Michelangelo

Century Renaissance Art The 16th Century renaissance started in the sass’s and ended in the sass’s. The art of the 16th Century Renaissance was both spiritual and worldly. The 16th Century Renaissance is when two very important art movements took place, High Renaissance and Mannerism. Everyone was starting to take an interest in the classical learning and values of ancient Greece and Rome. (The History Channel Website) They were many artist geniuses who emerged out of this art era.

There were also many, grand art pieces that emerged out of this art era. At the beginning of the 16th century the High Renaissance had started. This was also the time when Rome replaced Florence as an art epicenter. The High Renaissance is also when artist become aware of lines and depth in their artwork. This led to the discovery and the use of the one point perspective. The High Renaissance artists became famous for putting windows of what is behind the horizon in the background of their artworks. The High Renaissance represented artists who wanted to do art their own way.

The high Renaissance started in 1480 and continued on to about 1527. The high Renaissance as in Milan, Florence, Rome, and in northern and central Italy. (Shelley Essay) This was the time to be an artist because everyone who was wealthy wanted art. Their many artist of this time frame, but the most famous artists are Michelangelo Bonaparte, Raphael Sansei and Leonardo ad Vinci. (Art Cyclopedia) After the High Renaissance ended the Mannerism movement came about. It came about in the sass’s and ended around the sass’s. Mannerism was known for its formulaic, theatrical and overly stylized work.

Mannerism art pieces are usually pieces of human forms in unrealistic settings. Mannerism is also known for its much limitation. This is also the time that women start being used as muses for artists. (Art Cyclopedia) It developed in Florence and Rome and then spread to northern and central Europe. Paintings contained artificial color and unrealistic spatial proportions. Figures were often elongated and exaggerated, the poses were creative and complex poses. Works of the movement are often unsettling and strange because of the Reformation, the plague, and the sack of Rome. The History Channel Website) There were a lot of important artist who emerged from this period, but the most famous artist would be Leonardo Ad Vinci. Leonardo De Vinci was born in 1452, in Florence and died in 1519 in France. He was an artist and inventor. He is known as the “Renaissance Man” because he was an inventor, scientist, sculptor, and a great artist. Ad Vinci had many famous works. One of his most famous works is the “Last Supper” (1495-98). The last supper is a painting of the last meal Jesus shared with his apostles. It also shows Jesus isolated, four groups of threes and Judas in the shadows clutching money. The History Channel Website) Another famous piece by Ad Vinci as the “Mona Lisa”(1 503-05), which is a painting of a woman. This painting would be an example of Mannerism art. Ad Vinci was also famous for the “The Virgin of the Rocks” (1485). Some other great artists were Michelangelo Bonaparte (1475-1564), and Raphael Sansei(1483-1 520). Michelangelo was famous for painting the Sistine Chapel ((1508-12) and sculpting the “David in his native Florence” (1501-04). Raphael Sansei was famous for the “The School of Athens” (1508-11). The “School of Athens” shows philosophers such as Pluto coming together.

Another great artist of 16th Century was Titan “Meeting of Bacchus and Ordained” (1 522), he was famous for using rich luminous colors. (The History Channel Website) One of the most important art pieces of the 16th Century Renaissance was the “Sistine Chapel” (1508-04) architecture. The Sistine Chapel took a period of four years to paint. It was painted by Michelangelo Bonaparte. The Sistine Chapel is a painting of a few scenes of Genesis, from the bible. One of the scenes was the Creation of Adam. (The History Channel Website) Michelangelo painted the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel for the Pope Sixths ‘V.

Also, along with ceilings of the Sistine Chapel, the side walls are festooned with frescoes of Moses and Christ and portraits of popes. (The New World Encyclopedia) Another important art piece or architecture of the 16th Century Renaissance was the SST. Peter Cathedral in Rome. The old SST. Peter Cathedral was constructed in honor of the apostle SST. Peter, the first bishop and first Pope. The original was constructed by Constantine. The SST. Peter Cathedral in Rome was to be renovated, ordered by Pope Julius II. During its renovation it was directed more towards a Latin style but, then

Michelangelo Bonaparte has come to be known as the greatest artist of his time, and one of the all time greats for sure. Albeit unlike other artists of his time he was recognized for his greatness while he was alive. He was also torn between his patronage, of the Medici family in Florence, and the Catholic church in Rome. He was born in 1475 and died in 1564 a ripe age of 88 or 89 years old. Michelangelo is also attributed with development in Mannerism. Mannerism emerged in 1520, about 40 years before Michelangelo death. Mannerism is a rich period of European art that was later replaced by Baroque erred.

Mannerism is basically taking a turn after the High Renaissance from the sweet angelic ideals to a more basic, tense, unstable perspective and is often credited with the growth of intellectual sophistication. By the end of the High Renaissance some of the younger artists felt that everything difficult to be done to prove yourself in the art world had already been done, thus the development of a new style, Mannerism. The Last Judgment, or better known as the Sistine Chapel, shows strong tendencies of the Mannerist Period. The exaggerated muscles on the naked bodies is strong example.

Also the way the bodies are positioned in such pained poses also points towards the Mannerist style. The overly ornate and intricate style of painting and the over the top color scheme and overall grandeur of the fresco also points towards the Mannerist period. Another piece of art that exemplifies the Mannerist period by Michelangelo is his sculpture of David. Although its a sculpture he is trying to show the human soul personified by the ornate and obscure structure of the human body and musculature. He is showing you a man in a seemingly natural position.

But in reality this pose would be hard to hold over a period of time. And if a closer look is taken it can be seen that the musculature of this sculpture is not exactly anatomically correct. With Mannerism developing towards the middle of his life, Michelangelo got to paint not only during the High Renaissance but the Mannerist period as well. Although I only listed two examples, Michelangelo had many more paintings and such that exemplify the styles of Mannerism. He was a great artist who contributed to the Mannerist period in many ways. Michelangelo and Mannerism By gingering

The Last Judgment Michelangelo was one of the greatest artists of all time. He excelled in architecture, sculpture, painting, poetry, and engineering. He was a true Renaissance man who lived a long emotional life. In the painting “The Last Judgment,” Michelangelo was able to incorporate all that he had learned about the human body. He was able to show the way the body moved, as well as its displays of unrestrained passion, overwhelming grief, or endless torment. This is what makes “The Last Judgment” such a unique and exceptional work of art.

The Last Judgment is a canonical fresco by the Italian Renaissance master Michelangelo executed on the altar wall of the Sistine Chapel in Vatican City, Rome, Italy. It is forty-eight feet by forty-four feet masterpiece. The work took four years to complete and was done between 1536 and 1541 (preparation of the altar wall began in 1535. ) Michelangelo began working on it some twenty years after having finished the Sistine Chapel ceiling. Michelangelo returned to the Sistine Chapel as a sixty year old man in 1535 when he was commissioned by Pope Paul III (pontificate 1534 – 1549) to paint the Altar Wall.

If his ceiling celebrates the creation of man, his Last Judgement, depicts the end of the world and the judgment that is said to follow. Michelangelo having been commissioned the wall looked for a long time at the big wall he was supposed to paint. He wanted to be sure to avoid some of the problems the ceiling frescoes had given him twenty-five years earlier. The wall had two windows. He had them blocked up so he would have a nice, empty surface. Next he worried about dampness seeping through from outside. That might spoil his painting.

He decided not to paint the actual chapel wall but to build a second one of dried bricks in front of it and to leave a space between the two walls for ventilation. And to keep the dust from collecting on it he gave the new wall a slant. It slopes inward as it rises and overhangs at the top about a foot. At first Michelangelo planned to paint with oil paints and he had his helper Sebastiano del Piombo give the whole wall a coat of mortar with resin to seal it. But later he changed his mind and ordered him to chip his primer away.

Michelangelo was an experienced fresco painter now and who knows what disagreeable surprises oils might give him. He would stick to fresco and would apply his own layer of sand and lime each day as he went. These preparations took a year. Meanwhile he worked on his characters . He began to paint in June 1536. It is said that Michelangelo fell off the scaffolding once when he was alone in the chapel. Though he was badly hurt he dragged himself home and crawled into bed in great pain. He refused to let anyone see him and wouldn’t open the door when they knocked.

Finally, one of his friends, a doctor made his way up by a secret way from room to room until he found Buonarroti, who was in a desperate condition. Then his friend refused to go away or leave his side until he was better. The wall was unveiled on Halloween, 1541. He was 66 years old. It was twenty-nine years since the unveiling of the ceiling frescoes. The great painting scared people. Pope Paul III, who commissioned it, is supposed to have exclaimed when he saw it the first time: “Lord, please don’t charge me with my sins when you come on Judgment Day! This depiction of the second coming of Christ and the final judgment of humanity is not only a fresco but a beautiful piece of poetry. This painting is a grim reminder to the parishioners as well as the clergy (including the pope) that ultimately they too would be judged at the end of time. This painting depicts Christ surrounded by the saints and angels, judging all the souls of the human race as they rise or descend to heaven and hell where they will stay for all eternity.

Most of the saints surrounding Jesus were martyrs and Michelangelo depicted them each holding the weapon or instrument of their martyrdom. The figures seem to swirl around Christ, this was a new way of depicting this scene because the other versions from earlier periods show it in neat horizontal layers. The central figure of Christ is literally judging and determining the fates of all of the human race with his hand raised gesturing to his decision. The emotion coming from the figure of Christ is so powerful that it almost seems like the figure of his mother, Mary, next o him is cower in fear of the whole scene. To the right you see the Archangel Michel reading form the book of souls assisting in the judgment process. Seen all over is figures of the saved rejoicing but you can also see the damned suffering or fearful of their fate like the figure below Christ on the right covering one eye terrified of his terrible fate. There are many elements to this artwork that tell the viewer that not only Christians will be judged and sent to heaven but people of other religious back grounds will as well, as long as they have lived a moral life.

The inclusion of Greek and Roman mythology is the biggest hint to this. Christ in the center surrounded by light shown as beardless and very muscular this is not just an expression of humanism but can be compared to the Greek god Apollo who was the god of the sun. What could be viewed as the reason for this is that Pope Clement VII studied Heliocentric Cosmology by Copernicus. This work stated that the sun was the center of the universe, so by placing Christ in the center of the fresco and mimicking the features of Apollo, Michelangelo places Jesus at the center of our spiritual universe.

The boatman Charon from Greek and Roman mythology is also featured in this work at the bottom ferrying the damned souls to hell. Also, Minos from Greek mythology who was son of Zeus and Europa and king of Crete became one of the three judges of the underworld. Minos is seen in the bottom left corner of the work with a serpent coiled around him and this would determine which circle of hell the damned souls would be sent. It is also said that a Cardinal had judged Michelangelo’s work so as a sort of revenge he painted the portrait of the Cardinal as Minos.

This could have been his way of poetically stating that only God and Christ can judge this world and if someone attempts to do what only God or Christ can do that there will be a special place in hell for that individual regardless of status within the church, as well as venting is frustration for the Cardinal. Michelangelo did not only provide portraits of individuals who upset him but other central figures of the church as was as himself. The figure on the right holding the a silver key and a gold key is St. Peter with the keys to heaven, this is actually a portrait of Pope Paul III. Also, the flayed skin of St. Bartholomew being held by him is a distorted self portrait of the artist. This continues to send the message that no one is exempt from the last judgment. By including Greek and Roman mythology as well as portraits of current people from the time of the frescos creation really drives the point home that no matter religious background or political status you will be judged fairly.

The Last Judgment was a very controversial piece at the time because, unlike other artists, Michelangelo portrayed those in his painting as naked thereby demonstrating the lack of importance that riches would have at the end of the world when humanity stands before judgment. Unlike his earlier work, including the rest of the Chapel which he painted, his depiction of the Last Judgment was much more monochrome as well as gruesome with the souls of the damned cowering in fear as they are dragged down by demons.

Pope Paul III, who commissioned Michelangelo to paint the Last Judgment, demonstrated a great deal of faith in the artist’s abilities and gave him vast amounts of artistic license. While others criticized Michelangelo’s use of nude figures, the Pope offered up no complaint. In addition to the lack of clothes on his subjects, Michelangelo was critiqued for not only using the Bible as an inspiration for his fresco but also mythological creatures such as Charon who is seen ferrying the damned as well as Minos who is shown as one of the judges located in the underworld.

The Last Judgment was an object of a heavy dispute between critics within the Catholic Reformation and those who understood the genius of the artist and the mannerist style of the painting. Michelangelo was accused of being insensitive to proper decorum, and of flaunting personal style over appropriate depictions of content. The Council of Trent issued decrees that such representations in sacred art were not allowed, and all objectionable art was to be changed or destroyed.

In response to certain accusers, when the Pope’s own Master of Ceremonies Biagio da Cesena said of the painting “it was mostly disgraceful that in so sacred a place there should have been depicted all those nude figures, exposing themselves so shamefully,” and that it was no work for a papal chapel but rather “for the public baths and taverns,” The worst criticism came from the poet and blackmailer Pietro Aretino, who at first wrote flattering things to Michelangelo from Venice and made suggestions for the painting.

Michelangelo answered that though his suggestions were very interesting the fresco was too far along then to be changed. Eight years later Aretino published an open letter to Michelangelo in which he accused him of being irreverent. “Such things might be painted in a voluptuous bathroom,” he wrote, “but not in the choir of the highest chapel. Our souls are benefitted little by art, but by piety. ” Some thought the nudes were out of place. The papal Master of Ceremonies, Biagio da Cesena, said the painting made the chapel look like a stufa d’ ignudi’ (a bathing house).

For that remark, which he heard Cesena say, Michelangelo supposedly put his face on Minos, the great judge of Hell, and gave him donkey ears while his nudity is covered by a coiled snake. It is said that when Cesena complained to the Pope, the pontiff joked that his jurisdiction did not extend to hell, so the portrait would have to remain. Although the references to mythology were allowed to remain, the genitalia in the fresco, referred to as ‘objections,’ were covered after Michelangelo died by a student of his, Daniele da Volterra.

As years followed fresco came very close to being destroyed. More and more clothes were added. In 1574 El Greco himself offered to chip it away and paint a new fresco that would “be decent and pious and no less well-painted than Michelangelo’s. ”Three more times  artists were ordered to “do something about those nudes”. The critic Thode thought the fresco had been altered so much that it was no longer even possible to judge the artistic qualities of Michelangelo’s work.

He won the Prix de Rome in 1854 which enabled him to live in Rome (1856 – 1862). During that time he was influenced by the works of Italian sculptors of the Renaissance period such as Michelangelo, Donatello, and Andrea Del Verrocchio. He also started to increase his focus of studies on complex sculptures and bas-reliefs. His passion led him to start carving several pieces on marble before the famous work of art “Ugolino and His Sons”. Carpeaux was considered as one of the mainstream artists in Eclecticism.

This movement wanted to exceed Neoclassicism and Romanticism and also described the ombination, in a single work, of elements from different historical styles. Carpeaux received many honors during his lifetime until two months before he died prematurely of cancer at the age of 48 in Courbevoie in 1875 CE. The sculpture snows (Figure 1 a man sitting on a stone cu tted witn chains in his legs. The man’s facial expressions seemed as grief while biting the tip of some of his fingers. The wrinkles on top of his eyes with his curled toes on each other gave the sense of a clueless situation the man was put in.

Surrounding him, there’re four ifferent-aged kids; two of them on the left side of their father’s position, as they gave the emotion of looking at their father begging. And on the right side, there’re the two other kids where the smallest kid fell on the ground looking dead. The sculpture depicts the tale of a traitor who was the Count of Donoratico and was imprisoned by the archbishop Ruggieri degli Ubaldini in the late thirteenth century Oune 1288). The archbishop imprisoned Ugolino with his sons and grandsons in the “Tower of Hunger”.

Also, the archbishop ordered the soldiers to throw the keys of Ugolinds rison in the Arno River so that there’s no way for them to be set free. They were sentenced to be left to starve in February 1289. Ugolino had this prophetic dream of the archbishop and his soldiers as the lord and huntsman killing the wolf the wolf cubs (Ugolino and his offspring). Ugolino had his heart-broken for hearing his sons sobbing in their sleep asking for bread. He also kept his feelings inside, he had never wept, and he used to watch his kids weeping but him feeling clueless paralyzed- thinking.

Yet his offspring dreams couldn’t fill their stomach. Ugolinds kids started to ook at him, wondered why he turned out to look like a stone, biting his fingers and curling his toes of one leg on top of the other one. For them, they thought that their father is starving Just like them or maybe more but for Ugolino himself, he was biting his fingers in anguish, weeping inside for not being able to feed his offspring. Therefore, they started to offer their bodies to their father so he can eat and survive.

After few days, his offspring started to fall down dead one by another till the last one died on the sixth day. This part is quoted from “The Divine Comedy, Vol. l: Inferno Canto 33) – Dante Alighieri”. It illustrates moments of death of Ugolinds offspring and the mystery behind the possibility of Cannibalism: “l calmed myself to make them less unhappy. That day we sat in silence, and the next day. O pitiless Earth! You should have swallowed us! The fourth day came, and it was on that day My Gaddo fell prostrate before my feet, Crying: Why dont you help me?

Michelangelo Buonarroti, the greatest of the Italian Renaissance artists, was born on March 6, 1475, in the small village of Caprese (Today, Caprese is known as Caprese Michelangelo or Tuscany, Italy). Michelangelo grew up in Florence, Italy. His Father was a government administrator and his Mother died when he was only six years old. After the death of his mother Michelangelo lived with a stone cutter and his family in the town of Settignano, where his father owned a marble quarry and small farm.

Along with living with a stone cutter (where he learned to handle marble), Michelangelo’s influences included da Vinci and Dominico Ghirlandaio. Michelangelo showed no interest in school, he preferred to copy paintings from churches and seek the company of painters. His artistic talents were noticed at a very early age. At the age of thirteen, Michelangelo was apprenticed to the painter Domenico Ghirlandaio. At age fourteen Michelangelo’s father persuaded Ghirlandaio to pay Michelangelo as an artist, which was unusual at the time.

Demonstrating obvious talent, he was taken under the wing of Lorenzo de’ Medici, the ruler of the Florentine republic and a great patron of the arts. For two years beginning in 1490, he lived in the Medici palace and attended the Humanist academy, where he was a student of the sculptor Bertoldo di Giovanni and studied the Medici art collection, which included ancient Roman statuary. At the academy, both Michelangelo’s outlook and his art was influenced by many of the most prominent philosophers and writers of the day.

At this time Michelangelo sculpted the Madonna of the Steps (1490-1492) and Battle of the Centaurs (1491-1492). Lorenzo de Medici, the man who gave Michelangelo the tools and schooling to perfect his artistry, passed away in 1492. Michelangelo decided that it was time to return home to his family, but he continued studying on his own. Although the practice was forbidden at the time by the church, Michelangelo got special permission to study anatomy of the dead at a hospital in the church of Santo Spirito.

He used his new knowledge of the human body to create some of his most famous works, including the famous statue of David (1501-1504), the sculptures in the Church of San Pietro, and the Creation of Adam on the Sistine Chapel’s ceiling, which there is a hypotheses that part of it is shaped like the human brain. Michelangelo’s love for sculpture continued to grow, and so did the attention of the world to his work. His demand as an artist grew, and he began creating some of the most famous works of his career.

And then there is his architecture, where Michelangelo reordered ancient forms in an entirely new and dramatic ways. Michelangelo was principally a sculptor and always claimed that architecture was not his profession, but, with a sculptor’s vision, he saw buildings as dynamic organisms – metaphors of the human body and he designed some of the most impressive architecture in all history. Among his best-known buildings are the Medici Chapel and the Laurentian Library in Florence and he finished the architectural work on St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome.

Michelangelo renewed architectures potential for the next generation of architects, freeing them from the need to slavishly imitate models from the past and allowing them to arrive at their own forms of expression. Michelangelo, though best known for his sculpture, was also a poet. He composed over 300 pieces of poetry during his life time including the poem about the hardships of painting the Sistine Chapel ceiling. In his poems he discusses categories pertaining to love, death, evil and good, and beauty. His writing is similar to his art in that every word is carved into the realities of life.

Michelangelo’s art is his love of male beauty, which attracted him both by the nature of natural beauty and emotionally. Such feelings caused him great anguish, and he expressed the struggle between reality and desire for the male body in his sculpture and his poetry. The sculptor loved many youths, many of whom posed for him. His greatest love was Tommaso dei Cavalieri, who was 16 years old when Michelangelo met him in 1532, at the age of 57. Cavalieri was open to the older man’s affection and Michelangelo dedicated many poems to him.

Some say Michelangelo’s relationship with Cavalieri was only a deep friendship and not sexual. Even if Michelangelo had homo-erotic impulses, there is no evidence he acted on them. Cavalieri was not the only inspiration for Michelangelo’s poetry. Later in life he fell in love with Vittoria Colonna. She was a widow and friend to Michelangelo in his later maturity. Between Michelangelo and Vittoria Colonna a deep friendship developed, one might almost say an absolutely pure love, inspired by poetry and faith, out of which were to emerge some of Michelangelo’s finest lyric poems, overflowing with admiration and devotion.

She died at the age of 56 and Michelangelo was deeply affected by her death writing many commemorative pieces in her honor. Michelangelo worked until his death in 1564 at the age of 88. He caught a fever and a few days later he passed away. Michelangelo’s revolutionizing artistic techniques altered the artist’s method for centuries, and still effect how art is made today. His view on the world and its leaders changed the way artists portray their subjects and how bold they allowed their artwork to be. Michelangelo will always be known as one of the most influential artists the world has ever known. ttp://en. wikipedia. org/wiki/Michelangelo www. sparknotes. com Several hypotheses have been put forward about the meaning of The Creation of Adam’s highly original composition, many of them taking Michelangelo’s well-documented expertise in human anatomy as their starting point. In 1990, an Anderson, Indiana physician named Frank Lynn Meshberger, M. D. noted in the medical publication the Journal of the American Medical Association that the background figures and shapes portrayed behind the figure of God appeared to be an anatomically accurate picture of the human brain. 5] Dr. Meshberger’s interpretation has been discussed by Dr. Mark Lee Appler. [6] On close examination, borders in the painting correlate with major sulci of the cerebrum in the inner and outer surface of the brain, the brain stem, the frontal lobe, the basilar artery, the pituitary gland and the optic chiasm. [5] Alternatively, it has been observed that the red cloth around God has the shape of a human uterus (one art historian has called it a “uterine mantle”[7]), and that the scarf hanging out, colored green, could be a newly cut umbilical cord. 8] “This is an interesting hypothesis that presents the Creation scene as an idealized representation of the physical birth of man. It explains the navel that appears on Adam, which is at first perplexing because he was created, not born of a woman. “[9] Michelangelo was both highly literate and plain-spoken. He felt passionate toward individuals, both female and male (Vitoria Colonna and Tommasco Cavalieri in particular. Platonic love suited Michelangelo because the demands of his profession came first. Vittoria, who was independent and highly intelligent, was inaccessible.

She was the woman who came closest to being his intellectual equal, and a person characterized by loftiness, nobility and virtue–all of which appealed to the poet. He turned to her for guidance and idealized her through the ecstasy of his religious mindset; Michelangelo was a deeply religious person who believed in prayer and all the accompanying Renaissance religious imagery characteristic of his era. She was a widow and friend to Michelangelo in his later maturity. She died at the age of 56 and Michelangelo was deeply affected by her death writing many commemorative pieces in her honor.