(1475-1564)
"Italian sculptor, painter, architect and poet. He was one of the founders of
the High Renaissance and, in his later years, one of the principal exponents of
Mannerism. Born at Caprese, the son of the local magistrate, his family returned
to Florence soon after his birth. Michelangelo's desire to become an artist was
initially opposed by his father, as to be a practising artist was then
considered beneath the station of a member of the gentry. He was, however,
eventually apprenticed in 1488 for a three-year term to Domenico Ghirlandaio.
Later in life Michelangelo tried to suppress this apprenticeship, implying that
he was largely self-taught, undoubtedly because he did not want to present
himself as a product of the workshop system which carried with it the stigma of
painting and sculpture being taught as crafts rather than Liberal Arts.
Nevertheless, it was in Ghirlandaio's workshop that Michelangelo would have
learnt the rudiments of the technique of fresco painting. Before the end of his
apprenticeship, however, he transferred to the school set up by Lorenzo the
Magnificent in the gardens of the Palazzo Medici. Here he would have had access
to the Medici collection of antiques, as well as a certain amount of tuition
from the resident master, Bertoldo di Giovanni. His work here included two
marble reliefs, a Madonna of the Steps (Casa Buonarroti, Florence), carved in
rilievo schiacciato and showing the influence of Donatello (Bertoldo's master)
and a Battle of the Centaurs (Casa Buonarroti, Florence), based on Bertoldo's
bronze Battle of the Horsemen, which itself appears to be based on an antique
prototype. Either at this time, or when he was in the Ghirlandaio workshop,
Michelangelo also studied from and drew copies of the frescos of Giotto and
Masaccio.
"With the death of Lorenzo in 1492, the school broke up and Michelangelo was
given permission to study anatomy at the hospital attached to Sto Spirito. In
gratitude to the prior for allowing him this privilege he carved a wooden
Crucifix (the one now in the Casa Buonarroti is considered by some scholars to
be the work in question). In October 1494, Michelangelo transferred to Bologna
and was awarded the cornmission for three marble figures to complete the tomb of
St. Dominic in S. Domenico Maggiore, begun by the recently deceased Niccoló
dell' Arca. By June 1496 he was in Rome and here established his reputation with
two marble statues, the drunken Bacchus (c 1496-7; Florence, Bargello) for a
private patron and the Pietá for St. Peter's (1498-9). The latter is generally
considered to be the masterpiece of his early years, deeply poignant,
exquisitely beautiful and more highly finished than his later works were to be.
In creating a harmonious pyramidal group from the problematic combination of the
figure of a full-grown man lying dead across the lap of his mother, Michelangelo
solved a formal problem that had hitherto baffled artists. He returned to
Florence a famous sculptor and was awarded the commission for the colossal
figure of David to stand in the Piazza della Signoria, flanking the entrance to
the Palazzo Vecchio (1501-4, original now in the Accademia). Soon after this he
was cornmissioned to paint a battle scene for the new Council Chamber of the
Palazzo. On one wall he commenced the painting of the Battle of Cascina, while
on the opposite wall his principal rival, Leonardo, was commissioned to paint
the Battle of Anghiari. Although neither painting was ever finished, copies of a
fragment of Michelangelo's full-size cartoon, showing a group of nude soldiers
reacting variously to the battle alarm that has interrupted their bathing, soon
began to circulate (e.g. Earl of Leicester Collection, Holkharn Hall, Norfolk).
These nudes, posed in a variety of turning and animated poses, established the
Mannerist conception of the male nude as the principal vehicle for the
expression of human emotions.
"Michelangelo abandoned this Florentine commission when Pope Julius II summoned
him to Rome to design his tomb. What should have been the most prestigious
commission of his career, a free-standing tomb with some 40 figures, to be
located in St. Peter's, became, in Michelangelo's own words, the 'tragedy of the
tomb'. Julius died in 1513, the contract was redrawn several times over the
following years with ever-diminishing funding, other demands were made on
Michelangelo by successive popes, and the project was finally cobbled together
in 1545, a shadow of its original conception, with much help from assistants, in
S. Pietro in Vincoli Julius' titular church). The tomb is now principally famous
for the colossal figure of Moses (c 1515), one of Michelangelo's greatest
sculptures. Two slave figures, The Dying Slave and the Rebellious Slave (c1513),
intended for the largest of the schemes for the tomb, are now in the Louvre in
Paris, and four unfinished slaves, from an intermediate stage when the tomb had
been only slightly reduced, are now in the Accademia in Florence. The four
unfinished slaves reveal eloquently Michelangelo's sculptural process: the
figure would be outlined on the front of the marble block and then Michelangelo
would work steadily inwards from this one side, in his own words 'liberating the
figure imprisoned in the marble'. As the more projecting parts were reached so
they were brought to a fairly finished state with those parts further back still
only rough-hewn: thus the figures of these slaves literally appear to be
struggling to be free. The (unintentional) pathos specifically evoked by the
unfinished state of figures such as these and the St. Matthew (Accademia,
Florence) exerted a tremendous impact on Rodin who recognized in them expressive
possibilities that would be lost in a 'finished' piece.
"While in the early stages of work on the Tomb, Julius also commissioned
Michelangelo to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Michelangelo was
evidently reluctant to abandon his sculptural project for one of painting
(always much less satisfying to him), but he nonetheless began work in 1508,
completed the first half by 1510 and the whole ceiling by 1512. Dissatisfied
with traditional methods of fresco painting and mistrustful of assistants who
could not meet his evolving demands, he dismissed his workshop at an early stage
and completed the monumental task almost single-handedly. The main scenes - the
histories - in the centre of the shallow barrel vault, alternate larger and
smaller panels and represent the opening passages of the Bible, from the
Creation to the Drunkenness of Noah with, at each of the corners of the smaller
panels, idealized nude youths, variously interpreted as angels or Neoplatonic
perfections of human beauty. The histories are treated like quadri riportati
with a horizon parallel to the picture plain. The ignudi, however, inhabit a
different reality - one created by the fictive architecture which also forms the
shallow space occupied by the enthroned prophets and sibyls (those who foretold
Christ's coming) located towards the sides of the vault. Lower down still, in
the Nunettes above the windows, are the ancestors of Christ and, at the four
corners of the ceiling, Old Testament scenes that prefigure Christ's Crucifixion
and thus humanity's salvation. The programme of the ceiling, life before the
establishment of the Mosaic Law, relates it to the frescos of the lives of Moses
and Christ by Perugino and other artists on the walls below. Michelangelo gives
a poignant account of his gruelling task, painting bent over backwards, his neck
permanently arched to look up, his arm stretching upwards to wield his brush, in
one of his sonnets. The break in work in 1510 allowed him to see the effect of
the fresco from the ground (hitherto hidden by scaffolding) and in the second
half (that closest to the altar wall) there is a perceptible simplification of
detail and a corresponding monumentalization of figure style. Always heralded as
the supreme example of Florentine disegno, the recent restoration has also
revealed Michelangelo to have been a brilliant colourist.
"In 1516, the new pope, Leo X (Giovanni de'Medici) commissioned Michelangelo to
design a facade for San Lorenzo, the Medici parish church in Florence. The
commission came to nothing (the facade is unfinished to this day), but this
unfulfilled scheme led to his two earliest architectural masterpieces, the
Medici Chapel (or New Sacristy) attached to San Lorenzo and the Laurentian
Library. Again neither was to be finished. Nevertheless, the 'molten' stairway
and the architectural elements of the entrance hall to the library, whose
positioning deliberately contradicts the structural function of their
prototypes, are seminal in the foundation of architectural Mannerism. The Medici
funerary chapel (planned from 1520, abandoned when the Medici were temporarily
expelled from Florence in 1527, recommenced in 1530 and left incomplete in 1534)
was intended to be a fusion of architecture and sculpture accommodating the
tombs of four members of the family. The idea was that looking from the altar,
moving past the tombs, one's gaze would be directed by the gaze of the tomb
figures who turn towards the far wall and the Madonna holding upon her lap the
Christ child, whose sacrifice had made possible the Resurrection of the soul of
the faithful to everlasting life - the climax to the iconographical programme of
the mausoleum. Only two tombs were completed and the Madonna and Child was half
completed. Beneath the seated figure of Giuliano ('vita activa') are reclining
figures of Day and Night and beneath that of Lorenzo ('vita contemplativa'),
Dawn and Evening. These reclining figures symbolize mortality through the
passage of time.
"In 1534 Michelangelo departed for Rome, never to return to Florence. From now
on he worked mainly for the papacy. Soon after his arrival Pope Clement VIII
commissioned him to paint the fresco of the Last judgement for the Sistine
Chapel (work commenced under Pope Paul III in 1536, completed in 1541). The
spirit of the work is totally different from that of the ceiling unveiled 29
years earlier. In the interim, the Church had been torn apart by the
Reformation, Rome had been sacked (1527), and Michelangelo's fresco breathes the
new militancy of the Catholic Counter-Reformation. The optimism and confidence
of the ceiling is replaced by the pessimism and emotional turmoil of the altar
wall: saints swarm around the Apollo-like figure of Christ, wielding their
instruments of martyrdom, seemingly demanding righteous judgement on the sinners
stirring to life from the bare earth at the bottom of the picture. The Last
judgement was intended as the climax of the chapel's account, represented in
coherent stages, on the ceiling and walls, of the Christian history of the
world. This was Michelangelo's most controversial work to date and was as much
condemned (for its nudity) as it was praised (for its artistry). After the death
of Michelangelo, the fresco was nearly destroyed, but the Church authorities
settled for Daniele da Volterra painting draperies over the offending nudity.
"Following the Last Judgement Paul III commissioned from Michelangelo his two
last major frescos for the Capella Paolina, the Conversion of St. Paul and the
Martyrdom of St. Peter (1542-50). The same troubled spirit imbues Michelangelo's
sculpture from this time, the Pietá (now Florence, Cathedral Museum), intended
for his own tomb shows himself as Nicodemus - again, a comparison with the St.
Peter's Pietá is eloquent testimony to the spiritual uncertainty of these later
years. In the year of his death, his 89th year, he was working on yet another
pietá, the Rondanini Pietá. In 1546 Michelangelo was appointed Chief Architect
to St. Peter's and charged with the completion of the new church, the most
prestigious architectural commission in Christendom. Rebuilding had almost
ceased with the death of Bramante in 1514, but Michelangelo, as reluctant to
engage in architectural commissions as he had been with painting, had brought
the work almost to completion (as high as the drum of the dome) by the time of
his death. The dome was erected after his death, to his designs but with some
modifications (e.g. Michelangelo's hemispherical profile was made much steeper).
Also the nave was lengthened in the 17th century changing Michelangelo's Greek
cross plan to a Latin cross plan, and consequently the majesty of the dome is
much obscured by the balustrade of the Baroque facade.
"Whether in painting, sculpture or architecture, Michelangelo's influence has
been immense. Although he restricted himself to the nude in painting, his
expressive use of the idealized human form had a tremendous impact on
contemporaries and future generations - even Raphael was not above directly
referring to the Sistine Chapel sibyls, with his fresco of Isaiah in Sant'
Agostino. Furthermore, there was not a major Italian sculptor of the 16th
century whose style was not formed under the influence of Michelangelo, or in
direct reaction against him (e.g. Bandinelli). He was the first artist to be the
subject of two biographies in his lifetime - those of Condivi and Vasari - with
the latter doing much to promote the view of Michelangelo as the consummation of
a progression towards artistic perfection that had begun with Giotto."
From
"The Bulfinch Guide to Art History"
Further reading on Michelangelo: