Michelangelo
Michelangelo Buonarroti
► Perhaps
the greatest influence on western
art in the last five centuries, Michelangelo
was an Italian sculptor, architect, painter
and poet in the period known as the High
Renaissance. Along with contemporaries
Leonardo da Vinci and Raphael, he is
considered one of the greatest masters in
the history of European art.
Biography
► Michelangelo
was one of the most inspired
creators in the history of art and, with
Leonardo da Vinci, the most potent force in
the Italian High Renaissance. As a sculptor,
architect, painter, and poet, he exerted a
tremendous influence on his contemporaries
and on subsequent Western art in general.
►A
Florentine—although born March 6, 1475, in the
small village of Caprese near Arezzo—
Michelangelo continued to have a deep
attachment to his city, its art, and its culture
throughout his long life. He spent the greater part
of his adulthood in Rome, employed by the popes;
characteristically, however, he left instructions that
he be buried in Florence, and his body was placed
there in a fine monument in the church of Santa
Croce.
David
► His
great works were
almost entirely in the
service of the Catholic
Church, and include a
huge statue of the
Biblical hero David
(over 14 feet tall) in
Florence, sculpted
between 1501 and
1504
► David
Gigantic marble, started in 1501 and completed in
1504
Michelangelo began work on the colossal figure of
David in 1501, and by 1504 the sculpture
(standing at 4.34m/14 ft 3 in tall) was in place
outside the Palazzo Vecchio. The choice of David
was supposed to reflect the power and
determination of Republican Florence and was
under constant attack from supporters of the
usurped Medicis. In the 19th century the statue
was moved to the Accademia.
► The
high point of Michelangelo's early style is the
gigantic (4.34 m/14.24 ft) marble David
(Accademia, Florence), which he produced
between 1501 and 1504, after returning to
Florence. The Old Testament hero is depicted by
Michelangelo as a lithe nude youth, muscular and
alert, looking off into the distance as if sizing up
the enemy Goliath, whom he has not yet
encountered. The fiery intensity of David's facial
expression is termed terribilità, a feature
characteristic of many of Michelangelo's figures
and of his own personality. David, Michelangelo's
most famous sculpture, became the symbol of
Florence and originally was placed in the Piazza
della Signoria in front of the Palazzo Vecchio, the
Florentine town hall.
Sculpture
Moses
►
Michelangelo made some of his
finest sculpture for the Julius Tomb,
including the Moses (circa 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.
Pieta
►
The marble Pietà (1498-1500),
still in its original place in Saint
Peter's Basilica. One of the most
famous works of art, the Pietà
was probably finished before
Michelangelo was 25 years old,
and it is the only work he ever
signed. The youthful Mary is
shown seated majestically,
holding the dead Christ across
her lap, a theme borrowed from
northern European art. Instead
of revealing extreme grief, Mary
is restrained, and her expression
is one of resignation.
The Dying Slave
►
The Bound Slave and the Dying Slave
(both c. 1510-13), Musée du Louvre,
Paris, demonstrate Michelangelo's
approach to carving. He conceived of
the figure as being imprisoned in the
block. 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 Madonna of the Stairs
Bacchus
►
The over-life-size Bacchus
(1496-98, Bargello,
Florence). One of the few
works of pagan rather
than Christian subject
matter made by the
master, it rivaled ancient
statuary, the highest mark
of admiration in
Renaissance Rome.
Sistine Chapel
► The
ceiling of the
Sistine Chapel in Rome
(commissioned by
Pope Julius II), was
painted between 1508
and 1512.
►
Michelangelo was recalled to Rome by Pope Julius II in
1505 for two commissions. The most important one was
for the frescoes of the Sistine Chapel ceiling. Working high
above the chapel floor, lying on his back on scaffolding,
Michelangelo painted, between 1508 and 1512, some of
the finest pictorial images of all time. On the vault of the
papal chapel, he devised an intricate system of decoration
that included nine scenes from the Book of Genesis,
beginning with God Separating Light from Darkness and
including the Creation of Adam, the Creation of Eve, the
Temptation and Fall of Adam and Eve, and the Flood.
These centrally located narratives are surrounded by
alternating images of prophets and sibyls on marble
thrones, by other Old Testament subjects, and by the
ancestors of Christ.
► In
order to prepare for this enormous work,
Michelangelo drew numerous figure studies
and cartoons, devising scores of figure
types and poses. These awesome, mighty
images, demonstrating Michelangelo's
masterly understanding of human anatomy
and movement, changed the course of
painting in the West.
The Creation Of Man
The Creation of the Heavens
The Erythraean Sibyl
The Fall From Grace
The Flood
The Prophet Zachariah
The Last Judgement
►
In Rome, in 1536, Michelangelo
was at work on the Last
Judgment for the alter wall of the
Sistine Chapel, which he finished
in 1541. The largest fresco of the
Renaissance, it depicts Judgment
Day. Christ, with a clap of
thunder, puts into motion the
inevitable separation, with the
saved ascending on the left side
of the painting and the damned
descending on the right into a
Dantesque hell. As was his
custom, Michelangelo portrayed
all the figures nude, but prudish
draperies were added by another
artist (who was dubbed the
“breeches-maker”) a decade later,
as the cultural climate became
more conservative. Michelangelo
painted his own image in the
flayed skin of St. Bartholomew.
The Last Judgement
Doni Tondo
► The
Holy Family with
the infant St. John the
Baptist (the Doni
Tondo)
c. 1503-05
►
Sybille de Cummes
ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in
Vatican City
Sibyls were female seers of
ancient Greece and Rome. They
were also known as oracles.
Like the Jewish prophets of the
Old Testament, many sibyls had
their sayings recorded in books.
Jewish prophets spoke
unbidden, whereas sibyls tended
to speak only if consulted on
specific questions. They
sometimes answered in riddles
or rhetorical questions.
Sistine Chapel Virtual Tour
► http://mv.vatican.va/3_EN/pages/x-
Pano/CSN/Visit_CSN_Main.html
►
Dome of St. Peter's Basilica
Michelangelo's crowning
achievement as an architect was
his work at St. Peter's Basilica,
where he was made chief
architect in 1546. The building
was being constructed according
to Donato Bramante's plan, but
Michelangelo ultimately became
responsible for the altar end of
the building on the exterior and
for the final form of its dome.
Michelangelo's Achievements
►
During his long lifetime, Michelangelo was an
intimate of princes and popes, from Lorenzo de'
Medici to Leo X, Clement VIII, and Pius III, as well
as cardinals, painters, and poets. Neither easy to
get along with nor easy to understand, he
expressed his view of himself and the world even
more directly in his poetry than in the other arts.
Much of his verse deals with art and the hardships
he underwent, or with Neoplatonic philosophy and
personal relationships.
► The
great Renaissance poet Ludovico Ariosto
wrote succinctly of this famous artist: “Michael
more than mortal, divine angel.” Indeed,
Michelangelo was widely awarded the
epithet“divine” because of his extraordinary
accomplishments. Two generations of Italian
painters and sculptors were impressed by his
treatment of the human figure: Raphael, Annabale
Carracci, Pontormo, Rosso Fiorentino, Sebastiano
del Piombo, and Titian. His dome for St. Peter's
became the symbol of authority, as well as the
model, for domes all over the Western world; the
majority of state capitol buildings in the U.S., as
well as the Capitol in Washington, D.C., are
derived from it.