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Michelangelo
Michelangelo Buonarroti was an Italian artist and sculptor maker. Michelango was born on 6 March 1475 in Caprese near Florence (Italy). Just a few weeks after his birth, the family moved from Caprese to Florence in Italy. They spent their lives in Lorenzo de’ Medici’s household. Medici was the leading arts patron in Florence. Michelango was forced to travel to Bologna after Medici was expelled from Florence. He then shifted to Rome in 1496 where he started being more active with his art and sculpture work. Indeed Michelangelo played a pivotal role in shaping the renaissance.
The first significant artwork that Michelango did was the designing of the Julius’ own tomb in 1505. However, the project was not brought to completion due to complaints from many demands on his time. However, he managed to produce the sculpture of Moses for the tomb. In Rome, Michelangelo produced a Bacchus for the ancient sculpture of a banker garden. This was a work resulted in a display that showed god teetering who looked drunken. This is the only work by Michelangelo that could be viewed from all sides. The year 1498 was when Pietà through the same banker was commissioned. Pieta is the image that Michelangelo constructed in St. Peters. This image has Mary supporting the dead Christ across her knees. There is coexistence of hard polished marble and curved yielding flesh in both Pieta and Bacchus. Pieta is made up of various treasured materials such as gold and marble.
The ceiling of the cistine Chapel was the next major Michelangelo’s commission. This work was done between 1508 and 1512. This work was probably the most significant of Michelangelo’s work, which made him to be regarded as Italy’s greatest living artist. After the commissioning of the decoration of the ceiling of the Sistine, the chief Vatican chapel Michelangelo set down to work. Howe4ver his work was faced by a number of challenges. The main challenge came from his rivals who wanted to push him aside and claim for funds. He however overcame this and altered the traditional format of ceiling painting. This alteration resulted in ceiling painting where moiré than one figure could be represented. He successfully introduced the dramatic scenes, which set the tempo for future standards.
Michelangelo arranged hundreds of figures in an original framing system. This was the earliest architectonic design by Michelangelo. Planes were built up in various degrees he approached the ceiling on which the planes were placed. The planes were painted architecturally to form many categories of readable images. This made the framing system to pass unnoticed. The rich ornaments in the ceiling are typical of High Renaissance. Twelve male and female prophets made up the main elements of the program and the nine Genesis story. Michelangelo was able to wok through Adam stories in the third year. The three Noah scenes were the starting point of printing.
Michelangelo took some break when he was half way done. On returning to the ceiling, he designed the prophets in better way. The prophets became more monumental (could accommodate fewer yet bigger figures). His style changed as he had begun in a manner, which was a reverse to the style he used in the Pietà and David. This change was done as if he could do this whenever he is faced with works of unfamiliar scale like this one. In doing so, he brings out the aspect of change that characterize the period of renaissance.
Michelangelo started the second half of the ceiling with an expression subtlety acquired after the pause. This was in connection to the creation of Adam and other world features and creatures by God. In the last parts painted, the images appeared to be freer and more mobile though the moods remained introspective The rest that he took before coming back to the cistine chapel helped to relax and develop new ideas of doing things. However, this is also looked at from a religious point of view. The rest was likened to the biblical resting by God after he created Adam and Eve.
Soon after the completion of the ceiling in the year 1512, Michelango embarked back on Carving of the tomb of Julius that lasted for a period of one year from 1513 to 1514. Within the same period, he also carved the Moses and the two slaves. He did this using the types he used in the previous works of the prophets and attendants in the Sistine ceiling. Moses came out as the final representative of the other variants due to the medium of the sculpture. The death of Julius in 1513 brought the work on his tomb to a halt.
Michelangelo’s activities were from here being determined by the successive popes. Most of these popes wanted to work with the greatest monuments maker for the church, their families and themselves. Michelangelo was now very popular. Pope Leo X, who was son to Lorenzo de Medici and put a proposal for the construction of a marble façade. This façade was to be built for St, Lorenzo family parish church in Florence. Michelangelo was to decorate it with statutes but the project failed as it was cancelled after a period of four years quarrying and designing.
Michelangelo was then commissioned to rebuild San Lorenzo Church’s façade in Lorenzo. As much as the scheme was abandoned, this marked the beginning of architectural activity of Michelangelo as an architect. Michelangelo’s other works included the designing of monuments to Lorenzo de Medici and Giuilliano in the Medici Chapel in Lorenzo. Artwork in Italy was actually defined from the precincts of the church. Various artistic works including paintings and curvature were made around the church.
Michelangelo’s return to Rome was after he was commissioned do the painting of ‘The Last Judgment’. This painting was done on the altar of the Cistine Chapel in between the year 1937 to 1941. He increasingly became active as an architect on the great St Peter’s Church. Michelangelo died in 1564 on February 18. The church restricted his movements and workstations. This is due to the nature of the artistic work he was doing then. A single sculpture for instance would take long years to be completed. This actually shows how powerful the leaders of the time were in influencing innovations. The period taken to complete a work of art by Michelangelo was long. This is not what we are experiencing now. This explains why he could not finish the work of Julius as he died before the work was complete.
From history of what Michelangelo did, it is definite that he displays the characters of a talented person in the 14th Century. Michelangelo’s works and activities depict the various aspects that define the renaissance period. First, the attributions that human at that particular time had towards art and artistic works. The interests that the leaders of the time had towards art were very immense. This is what made Michelangelo to become more popular and gain the attention of the popes. The innovation of the three dimension photos was a great step in the revolution of painting.
The renaissance period was attached to too much of religious attachment to almost every issue. The Popes are religious leaders. This simply shows that the religious leaders were also attracted to artistic works. The various artistic works made by considering there religious symbolism. The products of the time were made of precious materials such as marble. Renaissance is also depicted by the uniqueness of the products that were made at that time. Not everybody or many would do such works and achieve those or better results.
