Information AboutMichelangelo |
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Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni ( March 6 , 1475 – February 18 , 1564 ), commonly known as '''Michelangelo''', was a Renaissance artist, sculptor and Poet . .]] Michelangelo is famous for creating the Ceiling of the Sistine Chapel , as well as the '' Last Judgment '' over the altar, and '' The Martyrdom Of St. Peter '' and '' The Conversion Of St. Paul '' in the Vatican's Cappella Paolina ; among his many sculptures are those of '' David '' and the '' Pietà '', as well as the big man '' Doni Virgin '', '' Bacchus '', '' Moses '', Rachel, Leah, And Members of the Medici family; he also designed the dome of St. Peter's Basilica . BIOGRAPHY Early years Michelangelo was born in 1475 near Arezzo , in Caprese , Tuscany . His father, Lodovico di Leonardo di Buonarotti di Simoni, was the resident Magistrate in Caprese and Podestà of Chiusi . His mother was Francesca di Neri del Miniato di Siena . As genealogies of the day indicated that the Buonarroti descended from Countess Matilda Of Tuscany , the family being considered minor nobility. However, Michelangelo was raised in Florence and later lived with a sculptor and his wife in the town of Settignano where his father owned a marble quarry and a small farm. Michelangelo once said to the biographer of artists Giorgio Vasari , "What good I have come from the pure air of your native Arezzo, and also because I sucked in chisels and hammers with my mother's milk." , Florence.]] Against his father's wishes (in fact to persuade him to take up a more honorable profession, his father would beat him), after a period of 1488 he signed with an already famous painter a contract for three years starting in 1488 . Amazingly enough, Michelangelo's father was able to get Ghirlandaio to pay the young artist, which was unheard of at the time. In fact, most apprentices paid their masters for the education. Impressed, Domenico recommended him to the ruler of the city, Lorenzo De' Medici , and Michelangelo left his workshop in 1489 . From 1490 to 1492 , Michelangelo attended Lorenzo's school and was influenced by many prominent people who modified and expanded his ideas on art, following the dominant Platonic view of that age, and even his feelings about sexuality. It was during this period that Michelangelo met literary personalities like Pico Della Mirandola , Angelo Poliziano and Marsilio Ficino . In this period Michelangelo finished '' Madonna Of The Steps '' (1490–1492) and '' Battle Of The Centaurs '' (1491–1492). The latter was based on a theme suggested by Poliziano and was commissioned by Lorenzo de Medici. After the death of Lorenzo on April 8 , 1492 , for whom Michelangelo had become a kind of son, Michelangelo quit the Medici court. In the following months he produced a '' Wooden Crucifix '' ( 1493 ), as a thanksgiving gift to the prior of the church of Santa Maria Del Santo Spirito who had permitted him some studies of Anatomy on the corpses of the church's Hospital. Between 1493 and 1494 he bought the marble for a larger than life statue of Hercules , which was sent to France and disappeared sometime in the 1700s . He could enter again the court after on January 20 , 1494 , Piero de Medici commissioned a snow statue from him. But that year the Medici were expelled from Florence after the Savonarola rise, and Michelangelo also left the city before the end of the political upheaval, moving to Venice and then to Bologna . He did stay in Florence for awhile hiding in a small room underneath San Lorenzo that can still be visited to this day, if you know how to ask the guides. In this room there are charcoal sketches still on the walls of various images that Michelangelo drew from his memory. Here he was commissioned to finish the carving of the last small figures of the tomb and shrine of St. Dominic, in the church with the same name. He returned to Florence at the end of 1494, but soon he fled again, scared by the turmoils and by the menace of the French invasion. He was again in his city between the end of , where he arrived on June 26 1496 . On July 4 Michelangelo started to carve an over-life-size statue of the Roman god of wine, '' Bacchus '', commissioned by the banker Jacopo Galli for his garden. Subsequently, in November of 1497 , French ambassador in the Holy See commissioned one of his most famous works, the '' Pietà ''. The contract was stipulated in the August of the following year. Though he devoted himself only to sculpture, during his first stay in Rome Michelangelo never stopped his daily practice of drawing. In Rome Michelangelo lived near the church of , marquise of Pescara and poet. His house was demolished in 1874 , and the remaining architectural elements saved by new proprietors were destroyed in 1930 . Today a modern reconstruction of Michelangelo's house can be seen on the Gianicolo hill. '', one of the absolute masterworks of sculptures of all times, was carved in 1499, when the sculptor was 24 years old.]] Michelangelo returned to Florence in . Michelangelo replied to the commissioning by completing arguably his most famous work, '' David '' in 1504 . This masterwork definitively established his fame as sculptor for his extraordinary technical skill and the strength of his symbolic imagination. Also during this period, Michelangelo worked on a Virgin and Child with the young Saint John the Baptist and Angels, 1497, now in the National Gallery, London. He also painted the '' Holy Family Of The Tribune '', also known as ''Tondo Doni'': it was commissioned for the marriage of Angelo Doni and Maddalena Strozzi. Under Pope Julius II in Rome: the Sistine Chapel ceiling See Also: Sistine Chapel ceiling .]] Michelangelo was summoned back to the great city of Rome in 1503 by the newly appointed Pope Julius II and was commissioned to build the Pope's tomb. However, under the patronage of Julius II, Michelangelo had to constantly stop work on the tomb in order to accomplish numerous other tasks; due to such interruptions, Michelangelo worked on the tomb for 40 years without ever finishing it. One such interruption was the commission to paint twelve prophets and sybils and scenes from Genesis on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, which took four years to complete ( 1508 – 1512 ). According to Michelangelo's own account, reproduced in contemporary biographies, Bramante and Raphael convinced the Pope to commission Michelangelo in a painting style not familiar to the artist, in order that he might be diverted from his preference for sculpture into fresco painting, and thus suffer from unfavourable comparisons with his rival Raphael. However, this story is heavily discounted by modern historians and contemporary evidence, and may be merely a reflection of his own perspective. Michelangelo was originally employed to paint the 12 Apostles, but protested for a more modern theme, and eventually completed the work with over 300 Biblical figures in a composition which has attracted many different interpretations. His figures showed the , created by one of his assistants, Jacopo l'Indaco. This one not only resisted mold, but also entered the Italian building tradition (and is still now in use). Michelangelo used bright colors, easily visible from the floor. Under Medici Popes in Florence ''.]] In 1513 Pope Julius II died and his successor Pope Leo X , a Medici, commissioned Michelangelo to reconstruct the façade of the Basilica Of San Lorenzo In Florence and to adorn it with sculptures. Michelangelo agreed reluctantly. The three years he spent in creating drawings and models for the facade, as well as attempting to open a new marble quarry at Pietrasanta specifically for the project, were among the most frustrating in his career, as work was abruptly cancelled by his financially-strapped patrons before any real progress had been made. The basilica is lacking a facade to this day. Apparently not the least embarrassed by this turnabout, the Medici later came back to Michelangelo with another grand proposal, this time for a family funerary chapel in the Basilica Of San Lorenzo . Fortunately for posterity, this project, occupying the artist for much of the 1520s and 1530s , was more fully realized. Though still incomplete, it is the best example we have of the integration of the artist's sculptural and architectural vision, since Michelangelo created both the major sculptures as well as the interior plan. Ironically the most prominent tombs are those of two rather obscure Medici who died young, a son and grandson of Lorenzo. Il Magnifico himself is buried in an obscure corner of the chapel, not given a free-standing monument, as originally intended. is shown holding the knife of his martyrdom and his flayed skin. The face of the skin is recognizable as Michelangelo.]] In 1527 , the Florentine citizens, encouraged by the Sack Of Rome , threw out the Medici and restored the republic. A siege of the city ensued, and Michelangelo went to the aid of his beloved Florence by working on the city's fortifications from 1528 to 1529 . The city fell in 1530 and the Medici were restored to power. Completely out of sympathy with the repressive reign of the ducal Medici, Michelangelo left Florence for good in the mid-1530s, leaving assistants to complete the Medici chapel. Years later his body was brought back from Rome for interment at the Basilica Di Santa Croce , fulfilling the maestro's last request to be buried in his beloved Tuscany . , although it was unfinished when he died.]] Last works in Rome The Fresco of '' The Last Judgment '' on the altar wall of the Sistine Chapel was commissioned by Pope Paul III , and Michelangelo labored on the project from 1534 to October 1541 . The work is massive and spans the entire wall behind the alter of the Sistine Chapel. The Last Judgment is a depiction of the second coming of Christ and the apocalypse; where the souls of humanity rise and dissent to their various assorted fates, as judged by Christ and his Saintly entourage. Once completed, the depictions of nakedness in the papal chapel was considered obscene and sacrilegeous, and Cardinal Carafa and Monsignor Sernini ( Mantua's ambassador) campaigned to have the fresco removed or censored, but the Pope resisted. After Michelangelo's death, it was decided to obscure the genitals (''"Pictura in Cappella Ap.ca coopriantur"''). So Daniele Da Volterra , an apprentice of Michelangelo, was commimssioned to cover with sort of perizomas (briefs) the genitals, leaving unaltered the complex of bodies (see details {Link without Title} ). When the work was restored in 1993 , the restorers chose not to remove all the perizomas of Daniele, leaving some of them as a historical document and because some of Michelangelo’s work was tragically scraped away by the touch-up artist application of “decency” to the masterpiece. A faithful uncensored copy of the original, by Marcello Venusti , can be seen at the Capodimonte Museum of Naples . Censorship always followed Michelangelo, once described as "inventor delle porcherie" ("inventor of obscenities", in the original Italian language referring to "pork things"). The infamous "fig-leaf campaign" of the Counter-Reformation , aiming to cover all representations of human genitals in paintings and sculptures, started with Michelangelo's works. To give two examples, the bronze marble statue of '' Cristo Della Minerva '' (church of Santa Maria Sopra Minerva , Rome ) was covered by a pan, as it remains today, and the statue of the naked child Jesus in '' Madonna Of Bruges '' (The Church of Our Lady in Bruges , Belgium ) remained covered for several decades. In 1546 , Michelangelo was appointed architect of St. Peter's Basilica in the Vatican, and designed its dome. As St. Peter's was progressing there was concern that Michelangelo would pass away before the dome was finished. Once they started building the lower part of the dome, the supporting ring, they knew that the whole design would rise as there would be no way to turn back. MICHELANGELO THE ARCHITECT Laurentian Library Around 1530 Michelangelo designed the Laurentian Library in Florence, attached to the church of San Lorenzo. He produced new styles such as Pilasters tapering thinner at the bottom, and a staircase with contrasting rectangular and curving forms. Medici Chapel Palazzo Farnese Work on the Palazzo Farnese was begun by Antonio Da Sangallo The Younger , who was commissioned by Pope Paul III Farnese . Michelangelo took over the works in 1546 after the death of Sangallo. After the death of Julius II building was halted. His successor, Pope Paul III, appointed Michelangelo as chief architect following the death of Antonio de Sangallo in 1546. Michelangelo actually razed some sections of the church designed by Sangallo in keeping with the original design by St Peter's first architect, Donato Bramante (1444–1514). However the only elements built according to Michelangelo's designs are sections of the rear facade and the magnificent dome. After his death his student Giacomo della Porta continued with the unfinished portions of the church. Michelangelo at the Campidoglio Michelangelo's first designs for solving the intractable urbanistic, symbolic, political and propaganda program for the Campidoglio dated from 1536 . The commission was from the Farnese Pope Paul III , who wanted a symbol of the new Rome to impress the emperor and King of Spain Charles V , who was expected to visit the city in 1538 . The hill was the Capitoline , the heart of pagan Rome, though that connection was largely obscured by its other role as the center of the civic government of Rome, revived as a Commune in the 11th Century . The city's government was now to be firmly in papal control, but the Campidoglio was the former scene of many movements of urban resistance, such as the dramatic scenes of Cola Di Rienzo 's revived republic. Approximately in the middle, not to Michelangelo's liking, now stood the only equestrian bronze to have survived since Antiquity, portraying emperor Marcus Aurelius . Michelangelo provided an unassuming pedestal for it. It was slow work: little was actually completed in Michelangelo's lifetime, but work continued faithfully to his designs. The Campidoglio was completed in the 17th Century , except for the elegant paving design, which was to be finished only three centuries later. Michelangelo effectively turned Rome’s civic center to face in the direction of St. Peters , and the Christian church. He provided new fronts to the two official buildings of Rome's civic government, which very approximately faced each other, the Palazzo Dei Conservatori and the Palazzo Senatorio . The latter had been built over the '' Tabularium '' that had once housed the archives of ancient Rome, and which now houses the Capitoline Museums , the oldest museum of antiquities of the world. Michelangelo devised a monumental stair (the '' Cordonata '') to reach the high Piazza , so that the Campidoglio resolutely turned its back on the Forum that it had once commanded. He gave the space a new building at the far end, to close the vista, called Palazzo Nuovo , "new palace," and its facade was thought by Michelangelo as an exact copy to that of Palazzo dei Conservatori. It was begun in 1603 and finished in 1654 . The ''Cordonata'' is a ramped stair that can be accessed on horseback by the sufficiently great, though it was not in place when Emperor Charles arrived, and the imperial party had to scramble up the slope from the Forum to view the works in progress. The unfolding sequence, ''Cordonata'' piazza and the central palazzo are the first urban introduction of the "cult of the axis" that will occupy Italian garden plans and reach fruition in France (Giedion 1962). The two massive ancient statues of Castor and Pollux which decorate the balaustra are not the same posed by Michelangelo, which now are in front of the Palazzo Del Quirinale . The ''Palazzo dei Conservatori'' was the first use of a Giant Order that spanned two storeys, here with a range of Corinthian Pilasters and subsidiary Ionic Columns flanking the ground-floor Loggia openings and the second-floor windows. Another giant order would serve later for the exterior of St Peter's. A balustrade punctuated by sculptures atop the giant pilasters capped the composition, one of the most influential of Michelangelo's designs. The sole arched motif in the entire design is the segmental Pediment s over the windows, which give a slight spring to the completely angular vertical-horizontal balance of the design. , 1568.]] The bird's-eye view of the engraving by Étienne Dupérac shows Michelangelo's solution to the problems of the space in the '' pointed out (Charles De Tolnay, 1930). An interlaced twelve-pointed star makes a subtle reference to the constellations, revolving around this space called ''Caput mundi'', the "head of the world." The paving design was never executed by the popes, who may have detected a subtext of less-than-Christian import. Benito Mussolini ordered the paving completed to Michelangelo's design — in 1940 . MICHELANGELO THE MAN '' statue, in Florence.]] Michelangelo, who was often arrogant with others and constantly unsatisfied with himself, thought that art originated from inner inspiration and from culture. In contradiction to the ideas of his rival, Leonardo Da Vinci , Michelangelo saw nature as an enemy that had to be overcome. The figures that he created are therefore in forceful movement; each is in its own space apart from the outside world. For Michelangelo, the job of the sculptor is to free the forms that, he believed, were already inside the stone. This can most vividly be seen in his unfinished statuary figures, which to many appear to be struggling to free themselves from the stone. He also instilled into his figures a sense of moral cause for action. A good example of this can be seen in the facial expression of his most famous work, the marble statue '' David ''. Arguably his second most famous work is the fresco on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel which is a synthesis of architecture, sculpture & painting. His Last Judgement , also in the Sistine Chapel , is a depiction of extreme crisis. Several Anecdote s reveal that Michelangelo's skill, especially in sculpture, was deeply appreciated in his own time. It is said that when still a young apprentice, he had made a pastiche of a Roman statue ('' Il Putto Dormiente '', the sleeping child) of such beauty and perfection, that it was later sold in Rome as an ancient Roman original. Another better-known anecdote claims that when finishing the Moses ( San Pietro In Vincoli , Rome), Michelangelo violently hit the knee of the statue with a hammer, shouting, "Why don't you speak to me?" Love life Fundamental to Michelangelo's art is his love of male beauty which attracted him both aesthetically and emotionally. Such feelings caused him great anguish, and he expressed the struggle between platonic ideals and carnal desire in his sculpture, drawing and his poetry, too, for among his other accomplishments Michelangelo was the great Italian lyric poet of the 16th Century . The sculptor loved a great many youths, many of whom posed for him. Some were of high birth, like the sixteen year old Cecchino dei Bracci, a boy of exquisite beauty whose death, only a year after their meeting in . Others were street wise and took advantage of the sculptor. Febbo di Poggio, in 1532 , peddled his charms — in answer to Michelangelo's love poem he asks for money. Earlier, Gherardo Perini, in 1522 , had stolen from him shamelessly. His greatest male love was Tommaso dei Cavalieri (c. 1509–1587), who was 23 years old when Michelangelo met him in 1532 , at the age of 57. In their first exchange of letters, January 1 , 1533 , Michelangelo declares: ''Your lordship, only worldly light in this age of ours, you can never be pleased with another man's work for there is no man who resembles you, nor one to equal you… It grieves me greatly that I cannot recapture my past, so as to longer be at your service. As it is, I can only offer you my future, which is short, for I am too old… That is all I have to say. Read my heart for "the quill cannot express good will." '' Cavalieri was open to the older man's affection: ''I swear to return your love. Never have I loved a man more than I love you, never have I wished for a friendship more than I wish for yours.'' Cavalieri remained devoted to Michelangelo till the very end, holding his hand as he drew his last breath. Michelangelo dedicated to him over three hundred sonnets and , constituting the largest sequence of poems composed by him. Though some modern commentators assert that the relationship was merely a Platonic affection, the sonnets are the first large sequence of poems in any modern tongue addressed by one man to another, predating Shakespeare 's sonnets to his young friend by a good fifty years. 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. :::— (Michael Sullivan, translation) The Homoeroticism of Michelangelo's poetry was obscured when his grand nephew, Michelangelo the Younger, published an edition of the poetry in 1623 with the gender of pronouns changed. John Addington Symonds undid this change by translating the original sonnets into English and writing a two-volume biography, published in 1893 . Late in life, he also had a great love for the poet and noble widow Vittoria Colonna, whom he met in Rome in 1536 or 1538. They wrote sonnets for each other and were in regular contact until she died, though many scholars note the intellectualized or spiritual quality of this passion. '', Michelangelo's most famous painting.]] WORKS SUMMARY Sculpture
Painting
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