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Michelangelo Buonarroti: Sculptures
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Michelangelo designed the Medici Chapel. The Medici Chapel has monuments in it dedicated to certain members of the Medici family. Michelangelo never finished it, so his pupils later completed it. Lorenzo the Magnificent was buried at the entrance wall of the Medici Chapel. Sculptures of the "Madonna and Child" and the Medici patron saints Cosmas and Damian were set over his burial. The "madonna and child" was Michelangelo's own work.
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One of first sculptures Michelangelo created upon his return from Rome was the Pieta. It is one of his most famous works, finished before Michelangelo was 25 years old. The youthful Mary is shown seated majestically, holding the dead Christ across her lap, a theme borrowed from northern European art (see Gothic Pieta at right, circa early 14th century).
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At age 23, Michelangelo completed his magnificent Pieta, a marble statue that shows the Virgin Mary grieving over the dead Jesus. He began work on the colossal figure of "David" in 1501, and by 1504 the sculpture (standing at 4.34m/14 ft 3 in tall) was in place outside the Palazzo Vecchio. The statue became a symbol for the new republic that had replaced Medici rule.
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In 1546, at the age of 70, Michelangelo was appointed as supervisor of building on St. Peter’s Basilica. He amended Brunelleschi’s earlier design, but only moderately, recognizing and admiring the quality and achievement of his predecessor. Michelangelo considered architecture in the same arena as figure sculpture. One must conceive of and appreciate the cohesive and organic whole. As the front of St Peters has been restructured this is perhaps best seen on the western (apse) end.
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After grammar school, Michelangelo was apprenticed at the age of 13 to Domenico Ghirlandaio, the most fashionable painter in Florence. That this should have happened is surprising, and no satisfactory explanation has been proposed. Michelangelo's implication in his old age that he had to overcome his family's opposition is likely to be mythical in part. In any case, after a year his apprenticeship was broken off, and an even odder arrangement followed: the boy was given access to the collection of ancient Roman sculpture of the ruler of Florence, Lorenzo de' Medici, dined with the family, and was looked after by the retired sculptor who was in charge of the collection. This arrangement was quite unprecedented at the time.
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Michelangelo created exquisite marble sculptures, alive with strength and energy. His painting, too, resembles sculpture, each figure rendered with technical perfection and bursting with vitality. He was just 24 when he carved the Pieta that immedi-ately brought him fame. His towering sculpture of David is a masterpiece of lifelike sculpturing.
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