Michelangelo 3 Essay, Research Paper
Michelangelo was pessimistic in his poetry and an optimist in his artwork.
Michelangelo s artwork consisted of paintings and sculptures that showed humanity in it s
natural state. Michelangelo s poetry was pessimistic in his response to Strazzi even
though he was complementing him. Michelangelo s sculpture brought out his optimism.
Michelangelo was optimistic in completing The Tomb of Pope Julius II and persevered
through it s many revisions trying to complete his vision. Sculpture was Michelangelo s
main goal and the love of his life. Since his art portrayed both optimism and pessimism,
Michelangelo was in touch with his positive and negative sides, showing that he had a
great and stable personality.
Michelangelo s artwork consisted of paintings and sculptures that showed
humanity in it s natural state. Michelangelo Buonarroti was called to Rome in 1505 by
Pope Julius II to create for him a monumental tomb. We have no clear sense of what the
tomb was to look like, since over the years it went through at least five conceptual
revisions. The tomb was to have three levels; the bottom level was to have sculpted
figures representing Victory and bond slaves. The second level was to have statues of
Moses and Saint Paul as well as symbolic figures of the active and contemplative life-
representative of the human striving for, and reception of, knowledge. The third level, it
is assumed, was to have an effigy of the deceased pope. The tomb of Pope Julius II was
never finished. What was finished of the tomb represents a twenty-year span of frustrating
delays and revised schemes. Michelangelo had hardly begun work on the pope s tomb
when Julius commanded him to fresco the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel to complete the
work done in the previous century under Sixtus IV. The overall organization consists of
four large triangles at the corner; a series of eight triangular spaces on the outer border; an
intermediate series of figures; and nine central panels, all bound together with architectural
motifs and nude male figures. The corner triangles depict heroic action in the Old
Testament, while the other eight triangles depict the biblical ancestors of Jesus Christ.
Michelangelo conceived and executed this huge work as a single unit. It s overall meaning
is a problem. The issue has engaged historians of art for generations without satisfactory
resolution. The paintings that were done by Michelangelo had been painted with the
brightest colors that just bloomed the whole ceiling as one entered to look. The ceiling
had been completed just a little after the Pope had died. The Sistine Chapel is the best
fresco ever done.
Michelangelo embodied many characteristic qualities of the Renaissance. An
individualistic, highly competitive genius (sometimes to the point of eccentricity).
Michelangelo was not afraid to show humanity in it s natural state – nakedness; even in
front of the Pope and the other religious leaders. Michelangelo portrayed life as it is, even
with it s troubles. Michelangelo wanted to express his own artistic ideas. The most
puzzling thing about Michelangelo s ceiling design is the great number of seemingly
irrelevant nude figures that he included in his gigantic fresco. Four youths frame most of
the Genesis scenes. We know from historical records that various church officials
objected to the many nudes, but Pope Julius gave Michelangelo artistic freedom, and
eventually ruled the chapel off limits to anyone save himself, until the painting was
completed. The many nude figures are referred to as Ignudi. They are naked humans,
perhaps representing the naked truth. More likely, I think they represent Michelangelo s
concept of the human potential for perfection. Michelangelo himself said, Whoever
strives for perfection is striving for something divine. In painting nude humans, he is
suggesting the unfinished human; each of us is born nude with a mind and a body, in
Neoplatonic thought, with the power to be our own shapers. Michelangelo has a very
great personality for his time. In Rome, in 1536, Michelangelo was at work on the Last
Judgment for the altar wall of the Sistine Chapel, which he finished in 1541. The largest
fresco of the Renaissance, it depicts Judgment Day. Christ, with a clap of thunder, puts
into motion the inevitable separation, with the saved ascending on the left side of the
painting and the damned descending on the right into a Dantesque hell. As was his custom,
Michelangelo portrayed all the figures nude, but prudish draperies were added by another
artist (who was dubbed the breeches-maker ) a decade later, as the cultural climate
became more conservative. Michelangelo painted his own image in the flayed skin of St.
Bartholomew. Although he was also given another painting commission, the decoration of
the Pauline Chapel in the 1540s, his main energies were directed toward architecture
during this phase of his life. Instead of being obedient to classical Greek and Roman
practices, Michelangelo used motifs columns, pediments, and brackets for a personal
and expressive purpose. A Florentine although born March 6, 1475, in the small village
of Caprese near Arezzo Michelangelo continued to have a deep attachment to his city,
its art, and its culture throughout his long life. He spent the greater part of his adulthood
in Rome, employed by the popes; characteristically, however, he left instructions that he
be buried in Florence, and his body was placed there in a fine monument in the church of
Santa Croce.
Michelangelo portrayed both optimism and pessimism. Sculptures was where he
wanted his heart dedicated. Michelangelo gave up painting apprenticeship to take up a
new career in sculpture. Michelangelo then went to Rome, where he was able to
examine many newly unearthed classical statues and ruins. He soon produced his first
large-scale sculpture, the over-life-size Bacchus (1496-98, Bargello, Florence). One of
the few works of pagan rather than Christian subject matter made by the master, it
rivaled ancient statuary, the highest mark of admiration in Renaissance Rome. At about
the same time, Michelangelo also did the marble Piet (1498-1500), still in its original
place in Saint Peter’s Basilica. One of the most famous works of art, the Piet was
probably finished before Michelangelo was 25 years old, and it is the only work he ever
signed. The youthful Mary is shown seated majestically, holding the dead Christ across
her lap, a theme borrowed from northern European art. Instead of revealing extreme
grief, Mary is restrained, and her expression is one of resignation. In this work,
Michelangelo summarizes the sculptural innovations of his 15th-century predecessors
such as Donatello, while ushering in the new monumentality of the High Renaissance
style of the 16th century.
Michelangelo was pessimistic in his response to Strazzi. I did not see Strazzi as
complementing him. Michelangelo responds in a pessimistic tone to what should have
been a complement. Michelangelo said, sleep is precious; more precious to be stone,
when evil and shame are aboard; it is a blessing not to see, not to hear. Pray, do not
disturb me. Speak softly . During his long lifetime, Michelangelo was an intimate of
princes and popes, from Lorenzo de’ Medici to Leo X, Clement VIII, and Pius III, as well
as cardinals, painters, and poets. Neither easy to get along with nor easy to understand, he
expressed his view of himself and the world even more directly in his poetry than in the
other arts. Much of his verse deals with art and the hardships he underwent, or with
Neoplatonic philosophy and personal relationships. The great Renaissance poet Ludovico
Ariosto wrote succinctly of this famous artist: Michael more than mortal, divine angel.
Indeed, Michelangelo was widely awarded the epithet divine because of his extraordinary
accomplishments. Two generations of Italian painters and sculptors were impressed by his
treatment of the human figure: Raphael, Annibale Carracci, Pontormo, Rosso Fiorentino,
Sebastiano del Piombo, and Titian.
In conclusion, Michelangelo (1475-1564), was arguably one of the most inspired
creators in the history of art and, with Leonardo da Vinci, the most potent force in the
Italian High Renaissance. As a sculptor, architect, painter, and poet, he exerted a
tremendous influence on his contemporaries and on subsequent Western art in general.
Michelangelo was pessimistic in his poetry and an optimist in his artwork. Michelangelo s
works showed humanity in it s natural state. Michelangelo s sculptures were his goals.
Michelangelo was very intelligent for the works that he did. Michelangelo always wanted
to finish the works that he worked on before moving on to another. I think that
Michelangelo was to good of a person. He educates the people of today as well as the
people in his time about the true religious aspects that there is to learn. Michelangelo was
a role model for the people of his time as well as for the people of today. Michelangelo
was also a great poet, a pessimist, but a great one. Michelangelo is my role model. I
respect him for the works that he did and the talent that he had. I want to be like Michel.
Last Judgment Michelangelo’s David
Michelangelo s Last Judgment, the large fresco on the altar wall One of Michelangelo s best known creations is the
of the Sistine Chapel, dates from 1536-1541 about 20 years sculpture David (1501-1504). The 4.34-m
after the famous ceiling frescoes were painted. The painting (14.2-ft) tall marble statue shows an alert David
represents one of the earliest examples of mannerist art. This waiting for his enemy Goliath. It was originally
is an alarming view of Judgment Day, with grotesque and created for the piazza in front of the Palazzo Vecchio
twisted figures. While Christ stands in the center of the in Florence, Italy, but was later moved to the Galleria
fresco meting out justice, the saved rise on the left and the dell Accademia
damned descend on the right.
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