ca. 1505 – ca. 1559) was a Franco-Italian sculptor and printmaker in etching, a member of the Betti family of sculptors from near Florence, who became known as the Juste family in France, where Juste de…
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