Fine Artists: Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni (Michelangelo) 1475-1564
 Michelangelo
is one of the greatest artists of all time, a man whose name has become
synonymous with the word "masterpiece". As an artist he was unmatched,
the creator of works of sublime beauty that express the full breadth of
the human condition. Yet in a world where art flourished only with
patronage, Michelangelo was caught between the conflicting powers and
whims of the Medici family in Florence, and the Papacy in Rome. Unlike
many artists of his time, his genius was recognized, but at what cost to
his personal life?
As an Italian sculptor, painter, architect and poet, Michelangelo was one of the founders of the High Renaissance and, in his later years, one of the principal exponents of Mannerism. Michelangelo's output in every field during his long life was prodigious; when the sheer volume of correspondence, sketches, and reminiscences that survive is also taken into account, he is the best-documented artist of the 16th century. Two of Michelangelo's best-known works, the Pietà (shown below and David, were sculpted before he turned thirty. Despite his low opinion of painting, Michelangelo also created two of the most influential works in fresco in the history of Western art. Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni was born at Caprese, a village in Florentine territory, where his father, named Ludovico Buonarroti Simoni was the resident magistrate. A few weeks after Michelangelo's birth the family returned to Florence, and, in 1488, after overcoming parental opposition he was formally apprenticed to Domenico Ghirlandaio for a term of three years. After about one year of learning the art of fresco, Michelangelo went on to study at the sculpture school in the Medici gardens and shortly thereafter was invited into the Michaelangelo statue Bachushousehold of Lorenzo de' Medici, the Magnificent. There he had an opportunity to converse with the younger Medici, two of whom later became popes. He also became acquainted with such humanists as Marsilo Ficino and the poet Angelo Poliziano. During the years he spent in the Garden of San Marco, Michelangelo began to study human anatomy.  Michelangelo
produced at least two relief sculptures by the time he was 16 years old,
the Battle of the Centaurs and the Madonna of the Stairs, which show
that he had achieved a personal style at a precocious age. After the
death of Lorenzo the Magnificent, and under Savonarola's influence, the
Florentines were divided into several rival factions. Michelangelo went
to Rome, where he was able to examine many newly unearthed classical
statues and ruins. He soon produced his first large-scale sculpture, the
over-life-size Bacchus(shown above). 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.
On August 4th, 1501, after several years of political confusion, a republic was once again proclaimed in Florence. Twelve days after the proclamation of the republic, the Arte n responsible for the maintenance and ornamentation of the Cathedral, commissioned him to sculpt a statue of David. Michelangelo chose to represent David as an athletic, manly character, very concentrated and ready to fight. The extreme tension is evident in his worried look and in his right hand, holding a stone. The meaning of this David becomes fully clear if we take into consideration the historical circumstances of its creation. Michelangelo was devoted to the Republic, and wanted each citizen to become aware of his responsibilities and commit himself to accomplishing his duty. Michelangelo's temper was proverbial. The enmity between him and Leonardo da Vinci is famous. There were over twenty years of difference in age between them and Leonardo, on his return to Florence at the age of fifty, was confident of regaining the position due to him in the artistic world of the city. Michelangelo was in fact received with great honors, but had to reckon with the fame of Michelangelo, the rising star whose name was on everyone's lips. In May 1508, Michelangelo began to make the preparatory designs for the Sistine ceiling. The project was physically and emotionally torturous for Michelangelo.  Michelangelo
recounts its effect on him with these words: "After four tortured
years, more than 400 over life-sized figures, I felt as old and as weary
as Jeremiah. I was only 37, yet friends did not recognize the old man I
had become." The Last Judgment, which Michelangelo finished in 1541
was 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 a decade later, as the cultural climate became more conservative. Michelangelo painted his own image in the flayed skin of St. Bartholomew. In 1546, Michelangelo was appointed architect of St. Peter's Basilica in the Vatican, and designed its dome. On December 7, 2007, Michelangelo's red chalk sketch for the dome of St Peter's Basilica, his last before his 1564 death, was discovered in the Vatican archives. It is extremely rare, since he destroyed his designs later in life. The sketch is a partial plan for one of the radial columns of the cupola drum of Saint Peter's. |
