Michelangelo Bounarroti 1355

Michelangelo Bounarroti is considered one of the most talented creators in the history of art. As a sculptor, painter, architect, and poet, he exerted a tremendous influence on his contemporaries and on the subsequent art world. His works are well know and easily recognizable. His life and works are still an inspiration to artist everywhere. <Tab/>Michelangelo was born March 6, 1475, in the small village of Caprese, in Florence. His father, Ludovico Buonarroti, was a Florentine official with connections to the ruling Medici family. At age 13, Michelangelo was apprenticed to painter Domenico Ghirlandio for two years. Shortly thereafter, while studying at the sculpture school in the Medici gardens and was invited into the household of Lorenzo de' Medici the Magnificent, leader of Florence at the time. <Tab/>While residing with the Medicis, Michelangelo had an opportunity to interact with the younger Medicis, two of whom later became popes (Leo X and Clement VII). These popes later commissioned him to do work. He 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), showing tremendous personal style early on. When Lorenzo died in 1492, the Medici family was expelled from Florence. Michelangelo fled Florence, and went to Bologna, there he continued to sculpt at the commission of local churches. <Tab/>Four years later, in 1496, Michelangelo moved to Rome, where he was able to study many newly unearthed classical statues and ruins. He soon produced his first large scale sculpture; bigger than life Bacchus, it is one of the few secular works made by the artist, and depicts the Roman god of wine with a satyr. Shortly after the Bacchus, in 1500, at age 25, Michelangelo completed his of three Pietas. The Pieta` is one of his most famous works and is the only work he ever signed. The Pieta` depicts the Virgin Mary holding the dead body of her son, Jesus Christ, on her lap. The detail in both figures is tremendous. Because artists of the time were subject to the moral standing of the church they were unable to study living human form. Michelangelo circumvented this by exhuming freshly dead corpses to study. It is speculated that this is one of the reasons he was able to realistically capture the lifeless body of Jesus.<Tab/><Tab/>Back in Florence, Michelangelo began work on the fourteen and a half foot tall David. Completed in 1504, the Old Testament hero is depicted as an agile young nude, both muscular and alert, looking off into the distance as if sizing up the enemy, Goliath. The intensity of David's facial expression, called "terribilita`," is an often used feature characteristic of many of the artist's sculptures and paintings. David became the symbol of Florence and was placed in the Piazza della Signoria, in front of the town hall. With David, Michelangelo proved to his contemporaries that he surpassed both ancient and modern artists, because he was able to infuse formal beauty with powerful expressiveness and meaning. While still occupied with David, Michelangelo was given an opportunity to demonstrate his ability as a painter with the commission of a mural, the Battle of Cascina, where only sketches have survived, because many painters have worked over the mural distorting the original image. <Tab/>Michelangelo was recalled to Rome by Pope Julius II in 1505 for two commissions. The most important was for the frescoes of the Sistine Chapel ceiling. Between 1508 and 1512 Michelangelo worked high above the chapel floor, lying on his back on scaffolding, creating 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. These images are surrounded by alternating images of prophets on marble thrones, Old Testament subjects and ancestors of Christ. In preparation of this commission, Michelangelo drew numerous figure studies and sketches, devising scores of figure types and poses. These awe inspiring images demonstrate Michelangelo's mastery and understanding of human anatomy and movement; the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel changed the course of painting in the West. <Tab/><Tab/><Tab/><Tab/>In 1510 Michelangelo started to sculpt his "slave" series. This series offers the most insight into Michelangelo's approach to carving; he took the position that the finished sculpture was locked inside the block of stone and by removing the excess stone the form was released. It was frequently the case with his sculptures that Michelangelo left the works unfinished, because he either was satisfied with them as is or he no longer planned to use them; this gave the "slaves" an eerie feel of entrapment. <Tab/>Michelangelo's first architecture project came to fruition in 1520, when he designed the Laurentian Library and its entrance hall, although. Michelangelo made it a point to contradict the architectural standards of the day. Instead of being obedient to classical Greek and Roman practices, he

used columns, pediments, and brackets for personal and expressive purpose. He injected the same energy into his buildings that he is in his sculptures and paintings. From 1519-1534, Michelangelo lived and worked in Florence. He was also working on a commission to design tombs for the Medici family at this time. <Tab/>In 1534 Michelangelo left Florence for the last time and returned to Rome. From 1534 to 1541, he worked on The Last Judgment, for the alter wall of the Sistine Chapel. It is the largest fresco of the Renaissance and depicts an apocalyptic Day of Judgment. Christ, with a bolt of lighting, separates the saved, ascending into heaven, from the damned falling to the ground and being sucked into hell. It has been noted that some of the men that are portrayed as damned to hell can be recognized as high-ranking church officials at the time. Michelangelo even painted his own image into the flayed skin of St Bartholomew. There are over 400 figures in The Last Judgment, all of them nude, a decade later the cultural climate became conservative and another painter was commissioned to conceal their nakedness. <Tab/>After the completion of The Last Judgment Michelangelo began to focus his efforts toward architecture; in 1538/39 plans were under way for the remodeling of the buildings surrounding the Campidoglio (the Capitol), the civic and political heart of Rome. Although Michelangelo's plan was not started until the 1550's and not completed until the 17th century, he designed the Campidoglio in the shape of an oval, with a bronze equestrian statue of the emperor Marcus Aurelius in its center. Michelangelo's crowing achievement in architecture is the cupola on the top of St. Peter's Basilica. In 1546 Michelangelo was made chief architect during the basilica's construction. In addition to the dome above the alter, Michelangelo also designed the slanted, staircase that spirals up along the perimeter of the dome and leads to the top of the cupola.<Tab/> The dome became a symbol of authority, as well as a model, for other domes in the Western world, including the Capitol Building in Washington D.C. Most of Michelangelo's original designs and structures can still be viewed today, with little or no alteration; they continue to inspire architects because of their combination of originality and functionality. <Tab/>In addition to being a master painter and architect, Michelangelo was also a poet. Neither easy to get along with nor understand, he expressed his view of himself and the world directly in his poetry, more so than in his other arts. Most of his poems deal with art and the hardships he underwent, or with philosophy and personal relations. Like his sculpture and paintings his poetry presented a realistic view of Michelangelo's life and surroundings. <Tab/>During his long lifetime, (89 years) Michelangelo was an intimate of princes and popes, as well as cardinals, painters and poets. His work is still studied and admired world-wide. Because he worked in different mediums and almost all of this work was commissioned, Michelangelo's work has always been on public display, drawing crowds and admirers. His influence over modern art, architecture, and sculpture can still be observed today. All of these things make Michelangelo a true Renaissance man. <Tab/> <Tab/>