Michelangelo
By: Lacey Fink
Birth
Michelangelo was the second of five brothers, Michelangelo was born on March
6, 1475, at Caprese, in Tuscany, to Ludovico di Leonardo di Buonarotto Simoni
and Francesca Neri. The same day, his father noted down: "Today March 6,
1475, a child of the male has been born to me and I have named him
Michelangelo. He was born on Monday between 4 and 5 in the morning, at
Caprese, where I am the Podestà." Although born in the small village of Caprese,
Michelangelo always considered himself a "son of Florence," as did his father, "a
Citizen of Florence."
The Sistine Chapel Ceiling
In April 1508, Michelangelo was summoned back to Rome by Julius II, but he
was still not able to start on the papal tomb. In fact Julius II had a new job for
him: painting twelve figures of apostles and some decorations on the ceiling of
the Sistine Chapel. Buonarroti, who had always regarded himself as a sculptor,
would now have to perfect the art of fresco. It seems that the pope had been
advised to make this move by Bramante and other artists working at his court,
who did not take kindly to Michelangelo's presence: "And this thing they did with
malice, to distract the pope from matters of sculpture; and since they were sure
that he, either by not accepting this undertaking, would turn the pope against
him, or by accepting it would do much less creditable work than Raphael of
Urbino, to whom, out of hatred for Michelangelo, they gave every support."
At first, Buonarroti tried to turn down the commission, but in vain. And then,
during the realization of the work, that mysterious liking that the artist and the
pope had, at bottom, for one another yielded its fruit. Julius II let himself be
swayed by Michelangelo's creative frenzy, and both were carried away by their
enthusiasm over more and more ambitious plans. So, Michelangelo was given
carte blanche: by October 31st, 1512, he had painted over 300 figures on the
ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.
The Tomb of Julius II
Before the assignment of the Sistine Ceiling in 1505, Michelangelo had been
commissioned by Julius II to produce his tomb, which was planned to be the
most magnificent of Christian times. It was to be located in the new Basilica of St.
Peter's, then under construction. Michelangelo enthusiastically went ahead with
the challenging project, which was to include more than 40 figures, spending
months in the quarries to obtain the necessary Carrara marble. Due to a
mounting shortage of money, however, the pope ordered him to put aside the
tomb project in favor of painting the Sistine ceiling.
When Michelangelo went back to work on the tomb, he redesigned it on a much
more modest scale. Nevertheless, Michelangelo made some of his finest
sculpture for the Julius Tomb, including the Moses (c. 1515), the central figure in
the much-reduced monument now located in Rome's church of San Pietro in
Vincoli. The muscular patriarch sits alertly in a shallow niche, holding the tablets
of the Ten Commandments, his long beard entwined in his powerful hands. He
looks off into the distance as if communicating with God.
Two other superb statues, the Bound Slave and the Dying Slave (both c. 151013), Louvre, Paris), demonstrate Michelangelo's approach to carving. He
conceived of the figure as being imprisoned in the block (Third Captive). By
removing the excess stone, the form was released. Here, as is frequently the
case with his sculpture, Michelangelo left the statues unfinished (non-finito),
either because he was satisfied with them as is, or because he no longer
planned to use them. The Last Judgment
The Commiss
The idea of commissioning an enormous fresco, the largest ever painted in that
century, depicting the Last Judgment, was probably suggested to Clement VII by
the traumatic events that were undermining the unity of Christians at the time.
After the pope's death, on September 25, 1534, and only two days after
Michelangelo's arrival in Rome, his successor, Paul III Farnese confirmed the
commission to Michelangelo, and in April 1535 scaffolding was put up in front of
the altar wall.
All that had happened in the church in the years that preceded the Judgment,
including the Reformation and the Sack of Rome, had a direct influence on the
work's conception: painted on the altar wall, the Last Judgment was to represent
humanity face to face with salvation.ion
The Scandal
Even before its official unveiling, the Judgment became the target of violent
criticisms of a moral character. Vasari relates that Biagio da Cesena, the
Vatican's master of Ceremonies, said that "it was mostly disgraceful that in so
sacred a place there should have been depicted all those nude figures, exposing
themselves so shamefully, and that it was no work for a papal chapel but rather
for the public baths and taverns
The Last Judgment
The Commission
The idea of commissioning an enormous fresco, the largest ever painted in that
century, depicting the Last Judgment, was probably suggested to Clement VII by
the traumatic events that were undermining the unity of Christians at the time.
After the pope's death, on September 25, 1534, and only two days after
Michelangelo's arrival in Rome, his successor, Paul III Farnese confirmed the
commission to Michelangelo, and in April 1535 scaffolding was put up in front of
the altar wall.
All that had happened in the church in the years that preceded the Judgment,
including the Reformation and the Sack of Rome, had a direct influence on the
work's conception: painted on the altar wall, the Last Judgment was to represent
humanity face to face with salvation.