Italian-born Renaissance artist Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni (1475–1564)—like Picasso, Van Gogh and Rembrandt—has achieved iconic status and one-word brand-name recognition. In the context of art history, there’s only one Michelangelo. His achievements as a painter, poet, sculptor and architect are well documented and, like Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519), his elder and competitor, he was regarded by his contemporaries as one of the greatest artists of his era.
The final decades of Michelangelo’s life were his busiest as an artist, and it’s these years that The British Museum, in London, focuses on in its major exhibition, “Michelangelo: the last decades,” through July 28. Drawings, poetry, architectural renderings and other ephemera on paper are at the center of the museum’s collection of work by Michelangelo. As one of the largest museums…