LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Michelangelo Buonarroti: Sistine Chapel
built 646 days ago
Artist of the Week: Michelangelo(1475 - 1564) Genius best describes Michelangelo Buonarroti. In his 89 years of life he was a sculptor, painter, poet and architect. He did and still does inspire other artists through his work. He can be described as the Master who was inspired by Donatello and Giotto. His work in three-dimensional form was said to be his first love. His works ranged from small pieces to monumental works such as the ceiling in the Sistine Chapel in Rome. From 1505 on Michelangelo was working on one art work or another for the Papacy.
Source:
Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni (March 6, 1475 - March 18, 1564) was an Italian sculptor, painter, architect and poet. One of his most famous works is the David. He lived in Renaissance times. He could paint with both hands. When one hand got tired, he switched to the other hand. Michelangelo painted the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel as well as painting artwork for the walls of the Sistine Chapel.
Source:
Michelangelo was again called to work in the Sistine Chapel in 1534, when Clement VII (born Giulio de' Medici, nephew of Lorenzo the Magnificent) commissioned him to paint the wall above the altar. The Last Judgment (1536-1541), with which Michelangelo covered the wall, depicts Christ's second coming at the end of the world. The enormous scene is focused on the impassive figure of Christ whose right arm is poised to strike down the damned, while the left arm seems gently to call the blessed toward him. At his side is the Virgin Mary, traditionally included as a figure of mercy at the Last Judgment; she quietly looks downward toward those who emerge from their graves. The nude bodies of the saints and the figures rising to heaven are massive, perhaps to emphasize the belief that their physical bodies would be revived in a glorified state. The scene of hell in the lower right corner does not show Satan or various hellish torments as was customary, but is based instead on the Inferno, part of an early 14th-century epic poem, The Divine Comedy, by Italian writer Dante Alighieri.
Source:
Michelangelo had fully purposed, as soon as he could get free of his task on the Medici tombs, to devote all his powers to the completion of the Julian monument in accordance with the new contract of 1532. But his intention was again frustrated. Pope Clement insisted that he must complete his decorations of the Sixtine Chapel by painting anew the great end wall above the altar, adorned until then by frescoes of Perugino. The subject chosen was the Last Judgment; and Michelangelo began to prepare sketches. In the autumn of 1534, in his sixtieth year, he settled finally, and for the remainder of his life, at Rome. Immediately afterwards Clement died, and was succeeded by a Farnese under the title of Paul III.
Source:
Michelangelo had little time to argue. Pope Julius II summoned him to Rome to create sculptures to adorn his tomb. However, funding for the project soon ran out. Julius II thought that whilst the young sculptor was ‘in town’ he could be assigned the job of painting the Sistine Chapel. Knowing Michelangelo specialised in sculpture and not painting, his rivals in Rome pushed the Pope into commissioning him right away, hoping that his reputation would be ruined by a terrible job. Michelangelo initially refused the commission, but Julius II was adamant he was the man for the job.
Source:
Michelangelo was invited back to Rome in 1505 by the newly appointed Pope Julius II and was commissioned to build the Pope's tomb. However, under the patronage of Julius II, Michelangelo had to constantly stop work on the tomb in order to accomplish numerous other tasks; due to such interruptions, Michelangelo worked on the tomb for 40 years. The finished tomb is located in the Church of S. Pietro in Vincoli in Rome. One such interruption was the commission to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, which took four years to complete (1508 – 1512). According to Michelangelo's own account, reproduced in contemporary biographies, Bramante and Raphael convinced the Pope to commission Michelangelo in a medium not familiar to the artist, in order that he might be diverted from his preference for sculpture into fresco painting, and ... suffer from unfavourable comparisons with his rival Raphael. However, this story is heavily discounted by modern historians and contemporary evidence, and may be merely a reflection of his own perspective.
Source:
MORE ABOUT
Sistine Chapel