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1 Chapter 1 : Michelangelo Biography, Facts, & Accomplishments racedaydvl.com Michelangelo accepted many commissions, sculptures and paintings during his time in Florence, many of which went unfinished when, in, he was called back to Rome to work on a Tomb for Pope Julius II. List of works by Michelangelo Early life, â Michelangelo was born on 6 March [a] in Caprese, known today as Caprese Michelangelo, a small town situated in Valtiberina, [6] near Arezzo, Tuscany. As Giorgio Vasari quotes him: Along with the milk of my nurse I received the knack of handling chisel and hammer, with which I make my figures. Among them was Domenico Ghirlandaio, a master in fresco painting, perspective, figure drawing and portraiture who had the largest workshop in Florence. There his work and outlook were influenced by many of the most prominent philosophers and writers of the day, including Marsilio Ficino, Pico della Mirandola and Poliziano. When he was seventeen, another pupil, Pietro Torrigiano, struck him on the nose, causing the disfigurement that is conspicuous in the portraits of Michelangelo. In the same year, the Medici were expelled from Florence as the result of the rise of Savonarola. Michelangelo left the city before the end of the political upheaval, moving to Venice and then to Bologna. Dominic, in the church dedicated to that saint. At this time Michelangelo studied the robust reliefs carved by Jacopo della Quercia around main portal of the Basilica of St Petronius, including the panel of The Creation of Eve the composition of which was to reappear on the Sistine Chapel ceiling. Michelangelo returned to Florence but received no commissions from the new city government under Savonarola. He returned to the employment of the Medici. John the Baptist and a sleeping Cupid. John the Baptist, asked that Michelangelo "fix it so that it looked as if it had been buried" so he could "send it to Rome Cardinal Raffaele Riario, to whom Lorenzo had sold it, discovered that it was a fraud, but was so impressed by the quality of the sculpture that he invited the artist to Rome. On 4 July of the same year, he began work on a commission for Cardinal Raffaele Riario, an over-life-size statue of the Roman wine god Bacchus. Upon completion, the work was rejected by the cardinal, and subsequently entered the collection of the banker Jacopo Galli, for his garden. The subject, which is not part of the Biblical narrative of the Crucifixion, was common in religious sculpture of Medieval Northern Europe and would have been very familiar to the Cardinal. Michelangelo was 24 at the time of its completion. Contemporary opinion was summarised by Vasari: Florence, â Main article: David Michelangelo The Statue of David, completed by Michelangelo in, is one of the most renowned works of the Renaissance. Michelangelo returned to Florence in The republic was changing after the fall of its leader, anti-renaissance priest Girolamo Savonarola, who was executed in, and the rise of the gonfaloniere Piero Soderini. Michelangelo was asked by the consuls of the Guild of Wool to complete an unfinished project begun 40 years earlier by Agostino di Duccio: The masterwork definitively established his prominence as a sculptor of extraordinary technical skill and strength of symbolic imagination. A team of consultants, including Botticelli and Leonardo da Vinci, was called together to decide upon its placement, ultimately the Piazza della Signoria, in front of the Palazzo Vecchio. It now stands in the Academia while a replica occupies its place in the square. In early Leonardo da Vinci had been commissioned to paint The Battle of Anghiara in the council chamber of the Palazzo Vecchio, depicting the battle between Florence and Milan in Michelangelo was then commissioned to paint the Battle of Cascina. The two paintings are very different: Leonardo depicts soldiers fighting on horseback, while Michelangelo has soldiers being ambushed as they bathe in the river. Neither work was completed and both were lost forever when the chamber was refurbished. It is known as the Doni Tondo and hangs in the Uffizi Gallery in its original magnificent frame, which Michelangelo may have designed. Although Michelangelo worked on the tomb for 40 years, it was never finished to his satisfaction. The work is part of a larger scheme of decoration within the chapel that represents much of the doctrine of the Catholic Church. On the pendentives supporting the ceiling are painted twelve men and women who prophesied the coming of Jesus, seven prophets of Israel, and five Sibyls, prophetic women of the Classical world. In the work was abruptly cancelled by his financially strapped patrons before any real progress had been made. Michelangelo used his own discretion to create the composition of the Medici Chapel, which houses the large tombs of two of the younger members of the Medici family, Giuliano, Duke of Nemours, and Lorenzo, his nephew. It also serves Page 1

2 to commemorate their more famous predecessors, Lorenzo the Magnificent and his brother Giuliano, who are buried nearby. The tombs display statues of the two Medici and allegorical figures representing Night and Day, and Dusk and Dawn. It was left to assistants to interpret his plans and carry out instruction. The library was not opened until, and the vestibule remained incomplete until The city fell in, and the Medici were restored to power. Fearing for his life, he fled to Rome, leaving assistants to complete the Medici chapel and the Laurentian Library. It was at this time that he met the poet Vittoria Colonna, marchioness of Pescara, who was to become one of his closest friends until her death in His successor, Paul III, was instrumental in seeing that Michelangelo began and completed the project, which he laboured on from to October Michelangelo ignored the usual artistic conventions in portraying Jesus, showing him as a massive, muscular figure, youthful, beardless and naked. The dead rise from their graves, to be consigned either to Heaven or to Hell. They included a design for the Capitoline Hill with its trapezoid piazza displaying the ancient bronze statue of Marcus Aurelius. He designed the upper floor of the Palazzo Farnese and the interior of the Church of Santa Maria degli Angeli, in which he transformed the vaulted interior of an Ancient Roman bathhouse. This was for the painting of two large frescos in the Cappella Paolina depicting significant events in the lives of the two most important saints of Rome, the Conversion of Saint Paul and the Crucifixion of Saint Peter. Like the Last Judgement, these two works are complex compositions containing a great number of figures. In the same year, Giorgio Vasari published his Vita, including a biography of Michelangelo. Successive architects had worked on it, but little progress had been made. Michelangelo was persuaded to take over the project. He returned to the concepts of Bramante, and developed his ideas for a centrally planned church, strengthening the structure both physically and visually. However, once building commenced on the lower part of the dome, the supporting ring, the completion of the design was inevitable. It is extremely rare, since he destroyed his designs later in life. Faith Michelangelo was a devout Catholic whose faith deepened at the end of his life. The longest sequence displaying a great romantic friendship, was written to Tommaso dei Cavalieri c. I feel as lit by fire a cold countenance That burns me from afar and keeps itself ice-chill; A strength I feel two shapely arms to fill Which without motion moves every balance. Never have I loved a man more than I love you, never have I wished for a friendship more than I wish for yours. Even in modern times some scholars continue to insist that, despite the restoration of the pronouns, they represent "an emotionless and elegant re-imagining of Platonic dialogue, whereby erotic poetry was seen as an expression of refined sensibilities". They wrote sonnets for each other and were in regular contact until she died. These sonnets mostly deal with the spiritual issues that occupied them. It is carved in shallow relief, a technique often employed by the master-sculptor of the early 15th century, Donatello, and others such as Desiderio da Settignano. The Bruges Madonna was, at the time of its creation, unlike other such statues depicting the Virgin proudly presenting her son. The twisting motion present in the Bruges Madonna is accentuated in the painting. The painting heralds the forms, movement and colour that Michelangelo was to employ on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Page 2

3 Chapter 2 : Michelangelo - The Complete Works - racedaydvl.com The following is a list of works of painting, sculpture and architecture by the Italian Renaissance artist racedaydvl.com works are included, but not commissions that Michelangelo never made. During his life, the western world underwent what was perhaps the most remarkable period of change since the decline of the Roman Empire. The Renaissance saw changes in all aspects of life and culture, with dramatic reforms sweeping through the worlds of religion, politics, and scientific belief. Michelangelo was one of the most fervent advocates of this exciting new philosophy, working with a remarkable energy that was mirrored by contemporary society. One of the leading lights of the Italian Renaissance, his extraordinary talents emerged in early works such as the Pieta for the Vatican, and the statue of David commissioned for the city of Florence. His paintings and frescoes were largely taken from mythological and classical sources works. He manage to combine his high level of technical competence and his rich artistic imagination to produce the perfect High-Renaissance blend of aesthetic harmony and anatomical accuracy in his works. Michelangelo was born on March 6, in Caprese near Arezzo, Tuscany. He was the first artist who was recognized during his life time. He is also the first western artist whose biography was published when he is still alive. Two biographies for him was written, one was by Giorgio Vasari, who praised Michelangelo as the greatest artist since the beginning of renaissance. He is the best documented artist in 16th Century and has influenced so many areas of art developement in the West. Together with Leonardo Da Vinci, the two stood out as strong and mighty-personalities with two irreconcilably opposed attitudes to art, yet with a bond of deep understanding between them. At age of 6, Michelangelo was sent to a Florence grammar school but he showed no interest in schooling. He would rather watch the painters at nearby churches, and draw what he saw there. He was 13 years old at time. Michelangelo spent only a year at the workshop the moved into the palace of Florentine ruler Lorenzo the Magnificent, of the powerful Medici family, to study classical sculpture in the Medici gardens. He studied under famous sculptor Bertoldo di Giovanni there and exposed himself to many of the great artists of past centuries, Giotto, Masaccio, Donatello, as well as the masterpiece antiquities of ancient Greece and Rome: He also met many living artists, philosophers, writers and thinkers of the day, including Poliziano, Marsilio Ficino and Pico della Mirandola. It was while he was with the Medicis that Michelangelo completed his first two commissions as a sculptor: Both amazingly sophisticated and complex works for a teenager. Michelangelo became, during this time, an expert in portraying the human form, drawing from life and studying anatomy. He also obtained special permission from the Catholic Church to study human corpses to learn anatomy, though exposure to corpses had worsened his health condition. Genius is eternal patience. In Bologna, Michelangelo continued his work as a sculptor. He carved three statues for the Shrine of St. Dominic, an angel with a candlestick, and saints, Petronius and Proculus. Continuing to be heavily influenced and inspired by classical antiquities, Michelangelo also became involved in a scheme to pass off one of his sculptures, a marble cupid, as an ancient work. Allegedly, he was told by Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco de Medici to make it look as though it had been dug up, so he could sell it in Rome. Cardinal Raffaele Riario, who bought the piece, discovered the deception, but was so impressed by the quality of the sculpture that he invited the artist to Rome. Michelangelo arrived in Rome in when he was 21 years old. It was while in Rome, in his early twenties, that Michelangelo sculpted Pieta, now in St. Peters in the Vatican, in which the Virgin Mary weeps over the body of Jesus. Michelangelo went to the marble quarry and selected the marble for this exquisite piece himself. It was frequently said that Michelangelo could visualise the finished sculpture just be gazing at a block of stone. He was now a man at the height of his creative powers, and, in, back in Florence, he completed his most famous sculpture, David. David, depicted at the moment he decides to battle Goliath, was a symbol of Florentine freedom. It is said to be a masterpiece of line and form. A committee, including Leonardo da Vinci and Sandro Botticelli, was created and decided on its placement, in front of the Palazzo Vecchio. If people knew how hard I had to work to gain my mastery, it would not seem so wonderful at all. It was planned to be finished within 5 years but he worked on it with frequent interruptions for over forty years, and it seems it was never finished to his satisfaction. Fortunately, Michelangelo also completed some of his Page 3

4 best, and most well-known work, during this time, most notably the fresco on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, which took him four years to finish. This grand fresco contains over three hundred figures over five hundred square meters of ceiling. The outstretched hands of God and Adam are an iconic image, perhaps the most widely known and imitated detail from any renaissance piece. Michelangelo, in this work, demonstrated his deep understanding of the human form, and how to depict it in a huge array of different poses. The complex, twisting figures and vibrant colors of this work, and the sculptures with their writhing forms, played a huge role in the birthing of an entire artistic movement. Mannerism, largely derived from the work of Michelangelo, is a deliberately stylized form of sophisticated art, in which the human body is idealized. It can be characterized by often complex, and sometimes witty, composition and unnatural use of vibrant colors. Without Michelangelo, the works of later Mannerist artists like, for example, Pontormo and Bronzino, would not exist. Raphael was also strongly influenced by Michelangelo, as were later ceiling painters in the Baroque period, and many others since. His influence on art over the past centuries cannot be estimated. He is rightly viewed as a genius, and as the archetypal Renaissance man. The greater danger for most of us lies not in setting our aim too high and falling short; but in setting our aim too low, and achieving our mark. His paintings and frescoes were largely taken from mythological and classical sources and were deployed for the main part in religious work. He managed to combine his high level of technical competence and his rich artistic imagination to produce the perfect HighRenaissance blend of aesthetic harmony and anatomical accuracy in his work. Michelangelo not only outshines all his predecessors; he remains the only great sculptor of the Renaissance at its best. What most Late Renaissance artists lacked was not talent but the ability to use their own eyes and share a vision with either their contemporaries or posterity. Page 4

5 Chapter 3 : Michelangelo Sculptures, David, Pieta Michelangelo Gallery The sculpture has all the traditional attributes, a vine wreath, a cup of wine and a fawn, but Michelangelo ingested an air of reality into the subject, depicting him with bleary eyes, a swollen bladder and a stance that suggests he is unsteady on his feet. Michelangelo Buonarroti Michelangelo Buonarroti was the greatest sculptor of the Italian Renaissance and one of its greatest painters and architects. Michelangelo Buonarroti was born on March 6,, in Caprese, a village where his father was briefly serving as a Florentine government agent. After grammar school, Michelangelo was apprenticed at the age of 13 to Domenico Ghirlandaio, the most fashionable painter in Florence. That this should have happened is surprising, and no satisfactory explanation has been proposed. In any case, after a year his apprenticeship was broken off, and an even odder arrangement followed: This arrangement was quite unprecedented at the time. Soon after Lorenzo died in, the Medici fell from power and Michelangelo fled the city. In Bologna in he obtained a small but distinguished commission to carve the three saints needed to complete the elaborate tomb of St. Dominic in the church of S. They too show dense forms, which contrast with the linear forms, either decorative or realistic, then dominant in sculpture, but are congruent with the work of Nicola Pisano, who had begun the tomb about On returning home Michelangelo found Florence dominated by the famous ascetic monk Savonarola. Michelangelo was in contact with the junior branch of the Medici family, and he carved a Cupid lost which he took to Rome to sell, palming it off as an ancient work. Rome, In Rome, Michelangelo next executed a Bacchus for the garden of ancient sculpture of a banker. It is his only sculpture meant to be viewed from all sides; all the others, generally set in front of walls, possess to some extent the visual character of reliefs. Florence, On his return to Florence in Michelangelo was recognized as the most talented sculptor of central Italy, but his work was still in the early Renaissance tradition, as is the marble David, commissioned in for Florence Cathedral but when finished, in, more suitably installed in front of the Palazzo Vecchio. The original is now in the Accademia; the statue at the original site is a copy. Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo. The central scene shows a group of muscular nudes, soldiers climbing from a river where they had been swimming, to answer a military alarm. Inevitably Michelangelo felt the influence of Leonardo and his evocation of continuous flowing motion through living forms. Of the 12 Apostles he was to execute for Florence Cathedral, he began only the St. Matthew; this was the first monumental sculpture suggesting a Leonardesque agitation. This project occupied Michelangelo off and on for the next 40 years. Of it he wrote, "I find I have lost all my youth bound to this tomb. A reconciliation between Julius II and Michelangelo took place in Bologna, which the Pope had just conquered, and Michelangelo modeled a colossal bronze statue of Julius for S. Petronio in Bologna, which he completed in destroyed. Sistine Chapel In Julius commissioned Michelangelo to decorate the ceiling of the chief Vatican chapel, the Sistine. This work was relatively modest at first, and Michelangelo felt he was being pushed aside by rival claimants on funds. But he soon was able to alter the traditional format of ceiling painting, whereby only single figures could be represented, not scenes calling for dramas in space; his introduction of dramatic scenes was so successful that it set the standard for the future. He approached the ceiling as a surface on which to attach planes built up in various degrees of projection, like a relief sculpture except that its basic units are blocks rather than malleable forms. The many planes and painted architectural framework make the many categories of images so easily readable that the framing system tends to pass unnoticed, but its rich, heavy ornament is typical of the High Renaissance. The chief figural elements of the program are the 12 male and female prophets the latter known as sibyls and the nine stories from Genesis. Michelangelo began painting at the end of the story, with the three Noah scenes and the adjacent prophets and sibyls, and in 4 years worked through the three Adam stories to the three Creation stories at the other end of the ceiling. Michelangelo paused for some months halfway along, and when he returned to the ceiling, he made the prophets more monumental in keeping with the fewer and hence bigger figures in the nearby Creation scenes. At that point his style also underwent a shift. The first prophets are harmonious but static, as is the Flood scene. But soon there develops a forceful grandeur, with a richer emotional tension than in any previous work. This is well Page 5

6 illustrated in the Ezekiel, whose massive torso seems to be in tension with the centrifugally twisted head and legs. The prophet peers questioningly into the unknown. After the pause, Michelangelo began the second half of the ceiling with a newly acquired subtlety of expression, as in the Creation of Adam. The images become freer and more mobile in the last parts painted, such as the Separation of Light and Darkness, but the mood remains introspective. As soon as the ceiling was completed in, Michelangelo returned to the tomb of Julius and carved for it the Moses S. Pietro in Vincoli, Rome and two Slaves Louvre, Paris, using the same types he employed for the prophets and their attendants painted in the Sistine ceiling. The Moses seems to represent a final synthesis of all those variants, although it is more restrained owing to the sculptural medium. It was meant to be placed above eye level, and some of its dramatic force would probably have been mitigated when seen from the intended distance. Lorenzo in Florence, to be decorated with statues by Michelangelo, but his project was canceled after four years of quarrying and designing. Medici Chapel In Michelangelo was commissioned to execute a tomb chapel for two young Medici dukes. The Medici Chapel, an annex to S. The two saints flanking the Madonna are by assistants from his clay sketches. Four river gods were planned but not executed. The interior architecture of the Medici Chapel develops the treatment seen in the painted architectural framework of the Sistine ceiling; the walls are treated as relief sculptures, with intersecting moldings and pillars on many planes, giving a loose freedom typical of a non-professional approach to architecture. Whimsical reversals of what is properâ trapezoidal windows and capitals smaller than their columnsâ introduce what is now called mannerism in architecture. The allegories on the curved lids of the tombs are also innovative: Day and Night recline on one tomb, Morning and Evening on the other. The choice of imagery was left to the artist, and these figures seem to symbolize the endless round of time leading to death. A similar style is seen in the sinuous Victory overcoming a tough old warrior. The architecture of the Medici Chapel has a fuller analog in the library, the Biblioteca Laurenziana, built at the same time on the opposite side of S. The reading room has functional suggestions in its window and pillar system and refined ornament on floor and ceiling. The earlier poems are on the theme of Neoplatonic love and are full of logical contradictions and conceits, often very intricate. The later poems are Christian; their mood is penitent; and they are written in a simple, direct style. The next 10 years were mainly given over to painting for Pope Paul III, who is best known for convening the Council of Trent and thus organizing the Catholic Reformation. It revives a medieval approach to the same theme in using an entire end wall in an undivided field and in the composition of the parts. The design functions like a pair of scales, with some angels pushing the damned down to hell on one side and some pulling up the saved on the other side, both directed by Christ, who "conducts" with both arms; in the two top corners are the cross and other symbols of the Passion, which serve as his credentials to be judge. The colors, blue and brown, are simple, as are the bodies. The figure type is new, with thick, waistless torsos and loosely connected limbs. The new sobriety seems to parallel the ideas of the Counter Reformation, with whose leaders Michelangelo had intimate contact through his admired mentor, the devout widow Vittoria Colonna, the addressee of many of his poems. He may have turned to these typically painterly concerns because the Pauline frescoes were the first ones he executed on a normal scale and eye level. Works after Michelangelo devoted himself almost entirely to architecture and poetry after For Paul III he planned the rebuilding of the Capitol area, the Piazza del Campidoglio, a pioneering scheme of city planning that gave monumental articulation to an area traditionally used for civic ceremonies. The geometry is dynamic, marked by a trapezoidal plan determined by the site formed by three buildings and an oval pavement; the airy breadth of the piazza produces a relatively gentle effect of a special theatrical locus. Two-story pilasters mark the front plane, unifying the open porch on the lower story and the closed upper one, thus mingling suggestions of compressed power and clear skeletal construction. The enormous church was to be an equal-armed cross in plan, concentrated on a huge central space beneath the dome surrounded by a series of secondary spaces and their containing structures. The edge thus became a complex outline of changing convex curves, and from that Michelangelo built the wall straight up, producing a very active rhythm, all on such a monumental scale that we can never see more than a fragment at one time. Its surface alternates colossal pilasters with stacks of three vertical windows compressed between them, providing a measure of the vast scale and also binding the wall into vertical unity. By the time Michelangelo died, a considerable part of Page 6

7 St. The essentially three-dimensional concept of St. Giovanni dei Fiorentini and a city gate, the Porta Pia begun The first one, unfinished, which is in the Cathedral of Florence, was meant for his own tomb. Michelangelo began this sculpture in, and he was working on it on Feb. He died six days later in Rome and was buried in Florence. The great baroque artists of the next century, such as Peter Paul Rubens and Gian Lorenzo Bernini, were better able at a distance to study his ideas without danger to their artistic autonomy. Charles de Tolnay, Michelangelo 5 vols. The Complete Sculpture, and Michelangelo Drawings are also strongly personal but more current. Both deal only with the painting, sculpture, and drawings. Ackerman, The Architecture of Michelangelo 2 vols. Paintings, Sculptures, Architecture 4th ed. Creighton Gilbert, Michelangelo, is the most succinct survey. Page 7

8 Chapter 4 : Michelangelo - HISTORY Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simon (March 6, - February 18, ) Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simon (March 6, - February 18, ), commonly known as Michelangelo, was an Italian Renaissance painter, sculptor, architect, poet and engineer. The Deposition Michelangelo was such a master of the Italian Renaissance that he is renowned as a painter, sculptor and architect. He regarded himself first and foremost as a sculptor though, and with David and Pieta amongst his sculptural masterpieces it is easy to understand why. The Philosophy of Michelangelo the Sculptor Michelangelo saw sculpture as the art of taking away from something rather than adding to it as painting adds to a blank canvas - in essence he was trying to bring into existence the form beneath the stone block in front of him. To do this he produced detailed sketches, but his own spiritual passion within him and his own desire to bring to life the beauty of marble were the driving forces of his talent. There are interesting parallels between the two which could explain his desire for both. The divine eternal life that he sought on earth was created most closely on the eternal marble that he carved. Early Sculptural Work Michelangelo was introduced to sculpture whilst studying in the household of the Medici. These early works - Michelangelo was aged around 15 in - are indicative of his promise and talent. The carving is detailed and delicate, depicting Mary as a loving a protective mother. Here he ignored the practice of the day, instead working multi-dimensionally. It remains unfinished, yet Michelangelo considered it the best of his early works and a keen reminder of why he needed to concentrate on sculpture. The life and emotion that Michelangelo had proved himself capable of bringing to an empty block of stone was clear in the face of the grieving mother holding up her dead son. One of these was the completion of a project to depict David as a metaphor for Florentine freedom. The result immediately solidified his reputation as a sculptor of skill and technical perfection. His work was classically inspired, but Michelangelo made it multidimensional, meaning that it could and should be viewed from any angle. This is fascinating on two levels. First of all there is the message of the artist as a participant in the suffering of the Christ and acting as a conduit between the divine and the mortal. Secondly there is the process that it represents. As he got older Michelangelo became more of a perfectionist, and this pieta is more than unfinished- Michelangelo smashed the work in part due to being unable to sculpt exactly as he wanted to. There have also been some travelling exhibitions which have displayed accurate reproductions of the original sculpture, and this can be a reasonable alternative for the many who are unable to travel to Italy specifically to see this masterpiece. Discover far more on this piece of Renaissance history on the specific David page. Pieta Sculpture Pieta was a notable sculpture from his career and again continues on the religious theme which was so common in commissions during the Renaissance era. The commission for Pieta came from France and allowed Michelangelo the opportunity to go in a slightly different artistic direction for this sculpture, more in line with French styles than Italian. One interesting aspects of this Pieta sculpture is the way in which Mary was portrayed by Michelangelo as being particularly young, certainly in relation to Christ, whom she holds in her arms. Michelangelo also produced three other sculptures which were very much related with this one, namely The Deposition, Rondanini Pieta and also Palestrina Pieta. Moses Sculpture Moses is a full length sculpture which took around two years to complete. This marble artwork stands at an impressive cm and remains one of the key works produced by Michelangelo during his career. The church of San Pietro in Vincoli, Rome holds this large sculpture and depicts the biblical figure Moses, as suggested by the title. The strength of character attributed to Moses is captured perfectly by master Michelangelo and the artist took on some technically more-tricky methods in order to get the finish that he most wanted. The photo to the right is one of favourite photographs of the original, capturing several of the key aspects of this particular sculpture. It was to be his tomb, and the artist matched the importance of the Pope with an extravagant series of around 40 sculptures to celebrate the life of this key religious icon. Each individual piece in this design deserve their own specific recognition, though, such was the qualities of their creator. Brutus Sculpture Michelangelo completed his Brutus bust in, and you can now see the original in the Bargello Florentine Museum. The city itself remains the best place to learn more about the great master, Page 8

9 though the Vatican City also retains some of the highlights of his career. This particular piece is important due to the fact that it is believed to be the only bust produced by Michelangelo during his career, despite him being so prolific as a sculptor. Michelangelo used this piece to comment politically on the progress of his beloved Florence and he worked hard to capture strong emotions on the face of his historic subject. This artist was someone who had great passion and confidence in his work and his position as a respected artist, to the point where he would frequently use his art to communicate messages about how he saw the world. Bacchus Sculpture Bacchus featured here has a dazed look in his face, which clearly has something to do with the bowl of wine which he carries around with him. This sculpture is now on display at the Museo Nazionale del Bargello, Florence, and stands at an impressive two metres in height. Whilst the sculpture portrays Bacchus as drunk it is important to remember that he was in fact the God of wine. All Rights Reserved Disclaimer: The Estate of Michelangelo and their presence hold all necessary copyrights and licences for all of his paintings and other works. All prints, paintings and photos included in www. Page 9

10 Chapter 5 : Selected Michelangelo Paintings and Sculptures Michelangelo's most famous sculptural work, David, was completed in If he had not yet secured his fame as an artist, this piece completed the task of establishing Michelangelo as one of Florence's greatest sculptors. Michelangelo turned an unfinished statue into an iconic piece of Renaissance art. He was attracted to these ambitious tasks while at the same time rejecting the use of assistants, so that most of these projects were impractical and remained unfinished. In he agreed to paint a huge fresco for the Sala del Gran Consiglio of the Florence city hall to form a pair with another just begun by Leonardo da Vinci. Both works survive only in copies and partial preparatory sketches. In the artist began work on a planned set of 12 marble Apostles for the Florence cathedral, of which only one, the St. Matthew, was even begun. His figures seem to suggest that they are fighting to emerge from the stone. This would imply that their incomplete state was intentional, yet he undoubtedly did want to complete all of the statues. He did, however, write a sonnet about how hard it is for the sculptor to bring the perfect figure out of the block in which it is potentially present. The pope sought a tomb for which Michelangelo was to carve 40 large statues. Recent tombs had been increasingly grand, including those of two popes by the Florentine sculptor Antonio Pollaiuolo, those of the doges of Venice, and the one then in work for Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I. Michelangelo believed that Bramante, the equally prestigious architect at St. He left Rome, but the pope brought pressure on the city authorities of Florence to send him back. He was put to work on a colossal bronze statue of the pope in his newly conquered city of Bologna which the citizens pulled down soon after when they drove the papal army out and then on the less expensive project of painting the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel â The ceiling of the Sistine Chapel The Sistine Chapel had great symbolic meaning for the papacy as the chief consecrated space in the Vatican, used for great ceremonies such as electing and inaugurating new popes. It already contained distinguished wall paintings, and Michelangelo was asked to add works for the relatively unimportant ceiling. The Twelve Apostles was planned as the themeâ ceilings normally showed only individual figures, not dramatic scenes. Traces of this project are seen in the 12 large figures that Michelangelo produced: The inclusion of female figures was very unusual though not totally unprecedented. Michelangelo placed these figures around the edges of the ceiling and filled the central spine of the long curved surface with nine scenes from Genesis: The vast project was completed in less than four years; there was an interruption perhaps of a year in â 11 when no payment was made. These first figures are relatively stable, and the scenes are on a relatively small scale. As he proceeded, he quickly grew in confidence. Indeed, recent investigations of the technical processes used show that he worked more and more rapidly, reducing and finally eliminating such preparatory helps as complete drawings and incisions on the plaster surface. The same growing boldness appears in the free, complex movements of the figures and in their complex expressiveness. While remaining always imposing and monumental, they are more and more imbued with suggestions of stress and grief. This may be perceived in a figure such as the prophet Ezekiel halfway along. This figure combines colossal strength and weight with movement and facial expression that suggest determination to reach a goal that is uncertain of success. Such an image of the inadequacy of even great power is a presentation of heroic and tragic humanity and is central to what Michelangelo means to posterity. Nearby the scene of the creation of Eve shows her with God and Adam, compressed within too small a space for their grandeur. This tension has been interpreted as a token of a movement away from the Renaissance concern with harmony, pointing the way for a younger generation of artists, such as Jacopo da Pontormo, often labeled Mannerists. When he painted the second half, he seemed to repeat the same evolution from quiet stability to intricacy and stress. Thus, he worked his way from the quietly monumental and harmonious scene of the creation of Adam to the acute, twisted pressures of the prophet Jonah. Yet, in this second phase he shows greater inward expressiveness, giving a more meditative restraint to the earlier pure physical mass. The complex and unusual iconography of the Sistine ceiling has been explained by some scholars as a Neoplatonic interpretation of the Bible, representing the essential phases of the spiritual development of humankind seen through a very dramatic relationship between man and God. The Restoration of the Sistine Chapel. SuperStock Other projects As soon as the ceiling was finished, Michelangelo reverted to Page 10

11 his preferred task, the tomb of Pope Julius. In about â 15 he carved the Moses, which may be regarded as the realization in sculpture of the approach to great figures used for the prophets on the Sistine ceiling. The control of cubic density in stone evokes great reserves of strength; there is richer surface detail and modeling than before, with bulging projections sharply cut. The surface textures also have more variety than the earlier sculptures, the artist by now having found how to enrich detail without sacrificing massiveness. Of about the same date are two sculptures of bound prisoners or slaves, also part of the tomb project but never used for it, since in a subsequent revised design they were of the wrong scale. Michelangelo kept them until old age, when he gave them to a family that had helped him during an illness; they are now in the Louvre. The complexity of their stances, expressive of strong feeling, was unprecedented in monumental marble sculpture of the Renaissance. The old man and his two adolescent sons forming that group certainly stimulated the three statues by Michelangelo as well as the related figures on the ceiling. Pope Leo X, his successor, a son of Lorenzo the Magnificent, had known Michelangelo since their boyhoods. He chiefly employed Michelangelo in Florence on projects linked to the glory of the Medici family rather than of the papacy. He made detailed suggestions, but he also gave the artist much room for decision. Michelangelo was moving into architectural design with a small remodeling project at the Medici mansion and a large one at their parish church, San Lorenzo. The larger project never materialized, but Michelangelo and the cardinal did better with a more modest related effort, the new chapel attached to the same church for tombs of the Medici family. The Medici Chapel The immediate occasion for the chapel was the deaths of the two young family heirs named Giuliano and Lorenzo after their forebears in and Michelangelo gave his chief attention up to to the marble interior of this chapel, to both the very original wall design and the carved figures on the tombs; the latter are an extension in organic form of the dynamic shapes of the wall details. Windows, cornices, and the like have strange proportions and thicknesses, suggesting an irrational, willful revision of traditional Classical forms in buildings. Such types had never appeared on tombs before, and they refer, again according to Michelangelo, to the inevitable movement of time, which is circular and leads to death. The immensely massive Day and Dusk are relatively tranquil in their mountainous grandeur, though Day perhaps implies inner fire. Both female figures have the tall, slim proportions and small feet considered beautiful at the time, but otherwise they form a contrast: Dawn, a virginal figure, strains upward along her curve as if trying to emerge into life; Night is asleep, but in a posture suggesting stressful dreams. These effigies, more usual in execution, also form a contrast; they are traditionally described as active and thoughtful, respectively. Rendered as standard types of young soldiers, they were at once perceived not as portraits but as idealized superior beings, both because of their high rank and because they are souls beyond the grave. Both turn to the same side of the room. It has naturally been thought that they focus on the Madonna, which Michelangelo carved and which is at the centre of this side wall, between two saints. The heads of the two effigies, however, are turned in differing degrees, and their common focus is at a corner of the chapel, at the entrance door from the church. On this third wall with the Madonna the architectural treatment was never executed. The design for this one was constrained by the existing buildings, and it was built on top of older structures. A small available area on the second floor was used as an entrance lobby and contains a staircase leading up to the larger library room on a new third floor. The bold and free rearrangement of traditional building components goes still further, for instance, to place columns recessed behind a wall plane rather than in front of it as is usual. By contrast the long library room is far more restrained, with traditional rows of desks neatly related to the rhythm of the windows and small decorative detail in the floor and ceiling. It recalls that Michelangelo was not invariably heavy and bold but modified his approach in relation to the particular case, here to a gentler, quiet effect. For that very reason the library room has often been less noticed in the study of his work. The sack of Rome in saw Pope Clement ignominiously in flight, and Florence revolted against the Medici, restoring the traditional republic. It was soon besieged and defeated, and Medici rule permanently reinstalled, in During the siege Michelangelo was the designer of fortifications. He showed understanding of modern defensive structures built quickly of simple materials in complex profiles that offered minimum vulnerability to attackers and maximum resistance to cannon and other artillery. This new weapon, which had come into use in the middle of the 14th century, had given greater power to the offense in war. Thus, instead of the tall castles that had served well for defensive Page 11

12 purposes in the Middle Ages, lower and thicker masses were more practical. The projecting points, which also assisted counterattack, were often of irregular sizes in adaptation to specific hilly sites. Other projects and writing When the Medici returned in, Michelangelo returned to work on their family tombs. His political commitment probably was more to his city as such than to any specific governmental form. Two separate projects of statues of this date are the Apollo or David its identity is problematic, used as a gift to a newly powerful political figure, and the Victory, a figure trampling on a defeated enemy, an old man. It was probably meant for the never-forgotten tomb of Pope Julius, because the motif had been present in the plans for that tomb. Victor and loser both have intensely complicated poses; the loser seems packed in a block, the victorâ like the Apolloâ forms a lithe spiral. The Victory group became a favourite model for younger sculptors of the Mannerist group, who applied the formula to many allegorical subjects. In Michelangelo left Florence for the last time, though he always hoped to return to finish the projects he had left incomplete. He passed the rest of his life in Rome, working on projects in some cases equally grand but in most cases of quite new kinds. It was just at this time that the nearly year-old artist wrote letters expressing strong feelings of attachment to young men, chiefly to the talented aristocrat Tommaso Cavalieri, later active in Roman civic affairs. These have naturally been interpreted as indications that Michelangelo was homosexual, but this interpretation seems implausible when one considers that no similar indications had emerged when the artist was younger. The correlation of these letters with other events seems consistent instead with the view that he was seeking a surrogate son, choosing for the purpose a younger man who was admirable in every way and would welcome the role. He apparently began writing short poems in a way common among nonprofessionals in the period, as an elegant kind of letter, but developed in a more original and expressive way. Among some preserved poems, not including fragments of a line or two, there are about 75 finished sonnets and about 95 finished madrigals, poems of about the same length as sonnets but of a looser formal structure. It is not the type of song well known in Elizabethan music, but a poem with irregular rhyme scheme, line length, and number of lines. Yet the fact that Michelangelo left a large number of sonnets but only very few madrigals unfinished suggests that he preferred the latter form. They give expression to the theme that love helps human beings in their difficult effort to ascend to the divine. In Michelangelo returned after a quarter century to fresco painting, executing for the new pope, Paul III, the huge Last Judgment for the end wall of the Sistine Chapel. This theme had been a favoured one for large end walls of churches in Italy in the Middle Ages and up to about, but thereafter it had gone out of fashion. It is often suggested that this renewal of a devout tradition came from the same impulses that were then leading to the Counter-Reformation under the aegis of Paul III. The work is in a painting style noticeably different from that of 25 years earlier. The colour scheme is simpler than that of the ceiling: The figures have less energy and their forms are less articulate, the torsos tending to be single fleshy masses without waistlines. At the top centre, Christ as judgeâ surrounded by a crowd of Apostles, Saints, Patriarchs, and Martyrsâ lifts an arm to save those on his right and drops the other arm to damn those on his left, suggesting in the idiom of the period a scale to weigh humans in the balance. The saved souls rise slowly through the heavy air, as the damned ones sink. Page 12

13 Chapter 6 : Famous Michelangelo Sculptures List of Popular Michelangelo Sculptures Michelangelo was such a master of the Italian Renaissance that he is renowned as a painter, sculptor and architect. He regarded himself first and foremost as a sculptor though, and with David and Pieta amongst his sculptural masterpieces it is easy to understand why. These sculptures have been interpreted in many ways. As we see them, in various stages of completion, they evoke the enormous strength of the creative concept as they try to free themselves from the bonds and physical weight of the marble. It is now claimed that the artist deliberately left them incomplete to represent this eternal struggle of human beings to free themselves from their material trappings. The Slaves are standing with most of their weight on one foot so that their shoulders and arms twist off-axis from the hips and legs. This precise pose gives the Prisoners a more dynamic and powerful appearance, transmitting motion and emotion. Michelangelo believed the sculptor was a tool of God, not creating but simply revealing the powerful figures already contained in the marble. One can clearly recognize the grooves from mallet and pointed chisel on the marble surface used in this initial stage. Unlike most sculptors, who prepared a plaster cast model and then marked up their block of marble to know where to chip, Michelangelo mostly worked free hand, starting from the front and working back. The method was to take a figure of wax, lay it in a vessel of water and gradually emerge it, noticing the most prominent parts. Just so, the highest parts were extracted first from the marble. The Awakening Slave The Awakening Slave marble, height cm, circa This piece is one of the most powerful and expressive works among the Slaves. It is the first statue one finds on the left along the corridor, the least outlined of the four Prisoners. The figure feels like it is writhing and straining, trying to imminently explode out of the marble block that holds it. The latent power one feels is extraordinary. Michelangelo is famous for saying that he worked to liberate the forms imprisoned in the marble. He saw his job as simply removing what was extraneous. This endless struggle of man to free himself from his physical constraints is a metaphor of the flesh burdening the soul. It is interesting to note the various marks left alongside the block of marble, above all at the back of the unfinished sculpture. The contrapposto pose is quite exaggerated by the narrowness of the block of stone and by the slightly bent knees. The profound study of human anatomy is highlighted in the left elbow and the careful lines of the bent biceps and triceps. His face, which is just beginning to emerge, seems so youthful by comparison with his musculature. Michelangelo always chiseled out the image front to back: The figure is almost free, only his hands and part of his arm, probably planned to hold a cloth, are unfinished. The face is covered by a thick, curly beard and the thighs are bound by straps of cloth. Hence he is named after Atlas, the primordial Titan who held up the entire world on his shoulders. His head has not emerged from the stone, leading the slave to support and push such a heavy weight, which threatens to compress him. The force of weight pushing down, and that pushing back up, create a vigorous tension. There is no feeling of equilibrium here, only an eternal battle of forces threatening to explode in both directions. This pressure generates a power which perhaps more than the other Slaves, expresses the energy of the figure struggling to emerge from marble. But in the end, they were never placed in position, and those captives were presented by him to Ruberto Strozzi, when Michelagnolo happened to be lying ill in his house: This website does not sell tickets or tours, but offers visitors the opportunity to book through affiliate links on third party websites. Page 13