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Michelangelo Buonarroti: Works
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Michelangelo’s father was a Florentine official named Ludovico Buonarroti, with connections to the ruling Medici family; owing to the lowly status of artists at that time, Michelangelo’s family was opposed to his artistic ambitions. However, in 1488, when Michelangelo was 13, his father placed him in the workshop of the Florentine painter Domenico Ghirlandaio, where he probably learnt the art of fresco painting. After about two years, he was studying at the academy of art set up by Lorenzo de’ Medici. There he had an opportunity to converse with the younger Medici, two of whom later became popes (Leo X and Clement VII). He ... became acquainted with such humanists as Marsilio Ficino and the poet Angelo Poliziano, who were frequent visitors. By the age of about 16, he was working under the sculptor Bertoldo di Giovanni in the sculpture garden of the Palazzo Medici, and for Lorenzo de’ Medici he began at least two relief sculptures, the Battle of the Centaurs (c.
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In his architectural works Michelangelo defied the conventions of his time. His Laurentian Library (c.1520), designed for the book storage purposes of Pope Leo X, was memorable for its mixture of mannerist architecture; it demonstrates Michelangelo's free approach to structural form. The Capitoline Square, designed by Michelangelo during the same period, was located on Rome's Capitoline Hill. Its shape, more a rhomboid than a square, was intended to counteract the effects of perspective. At its center was a statue of Marcus Aurelius. From 1540 to 1550 Michelangelo redesigned St. Peter's Church in Rome, completing only the dome and four columns for its base before his death.
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Over the course of his lifetime, Michelangelo saw the real beginning of the controversy over the importance of drawing (disegno) versus color (colore). Although earlier writers, including Aristotle, had introduced this debate (line conveys rationality and order; color appeals to the senses), this now becomes a major issue to both writers and painters. A contemporary and admirer of Michelangelo, Giorgio Vasari (1511-1574), wrote Vite de’ più eccellenti architetti, pittori, et scultori Italiani (1550-68, The Lives of the Artists), in which he praised Michelangelo for his formal preparation involving endless drawings. This he contrasted with the work of some Venetians, such as Titian, who often worked out his compositions directly on the canvas. In Vasari’s estimation, these artists were giving undue importance to color. He quoted Michelangelo as saying that, while the color and style of the Venetians pleased him, “It was a shame that in Venice they did not learn to draw well.†There were many Venetian apologists and critics who responded to Vasari by pointing out that because contours do not exist in nature, color and shading are indispensable.
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Between 1510 and 1513, Michelangelo had some release for his sculptural urges. Now displayed in the Louvre, his Bound Slave and Dying Slave demonstrate Michelangelo’s increased and incessant production of forms. They ... lay down an idiosyncrasy that has become the love of all art historians – his disposition to leaving works incomplete (see Michelangelo, Three Vignettes). At the same time, Michelangelo was putting to rest another commission by pairing down his original design for Julius’ Tomb. Julius had died two years previous and his final resting site was relocated to the church of San Pietro in Vincoli (St. Peter in Chains), Rome.
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There are only two late sculptures, which Michelangelo did for himself, both presenting the dead Christ being mourned, neither one finished. The first and larger one was meant for his tomb, and the figure of the mourning Joseph of Arimathea (or, possibly, Nicodemus) is a self-portrait. Becoming dissatisfied with this sculpture, Michelangelo broke one of the figures and abandoned the work. This constitutes still another variation on the theme of incompletion running through the artist's work. His last sculpture ... went through several revisions on the same block of stone and in its current state is an almost dematerialized sketch of two figures leaning together. Michelangelo certainly had a powerful sense of his own imperfection, yet he was also aware of the quality of his work and angry at patrons for not meeting what he judged to be their obligations.
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Michelagniolo di Lodovico di Lionardo di Buonarroti Simone was born in Caprese in Tuscany. The son of a civil servant, he attended Latin School and then studied painting in the workshop of the Ghirlandaio brothers and sculpture with Bertoldo, a formal pupil of Donatello. Michelangelo's early training derived from the great Florentine masters of the Low Renaissance: Giotto, Masaccio, Donatello, and Signorelli. A true Renaissance man, he was gifted as a painter, a sculptor, an architect, an engineer, and a poet, but his preference was for sculpture with its plastic possibilities for the revelation and exaltation of the human body. By the time he was fifteen, Michelangelo had attracted the attention of Lorenzo de'Medici and was invited to join the scholars, writers and artists who frequented the Medici palace. This early experience and exposure to Neoplatonic thought influenced his ideal and concepts throughout his life.
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