Michelangelo Made His Stunning First Painting at Age 12

Wild to think this, but The Torment of Saint Anthony is the earliest surviving painting credited to Michelangelo. He made it around 1487 or 1488… when he was only about 12 or 13 years old.

Yes. Middle-school age. Already painting demonic creatures clawing at a saint with the confidence of someone who would later casually sculpt David.

Long before David or the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, Michelangelo was already deep in the strange stuff. Around 1487 or 1488, at just 12 or 13 years old, he painted what is believed to be his earliest surviving work, The Torment of Saint Anthony.

The scene is anything but childish. Saint Anthony floats midair while a swarm of bizarre, leathery demons claw and tug at him.

The creatures come from an engraving by Martin Schongauer, which the young Michelangelo copied, then pushed further with color, texture, and atmosphere that feel uncannily assured for someone barely in their teens.

“Writing when Michelangelo was still alive, both Vasari and Condivi recounted that to give the demonic creatures veracity, he studied the colorful scales and other parts of specimens from the fish market.

Michelangelo subtly revised Schongauer’s composition, making it more compact and giving the monsters more animal-like features, notably adding fish scales to one of them.“

-Kimbell Art Museum

This is not a sweet student exercise. It’s dramatic, weird, and already technically sharp.

Conservators later uncovered nuanced brushwork and a convincing sense of depth, early signals of the sculptural thinking that would define his later masterpieces.

Today the painting lives at the Kimbell Art Museum in Texas. It stands as a rare window into raw, early genius. Most kids that age are doodling in margins. Michelangelo was staging airborne battles between saints and monsters.

Via Kottke: