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| Michelangelo Buonarroti |
| MICHELANGELO BUONAROTTI Biography Michelangelo Buonarroti was the greatest artist and prolific sculptor of all times. An artist, painter, architect and poet, Michelangelo Buonarroti, a man of the 16th century is known as the father of sculpting. " The David" , " Ceiling of the Sistine Chapel", "Pieta", "Bruges Madonna" etc are few of his creations that have earned him more name and fame than all others in recent history. Sculpting, a difficult profession needs great skill and precision to carve a desired artistic shape out of stone. His childhood Michelangelo Buonnaroti was born in 1475 in Caprese, Tuscany to Ludovico di Leonardo di Buonarotto Simoni and Francesca Neri. He lost his mother, when he was six years old. Michelangelo's childhood had been grim and lacking affection. His father sent him to the school where his master, Francesco Galeota taught grammar. Here he met Francesco Granacci six years older than him, who was learning the art of painting in Ghirlandaio's studio. He became his friend and Michelangelo was inspired to pursue his own artistic vocation. He learnt the art of Fresco painting from Ghirlandaio. Yet he often thought of himself as a sculptor rather than painter and signed his name as Michelangiolo schultore. His early days at Florence His father wanted that Michelangelo completed his studies and later went on to become a successful businessman, who would preserve the Buonarroti position in society. But destiny had something else in store for his son. Michelangelo now 13 expressed his desire that he wished to apprentice in the workshop of the painter Domenico Ghirlandaio. After about one year of learning the art of fresco, Michelangelo went on to study at the sculpture school in the Medici gardens. Lorenzo dei Medici, appreciated his work and took Michelangelo to live with his family in his house in Via Larga, where he came across many political and cultural personalities. Michelangelo had a strange passion of studying corpses which was strictly forbidden by the Church. But he obtained permission for his study by presenting a wooden Crucifix detail of Christ's face. However he had to interrupt his activities often as he fell ill due to contact with the dead bodies. He developed in depth knowledge about human anatomy. Battle of the Centaurs and the Madonna of the Stairs ( 1489-92) are Michelangelo's early life creations.In Madonna of the Stairs, Mary, Mother of God, sits on the rock of the church. The child curls back into her body. She foresees his death, and his return on the stairway to heaven.His second work, Battle of the Centaurs was another small relief. His tutor read the myth of the battle of the Lapiths against the Centaurs. The wild forces of Life, locked in heroic combat. At the age of 16, his mind was a battlefield, his love of pagan beauty, the male nude, at war with his religious faith.. One spiritual, the other earthly. In 1494 he fled from Florence to escape Charles VIII and went to Bologna .One seeing the reliefs by Jacopo della Quercia, he sculpted a bas-relief for the Duomo of San Petronio. In 1495 he returned to Florence and created the Drunken Bacchus (Bargello) his first large-scale sculpture. A magnificiant work of the pagan art, it was considered the finest during the times of Renaissance in Rome. Michelangelo also carved a youthful St. John and a Sleeping Cupid, now both are lost. The cupid was so skillfully carved that it looked like an antique and it was passed off as an authentic work of art in Rome. This forgery and recommendation by the famous Lorenzo helped him gain wealth and power which was otherwise unattainable for a young artist . The magnifiancant Pieta Before Michelangelo was 25, he gave to the world one of the finest works of European art, the marble Pieta. During 1498-1500 he sculpted the Pieta at the Saint Peter's Basilica. It is the statue of the youthful Mary holding the dead Christ in her arms. She has an expression of resignation on her face. Few days later he overheard someone say, that the work was not done by Michelangelo. This enraged Michelangelo and he inscribed on it " MICHEL ANGELUS BONAROTUS FLORENT FACIBAT meaning "Michelangelo Buonarroti, Florentine, made this ". However he later regretted this act and determined never to sign his own work . He came back to Florence between 1501 and 1505 and, proceeded to carry out a series of masterpieces, the Doni Tondo (Uffizi), the Pitti Tondo (Bargello), the lost cartoon for the fresco of the Battle of Cascina and the marble statue of David (Galleria dell'Accademia), which was placed outside the entrance to Palazzo Vecchio as a symbol of the Second Republic as well as of the Renaissance ideals of free men and masters of fate. The David During the time, when Florence was going through a difficult period, its citizens had to be alert and vigilant to confront permanent threats. The City Council asked him to carve a colossal David from a nineteen-foot block of marble. he locked himself away in a workshop behind the cathedral, hammered and chiseled at the towering block for three long years. In spite of the opposition of a committee of fellow artists, He insisted that the figure should stand before the Palazzo Vecchio. Archways were torn down, narrow streets widened...it took forty men five days to move it. Once in place, all Florence was astounded. A civic hero, he was a warning...whoever governed Florence should govern justly and defend it bravely. Eyes watchful...the neck of a bull...hands of a killer...the body, a reservoir of energy. He stands poised to strike. He created the David to symbolize heroic courage, and inspire the Florentines through his work. Through David he tried to convey that inner spiritual strength and courage can be more effective than physical strength. He represented David as an athletic, manly character, very determined and ready to fight. A extreme tension is evident in his worried look and in his right hand, holding a stone. Michelangelo and Leonardo Da Vinci Leonardo da Vinci was at that time an established painter and one of the best in Florence. Though there was a gap of 20 years between the two, they always felt the threat of loosing the limelight. They were constant rivals. On Leonardo's return to Florence he was received with great honors, but had to reckon with the fame of Michelangelo, his contemporary who had already received the commission for the David from the Republic. Leonardo disliked sculpting. He preferred to paint, and considered it a more noble profession. He considered that sculpting was more of a mechanical exercise. He quotes "The sculptor in creating his work does so by the strength of his arm by which he consumes the marble, or other obdurate material in which his subject is enclosed, and this is done by most mechanical exercise, often accompanied by great sweat which mixes with the marble dust and forms a kind of mud daubed all over his face. The marble dust flours him all over so that he looks like a baker; his back is covered with a snowstorm of chips, and his house is made filthy by the flakes and dust of stone." The Tomb of Julius II Giuliano della Rovere (Pope Julius II, 1503-1513) in 1503 became the Pope who after gaining position employed many architects to decorate the Vatican apartments. Michelangelo was also commisioned to carve his tomb which was planned to be the most magnificient since ancient Rome. It was to include more than 40 figures and was to be located in the new Basilica of St. Peter's. Michelangelo, undertook the charge with great enthusiasm. After he spent eight months, he was asked to put aside the tomb project in favor of painting the Sistine ceiling. This infuriated Michelangelo and he returned to Florence .The artist turned down the pope's repeated summons to return to Rome. When Julius was in Bologna in 1506 he persuaded Michelangelo to appear before the pope and beg forgiveness. Michelangelo created a monumental seated bronze statue for Bologna at the pope's request. Michelangelo spent a year in Bologna solving the problems of bronze casting, Just three years later, a mob destroyed the statue in an attack on papal authority, thereby erasing a significant chapter in Michelangelo's career and our best evidence for his success in the taxing medium of bronze. Ceiling of the Sistine Chapel In 1534 Michelangelo lost his father and left Florence forever. He then accepted a commission from Clement VII to fresco the wall behind the altar in the Sistine Chapel. But Michelangelo was not a painter and taking up such a project was quite risky. He lamented that "painting is not my art" and expressed his disagreement, but in vain. It seems that other artists of his time who were rivals of Michelangelo advised the Pope to make this move. Michelangelo though initially resisted, once he reconciled himself to the task, he gave his best to keep up his reputation. From 1508 to 1512, Michelangelo painted over 400 life-sized figures, on the ten thousand square feet of a highly irregular, leaky vault. Though Michelangelo initially began to sketch on Sistine ceiling on his own, he soon employed other helpers to help him complete his job. But Michelangelo was a perfectionist even in fresco and he was never satisfied with their work. He soon fired all of his assistants, removed what had already been painted and, between the end of 1508 and January 1509, recommenced all on his own. While he was working on it he refused to show it to anyone but the pope, who often climbed the scaffolding to see how the fresco was proceeding. Michelangelo was always insisted by the Pope to finish it fast. But before it was finished he uncovered it in August 1511. The sight of these highly original paintings made a great impression on the artists of the time. The vault of the papal chapel included nine scenes from the Book of Genesis, beginning with God Separating Light from Darkness and including the Creation of Adam and Eve, the Temptation and Fall of Adam and Eve, and the Flood. These centrally located narratives are surrounded by alternating images of prophets and sibyls (Libyan, Erythraean) on marble thrones, by other Old Testament subjects, and by the ancestors of Christ. In order to prepare for this enormous work, Michelangelo drew numerous figure studies and cartoons, devising scores of figure types and poses. It was physically and emotionally very torturous for Michelangelo. The poet Michelangelo spoke of his tribulations in an acerbic sonnet: I've already grown a goiter from this toil as water swells the cats in Lombardy or any other country they might be, forcing my belly to hang under my chin. My beard to heaven, and my memory I feel above its coffer. My chest a harp. And ever above my face, the brush dripping, making a rich pavement out of me. My loins have been shoved into my guts, my arse serves to counterweigh my rump, Eyelessly I walk in the void. Ahead of me my skin lies outstretched, and to bend, I must knot my shoulders taut, holding myself like a Syrian bow. The final years " St. Peter's Basilica" In 1546 Michelangelo was made chief architect. The St Peter's Basilica was another remarkable addition to his list of creations. He was now in his seventies when he accepted this mighty responsibility. He considered it as a duty and a mission entrusted to him by God. On February 18, 1564, just two weeks shy of his eighty-ninth birthday, the artist left for his heavenly abode. |
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