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Michelangelo Buonarroti was a methodical man. The Florentine genius made hundreds of working drawings during his career in preparation for his paintings, sculpture and architecture. But for reasons not entirely known, he burned many of them. It's possible that he didn't want people to know what hard graft went into the finished product. After all, when he started his career at the tail end of the 15th century, artists were seen as craftsmen rather than geniuses. His bourgeois father disapproved of his low-status career choice.

Thankfully, however, about 600 of the drawings survive, and around 95 have been beautifully reassembled in an exhibition titled Michelangelo Drawings: Closer to the Master, which runs at London's British Museum until June 25. The drawings, taken from the museum's own collection and others in Oxford and the Netherlands, are displayed chronologically, next to small reproductions of the relevant finished works. Visitors can follow the artist's career as he followed the money, oscillating between patrons (the Medici family, Popes) in Florence and Rome. It's the first time the drawings have been seen together since the breakup of Michelangelo's studio in 1564, the year of his death at 88. Perhaps his most famous work, the vast Sistine Chapel ceiling fresco commissioned by Pope Julius II, was painted between 1508 and 1512. The preliminary sketches reveal Michelangelo's systematic methods. A composition of schematic figures was worked out, then in the studio his models assumed the dramatic attitudes required—poses that must have been hard to sustain, and had to be recorded rapidly. The final designs, scaled up on large pieces of paper, were transferred onto the wet plaster by dusting charcoal through the pinpricked outlines, or by cutting along them.

The ceiling's highly complex scheme includes the creation of the world, the fall of man, a parade of figures who foretold the coming of Christ, and many purely decorative nude men, known as ignudi. Michelangelo studied the anatomy of the male torso intensively. It's no secret that he was attracted to men, but he also used rippling muscles and contorted postures to express emotion, drama, suffering and even deep religious feeling. In the red chalk studies for Bible villain Haman, for example, the figure is seen side-on, his body twisted toward us, his crucified arms in extreme perspective. His despairing figure is reduced to fragments: the first drawing concentrates on his torso and legs and his strained posture. On the next sheet are his arms and upper torso, his head thrown back so we see not much more than his neck. Separately, the palm of his left hand faces us, open in a pleading gesture.

Much more calm, and the epitome of male beauty, is the well-known figure of Adam. The painted figure, from the Sistine ceiling's Creation of Adam, is very little changed from this life study. In the drawing, though, his face is only sketched in—the final version has the artist's favorite idealized head. Like all the ignudi, Adam looks like the young Marlon Brando. In a detailed study for one of the ignudi, the model's own features are lightly indicated—a rare occurrence, as Michelangelo avoided portraiture. According to his contemporary, the famous chronicler Giorgio Vasari, "he abhorred anything from life unless it was of the utmost beauty." Occasionally, though, he pulled grotesque faces out of his imagination.

Some of the sheets have notes or poems scribbled among the figures. One explains exactly where on the artist's premises are the various components of the tomb of Pope Julius II, which Michelangelo worked on for 40 years—his original conception was never completed. Another sheet shows tiny first thoughts for the dying slaves which formed part of that scheme. One poem starts: "Alas, alas, I have been betrayed by my fleeting days … " and concludes: "There is no harm equal to that of wasted time." The rest of the page is covered with odd figures by himself and pupils: a giraffe, a crab, a grasshopper, a skull.

As the show travels through the artist's long life, the drawings, always impressive for their sheer brilliance, become increasingly personal: less part of a process and more meditations on profound themes. Studies for a Deposition, ca. 1523 shows the disposal of Christ's body as a laborious, undignified business. In The Lamentation, 1530-35, Christ's mother is seated on the ground, her son lying on her knees. A woman leans her head on Mary's shoulder—her face ugly with grief. His massive fresco, The Last Judgment, on the altar wall of the Sistine Chapel, was completed in 1541. Michelangelo painted no more after 1550, working instead on sculpture and architecture—he was now chief architect to St. Peter's in Rome. In his final years his drawing technique became more hesitant and misty. He used a lifetime spent studying the human body to express ideas about its fragility, capacity for suffering and inevitable dissolution.

The last three works in the show, isolated in an area of their own, are three crucifixion scenes, all dated 1555-64, that seem to form a series. In The Crucifixion with Two Mourners there are no clear outlines: shadowy figures emerge. In The Crucifixion with the Virgin and St. John, the crouching woman appears to have three disproportionate arms, and her features are smudged out. Christ's blurred face, sunk between his shoulders, seems to be turned in his mother's direction, but it's as hard to read as a Rorschach inkblot test. His right hand is extended, as if giving up; his left is clenched, still fighting. In the last version his head is hanging, his mother and friend embracing the cross and the body. There's no more need for beautifying: their humanity shines out. The overall effect is almost voyeuristic, which, for once, is appropriate; the mixture of religious passion and secular skill makes us all the more grateful that these drawings escaped the bonfire.

• LUCY FISHER, London
• An exhibit of Michelangelo's working drawings is a voyage through the artist's long life and a window on his soul