Why These 6 Artists Destroyed Their Own Art

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The Belgian painter Luc Tuymans never spends more than one day on an artwork. After completing it, he once told the BBC, he leaves his studio, returns the following day, and decides whether it’s good enough to keep. If so, it goes to his dealer; if not, he destroys it.

One might marvel at the idea that Tuymans—whose paintings regularly carry million-dollar price tags—would dispose of something so valuable. Perhaps if they were preparatory sketches or studies, this act would be less shocking. Yet the history of art provides numerous instances of artists willfully discarding finished works of art, including as an expression of traditional beliefs and practices, from Buddhist sand mandalas—sacred diagrams representing the cosmos, which are labor-intensively and meticulously constructed, only to be destroyed—to the bisj or “spirit poles” of the eastern Indonesian Asmat culture, which are created to honor the dead before being left to decay.

Here are six stories of artists who chose to destroy their own art.

Michelangelo, The Deposition (1547–55)

Michelangelo’s Pietà (1498–99) in St. Peter’s Basilica is an extraordinarily detailed and tender portrayal of the Virgin Mary holding Christ’s limp body after being removed from the crucifix. It is one of the artist’s most cherished works, carved and polished to a state of almost hyper-finish when the sculptor was only 24 years old.

When, decades later, at the age of 72, Michelangelo began work on The Deposition (1547–55)—which depicts Christ’s body being taken down from the cross and is now housed in the Museo dell’Opera del Duomo in Florence and known as “the Florentine Pietà”—things didn’t go so smoothly. His friend, the historian Giorgio Vasari, said that Michelangelo complained of a material flaw in the marble that made construction near-impossible, though we know the artist was good at selecting his stone.

Scholars now point to the possibility that something in the composition itself—perhaps Christ’s leg, thrown over the Virgin Mary’s lap, which could have been read as suggestive—led the sculptor to attack his piece with a hammer after eight years of work. Though the work was saved by a church official and partially restored, Christ’s missing left leg betrays Michelangelo’s violent outburst.

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