Statue of David
Gigantic marble, started in 1501 and completed in 1504
Michelangelo 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 choice of David was supposed to reflect the power and determination of Republican Florence and was under constant attack from supporters of the usurped Medicis. In the 19th century the statue was moved to the Academe. There is a full size copy of the statue in the piazza, the original moved to safely after a "woman" berating her husband tossed a chair from a window overlooking the piazza, and one of the arms of the statue received collateral damaged, and fell to the ground with the chair, silence fell over the square.......
Michelangelo di Ludovico di Lionardo di
Buonarroti Simoni was born in 1475; at Caprese,
in Casentino. His family Buonarroti Simoni, are
mentioned in the Florentine chronicles as early
as the XII century. In 1488, at the age of 13,
he entered the workshop of
Domenico Ghirlandaio. Thus he came under the
influence of
Masaccio, because his teacher, Ghirlandaio,
not only looked to Masaccio for ideas on
religious scenes, but actually imitated certain
elements of his designs. After less than a year
he moved to the academy set up by Lorenzo the
Magnificent. From 1489 till 1492, he lived in
the Palazzo Medici in Via Larga, where he could
study “antique and good statues” and could meet
the sophisticated humanists and writers of the
Medici circle.
Lorenzo the Magnificent died in
1492, and in 1494 the Medici were expelled from
Florence. After the brief rule of the priest
Savonarola, whose ascetic religion and
republican ideas influenced the young man
deeply, Michelangelo left Florence and went
first to Venice and then to Bologna, where he
could absorb their art and culture. In 1496, he
eventually came to Rome and stayed there until
1501.
In 1499, he completed
Pieta for the Vatican. Christian
emotion never has been more perfectly united
with classical form. Returning, famous, to
Florence in 1501, Michelangelo was commissioned
by the new republican government to carve a
colossal
David, symbol of resistance and
independence.
In 1504, the Signoria of Florence
commissioned
Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo to paint
the walls of the Grand Council Chamber in the
Palazzo Vecchio, the seat of government of
Florence. Leonardo worked on
the Battle of Anghiari and Michelangelo on
the
the Battle of Cascina. Florence was
immediately divided into two camps passionately
supporting one or the other. Michelangelo's work
did not come further than the cartoon for the
picture, which also was destroyed in the civil
conflict of 1512.
In 1505, Michelangelo was summoned
by the new Pope
Julius II, to Rome and entrusted with the
design of the pope’s tomb. The original
grandiose project was never carried out.
Although only 3 of the 40 life-size or larger
figures were executed –
Moses,
Rebellious Slave (unfinished),
Dying Slave – the commission
dominated most of the artist's life.
Victory and
Crouching Boy were also carved for
one of the projects of the tomb. The constantly
aborted work on the tomb, ended only in 1547, 40
years and 5 revised contracts later. The
final version of it is in San Pietro in
Vincoli, Rome.
In 1508, Julius transferred the
artist to paint the
Sistine Chapel ceiling. Michelangelo
accepted the commission, but right from the
start he considered Pope Julius’ plans
altogether too simple. It was something unheard
of for a patron, to allow his own plans to be
completely changed by an artist. In this case,
moreover, the change of plan meant that the work
would have an entirely different meaning from
the original one.
Since he was not very familiar with
the technique of fresco, he needed the help of
several Florentine painters, as well as their
advice. But his ambition to produce a work that
would be absolutely exceptional made it
impossible for him to work with others, and in
the end he did the whole thing himself. This was
something quite unprecedented. Not only was the
work so vast in scale, but no artist hitherto
had ever undertaken a whole cycle of frescoes
without an efficient group of helpers.
Michelangelo helped to create his own legend,
complaining of the enormous difficulties of the
enterprise. In his sonnet On the Painting of
the Sistine Chapel, he describes all the
discomforts involved in painting a ceiling, how
he hates the place, and despairs of being a
painter at all.
After the death of Julius II in
1513, the two Medici popes,
Leo X (1513-21) and Clement VII (1523-34)
preferred to keep Michelangelo well away from
Rome and from the tomb of Julius II, so that he
could work on the Medici church of San Lorenzo
in Florence. This work was aborted too, although
Michelangelo was able to fulfill some of his
architectural and sculptural projects in
the
Laurentian Library and the New Sacristy, or
Medici Chapel, of San Lorenzo. The Medici Chapel
fell not far short of being completed: two of
the Medici tombs intended for the Chapel were
installed
Tomb of Giuliano de' Medici and
Tomb of Lorenzo de' Medici,
and for the 3rd Michelangelo had carved his last
great
Madonna (unfinished) when he left Florence
forever in 1534.
It was during this period, while he
was planning the tombs in the New Sacristy, that
the sacking of Rome occurred (1527), and when
Florence was besieged shortly after, he helped
in fortifying the city, which finally came back
into Medici hands in 1530. While the siege was
still on, he managed to get away for a while to
look after his own property. He incurred the
displeasure of Alessandro de Medici, who was
murdered by Lorenzino in 1537. This event he
commemorated in his bust of
Brutus.
In September 1534, Michelangelo
settled down finally in Rome, and he was to stay
there for the rest of his life, despite
flattering invitations from Cosimo I Medici at
Florence. The new Pope, a Farnese who took the
name of
Paul III, confirmed the commission that
Clement VII had already given him for a large
fresco of
The Last Judgment over the altar of the
Sistine Chapel. Far from being an extension of
the ceiling, this was entirely a novel
statement. Between 2 projects about 20 years had
passed, full of political events and personal
sorrows. The mood of The Last Judgment is
somber; the vengeful naked Christ is not a
figure of consolation, and even the Saved
struggle painfully towards Salvation. The work
was officially unveiled on 31 October 1541.
Michelangelo's last paintings were
frescos of the Cappella Paolina just beside the
Sistine Chapel, completed in 1550, when he was
75 years old,
The Conversion of Paul and
The Crucifixion of St. Peter. Michelangelo's crowning achievement,
however, was architectural. In 1537-39, he
received commission to reshape Campidoglio, the top of Rome's Capitoline
Hill, into a squire. Although not completed
until long after his death, the project was
carried out essentially as he had designed it.
In 1546, Michelangelo was appointed architect to
St. Peter's. The cathedral was constructed
according to Donato Bramante’s plan, but
Michelangelo became ultimately responsible for
its dome and the altar end of the building on
the exterior.
He continued in his last years to
write poetry, he carved the two extraordinary,
haunting and pathetic late
Pietas, one of them
The Rondanini Pieta in Milan, on
which he was working 6 days before his death. He
died on 18th of February 1564 at the age of 89
and was buried in Florence according to his
wishes.
Michelangelo's prestige stands very
high nowadays, as it did in his own age. He went
out of favor for a time, especially in the 17th
century, on account of a general preference for
the works of
Raphael, Correggio and
Titian; but with the early Romantics in
England, and the return to the Gothic, he made
an impressive return. In the 20th century the
unfinished, unresolved creations of the great
master evoked especially great interest, maybe
because in the 20th century “the aesthetic focus
becomes not simply the created art object, but
the inextricable relationship of the artist's
personality and his work.”
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