The Divine Michelangelo
A native of Florence, Michelangelo spent much of his long life in Rome, working for the Vatican. His creative powers and the diversity of his skills earned him the epithet 'divine'.
Michelangelo was one of the greatest artists who ever lived. His astonishing career embraced the arts of painting, sculpture, architecture and even poetry. A proud citizen of Florence, he was determined from the outset to raise the status of his family by virtue of his art. His ambition was soon fulfilled when he was taken into the household of Lorenzo de' Medici.
Michelangelo's reputation preceded him and he later travelled to Rome, lured by prestigious commissions. There he painted the celebrated Sistine Ceiling frescos for his most formidable patron, Pope Julius II. Despite his fame, Michelangelo was a sad, highly sensitive and solitary figure. He died at the age of 89 and was buried with great ceremony in Florence.
Michelangelo di Ludovico Buonarroti (known as Michelangelo) was Born on 6 March 1475 in the Tuscan town of Caprese, near Arezzo. His family were natives of Florence and they returned to the town within a few weeks of the birth, when Ludovico Buonarotti's tern as mayor had ended.
Soon after their arrival, the Buonarotti's sent the baby to a wet-nurse living on the family farm a few miles away in Settignano. This environment seems to have had a crucial effect on Michelangelo, for the area around Settignano was full of stone quarries. His wet-nurse's father and husband were both stonemasons, and Michelangelo often joked later in life that 'with my wet-nurses milk, I sucked in the hammer and chisels I use for my statues'.
Carrara marble
Michelangelo favoured the marble quarry at Carrara because the stone was so white and pure. He spent months here personally supervising the cutting and shipping of the stone.
From an early age the young Michelangelo was consumed with artistic ambition. As a boy of 13, he persuaded his reluctant father to allow him to leave his grammar school and become an apprentice to the artist Domenico Ghirlandaio, one of the most successful fresco painters in Florence.
Michelangelo's remarkable gifts soon became apparent and, within a year or so, he was making pen line drawings that put his master's to shame. By 1489, he was sent, along with a few of the best artists in Ghirlandaio's studio, to Lorenzo de' Medici's new 'sculpture school' in the Medici gardens. There among the trees was one of the most impressive collections of ancient statuary in Florence, and under the watchful eye of the aged sculptor Bertoldo, Michelangelo began to copy and improve on these antient masterworks.
The young Michelangelo's remarkable skill - and, maybe, his single-mindedness - soon aroused jealousy among his fellow students in the garden. His biographer and friend, Georgio Vasari, tells of how another young sculptor, Pietro Torrigiano, later described as a bully, punched him violently in the face, crushing and breaking his nose.
The bully of the class
Pietro Torrigiano was a fellow student of Michelangelo's in Bertoldo's sculpture class. During a sketching expedition to Masaccio's chapel in the church of the Carmine, he punched Michelangelo in the face and broke his nose.
Michelangelo was deeply upset by the incident, and by the disfigurement of his face. Physically and psychologically, it seems to have 'marked him for life' (Vasari).
Michelangelo's skill now attracted the personal attention of Lorenzo de' Medici (called 'the Magnificent'), who was effective ruler of Florence at the time.
Lorenzo de' Medici
Widely respected for his skilful statesmanship, Lorenzo de' Medici was also a sensitive and intelligent man. A humanist poet and a great patron of the arts, he made his palace a home for leading philosophers and artists.
He was so impressed by a statue Michelangelo was carving that he invited him to live in the Medici household.
But when Lorenzo died in 1492, Michelangelo's fortunes changed, and he returned to live with his father. Lorenzo's successor, Piero de' Medici, was amiable enough but had little interest in art. In fact, the only work Piero commissioned Michelangelo to do was a snowman, a childish whim after a heavy snowfall in January 1494. As a consolation, Michelangelo devoted his skills to a detailed study of anatomy by dissecting corpses in the church of Santo Spirito – a curious privilege bestowed by the prior in return for a carved wooden crucifix.
After some time in Venice, Michelangelo travelled to Bologna, where he remained for a year. He then returned briefly to Florence in 1495, where he carved a life-size figure of a sleeping Cupid. It was such a fine piece of work that one of the Medicis suggested it could be passed off as an antique. According to rumour the Cupid was later sold in Rome behind Michelangelo’s back as a classic statue.
Ruins of Rome
Michelangelo: Bacchus
Pope Julius II
In the spring of 1505, Julius commissioned Michelangelo to create a tomb for him. It was to be a free-standing shrine with over 40 statues, a grand monument to himself. The scale of the project suited the scope of Michelangelo’s vision, and he spent eight months enthusiastically quarrying marble at Carrara. But the Pope soon began to grow impatient at the lack of results and gradually started to lose interest.
Michelangelo spent two happy years in the Medici household, where he worked on and impressive marble relief, 'The battle of the Centaurs'.
The battle of the Centaurs
But when Lorenzo died in 1492, Michelangelo's fortunes changed, and he returned to live with his father. Lorenzo's successor, Piero de' Medici, was amiable enough but had little interest in art. In fact, the only work Piero commissioned Michelangelo to do was a snowman, a childish whim after a heavy snowfall in January 1494. As a consolation, Michelangelo devoted his skills to a detailed study of anatomy by dissecting corpses in the church of Santo Spirito – a curious privilege bestowed by the prior in return for a carved wooden crucifix.
Under Piero’s rather haphazard reign, Florence became increasingly unstable politically and preachers of doom found wide audience. A charismatic Domminican called Savonarola had a particularly disturbing influence, denouncing the corruption of Florence and prophesying the imminent doom of the sinful city. The invasion of Italy by Charles VIII of France added fuel to the turmoil. Apparently, with the words of Savonarola ringing in his ears, Michelangelo packed up and left for Venice in October 1494 – the first of his many ‘flights’.
Girolamo Savonarola
After some time in Venice, Michelangelo travelled to Bologna, where he remained for a year. He then returned briefly to Florence in 1495, where he carved a life-size figure of a sleeping Cupid. It was such a fine piece of work that one of the Medicis suggested it could be passed off as an antique. According to rumour the Cupid was later sold in Rome behind Michelangelo’s back as a classic statue.
In 1496, Michelangelo was summoned to Rome by the cardinal who had bought the sleeping Cupid. It was the first of many long visits to the city, where his patrons included seven popes.
In Rome, he carved the marble Bacchus for the banker, Jacobo Galli,
and the famous Pietà, now in St Peter’s, for the French cardinal, Jean Bilhères de Lagraulas. The startling beauty and originality of the Pietà brought Michelangelo enduring fame. He was soon being heralded as Italy’s foremost sculptor. By 1501, he was able to return to Florence as a hero. There he carved the magnificent statue of David, further enhancing his reputation. The statue was placed in front of Palazzo della Signoria, where it stood as a symbol of Republican freedom, courage and moral virtue.
The legendary sculptor went from strength to strength. Soon after the death of Pope Alexander VI, he was summoned back to Rome to serve the new Pope, Julius II. Julius was the first of the seven popes that Michelangelo served, but their relationship was tempestuous.
In the spring of 1505, Julius commissioned Michelangelo to create a tomb for him. It was to be a free-standing shrine with over 40 statues, a grand monument to himself. The scale of the project suited the scope of Michelangelo’s vision, and he spent eight months enthusiastically quarrying marble at Carrara. But the Pope soon began to grow impatient at the lack of results and gradually started to lose interest.
Tomb of Julius II
The concept of the tomb changed from a free-standing structure decorated with some 40 figures to a wall tomb in the church of Saint Pietro in Vincoli. Finished with the help of another sculptor, only the three lower statues, including the central figure of Moses, are by Michelangelo.
When Michelangelo returned to Rome, burning with desire to make his magnificent vision live, the Pope refused to see him.
He left Rome for Florence in a fury, deliberately leaving the day before the laying of the cornerstone for the new St Peter’s. But Pope Julius matched his wrath, by sending envoys bearing demands for his return ‘by fair means or foul’. Eventually, the escapee succumbed and approached the Pope with a rope strong round his neck – a sarcastic gesture of submission.
In 1527, Rome was sacked by the Imperial troops of Charles V, a mainly protestant army bent on the destruction of the Papacy. An orgy of murder and pillage ensued and Pope Clement VII was imprisoned in the Castel Sant' Angelo.
Eventually Pope Clement VII, then restored to power in Rome, wrote to pardon Michelangelo and asked him to continue work on a chapel for the Medicis at San Lorenzo in Florence. Michelangelo finished the tombs for the Medici chapel, but he left Florence in the tyrannical grasp of Alessandro de' Medici.
When Michelangelo arrived in Rome, he learned that Pope Clement had hatched a grandiose plan for the decoration of the alter wall of the Sistine Chapel. Clement died before the painting was begun, but his successor, Paul III, set him to work on the project. The Last Judgement was pained between 1536 and 1541, and is a terrifying vision expressing the artist's own mental suffering.
The concept of the tomb changed from a free-standing structure decorated with some 40 figures to a wall tomb in the church of Saint Pietro in Vincoli. Finished with the help of another sculptor, only the three lower statues, including the central figure of Moses, are by Michelangelo.
By then, the Pope had conceived an even grander plan for the complete rebuilding of the church of St Peter’s in Rome, and he had entrusted the design to his favourite architect, Bramante.
Old Saint Peter's Basilica, c. 319-329
New Saint Peter's
When Michelangelo returned to Rome, burning with desire to make his magnificent vision live, the Pope refused to see him.
He left Rome for Florence in a fury, deliberately leaving the day before the laying of the cornerstone for the new St Peter’s. But Pope Julius matched his wrath, by sending envoys bearing demands for his return ‘by fair means or foul’. Eventually, the escapee succumbed and approached the Pope with a rope strong round his neck – a sarcastic gesture of submission.
The Awakening Slave
Michelangelo's four unfinished Slaves were originally destined for the Julius Tomb. This figure seems to be struggling to free itself from the stone.
Julius, who was in a more amenable mood, having just conquered Bologna, rewarded Michelangelo with a commission for a colossal statue of himself, to be cast in Bronze. (The statue was erected in Bologna and then smashed to pieces by the enemies of the pope when the city was retaken by them in 1511.)
Julius, who was in a more amenable mood, having just conquered Bologna, rewarded Michelangelo with a commission for a colossal statue of himself, to be cast in Bronze. (The statue was erected in Bologna and then smashed to pieces by the enemies of the pope when the city was retaken by them in 1511.)
Raffaello Tancredi: Pope Julius II on the Walls of the Conquered City of Mirandola.
Michelangelo was still dreaming of completing the tomb, but Julius was bent on redecorating the Sistine ceiling. Michelangelo eventually accepted the commission, possibly goaded by Bramante's suggestion that he might lack the ability for such a task. But he always insisted that painting was not his trade, and he tried again to get free of the commission when spots of mould started to appear on the first section of his fresco. But by 1512, after four years of exhausting labour, the ceiling was finally completed. When his work was unveiled, the effect was awe-inspiring, and people would travel hundreds of miles to see this work of an 'angel'.
As usual, Michelangelo sent the money he received for the work to his demanding family.
In 1527, Rome was sacked by the Imperial troops of Charles V, a mainly protestant army bent on the destruction of the Papacy. An orgy of murder and pillage ensued and Pope Clement VII was imprisoned in the Castel Sant' Angelo.
Castel Sant' Angelo
The Medici were yet again expelled from Florence, and the republicans put the artist in charge of the fortifications of his native city. In September 1529, fearing treachery, Michelangelo fled wisely to Venice.
The Last Judgement (detail)
Detail from The Last Judgement: A Condemned Soul
In the lower portion of the fresco, Michelangelo painted the figures of the Damned being dragged down to Hell. One soul has abandoned all hope: in the midst of scenes of titanic struggle, he covers his face in sheer terror and despair.
Michelangelo had always been a practising Catholic and a deeply pious man. In later life, his religion became profoundly important to him. This was partly the result of his great affection and admiration of Vittoria Colonna, the Marchioness of Pescara - the only woman with whom he had a special relationship.
Portrait of a Noblewoman, Said to be Vittoria Colonna
Vittoria Colonna
One of the outstanding women of the Renaissance, Vittoria Colonna mixed with some of the leading poets and philosophers of the age. She divided her time between a convent in Viterbo, where she devoted herself to poetry and reform within the church, and Rome, where she knew Michelangelo.
For Michelangelo was widely believed to be homosexual, and it is true that he showed a preoccupation with the male nude unmatched by any other artist. In the 1530s, he seems to have fallen in love with an handsome young nobleman, Tommas Cavalieri, to whom he wrote many love sonnets. Michelangelo insisted that their friendship was Platonic - he believed that a beautiful body was the outward manifestation of a beautiful soul.
The Capital
The movement of the antique statue of Marcus Aurelius to the Capital in 1538 prompted Michelangelo to design a new pedestal and draw up plans for the development of the site - one of several architectural scenes for Rome. Although nothing was built in his lifetime, his design was preserved and finally completed in the mid 17th century.
Michelangelo was naturally a recluse. He was melancholic and introverted, but at the same time emotional and explosive. He lived a temperate life, but in a fair degree of domestic squalor, which no servant would tolerate for long. He preferred to be alone 'like a genie shut up inside a bottle', contemplating death. In 1544 and 1545 he suffered two illnesses which did actually bring him close to death. Evidently the great papal commissions had weakened his constitution.
Paul III made Michelangelo Architect-in-Chief of St Peter's, and his work on the church continued throughout the rest of his life, under three successive popes - Julius II, Paul IV and Pius IV. He tried to return to the simplicity of his old rival Bramante's work, but St Peter's was not finished in his lifetime, nor exactly to his designs.
Vatican City
Finally, in his old age, Michelangelo also had time to work for himself, and the sculptures of this period, such as the Duomo Pietà, reveal an intense spirituality and tenderness.
The Duomo Pietà
Michelangelo carved the Pietà when he was in his 70s, intending it for his tomb. Unfinished and smashed because of a flaw in the marble, Michelangelo allowed it to be reassembled by a pupil. The figure of Nicodemus, supporting the body of Christ, is a moving self-portrait of the sculptor.
Pope Julius II used to remark that he would gladly surrender some of his own years and blood to prolong Michelangelo's life, so that the world would not be deprived too soon of the sculptor's genius. He also had a desire to have Michelangelo embalmed so that his remains, like his works, would be eternal. As it happened, Michelangelo outlived Julius II, and was buried with great ceremony after his death on 18 February 1564.
Tomb of Michelangelo, Santa Croce Basilica, Florence
Michelangelo displayed his colossal powers of invention and his extravagant technical mastery in the arts of painting, sculpture and architecture, creating a new, inspirational and heroic style.
During his lifetime and throughout the centuries, Michelangelo's achievement as an artist has been regarded with awe. As his biographer, Giorgio Vasari rote: He 'was supreme not in one art alone but in all three - in painting, sculpture and in architecture.'
Michelangelo displayed his genius mainly through his mastery of the human figure and, in particular, the mail nude. Man, according to Renaissance thought, was the measure of all things, the centre of the universe.
Leonardo da Vinci: Proportions of the Human Figure
Accordingly, Michelangelo was not interested in creating convincing landscape settings or in the art of portraiture. Only the human figure, treated in an idealised way, was a noble enough vehicle for the expression of his grand conceptions.
Michelangelo's understanding of the human form was influenced by the powerful works of the painter, Masaccio, and the sculptor, Donatello.
Donatello: David bronze sculpture
But his most vital source of inspiration was the sculpture of antiquity, which he first saw in the garden of Lorenzo Medici's palace. The artists of Michelangelo's day were among the first to appreciate the 'liveliness' of classical sculpture. Superb examples, like the Laocoön and the Torso Belvedere, which had been mentioned by the ancient writer, Pliny the Elder, were in the process of being dug out of the earth.
The Laocoön
The Laocoön
Michelangelo was present when this famous antique statue of Apollo's disobedient priest was discovered in Rome in 1506. The twisting poses and violent emotion of the three mail figures struggling with the sea serpents had an enormous influence on his art.
Here were figures who, according to Vasari, 'possessed the appeal and vigour of living flesh', and whose attitudes were natural, graceful and full of movement. One of Michelangelo's earliest works was inspired by a Roman battle sarcophagus, and showed a group of men involved in violent action. These robust, muscular nudes, twisted into a variety of poses, form the basis of Michelangelo's heroic style.
In such late works as The Last Judgement, the human body has become a tool for the expression of a whole range of human emotions.
The contorted, writhing figures reveal a very personal side to Michelangelo's art: as in so many of his works, they are characterized by struggle, and - as many commentators have noted - by a sense of agonized frustration. Here, we are presented with a veritable encyclopaedia of human movements and gestures, all bearing witness to the overwhelming power - which his contemporaries called terribilità - of Michelangelo's art.
Michelangelo could manipulate the human body as he did because he had a rare understanding of its mechanisms. He put great emphasis on drawing from the model, and throughout his life he dissected corpses - so that he knew the position of every muscle, every sinew, even every tiny blood vessel.
Remarkably, he never repeated a gesture, because every detail of his work was imprinted on an incredible visual memory.
Preliminary studies
Michelangelo always made detailed preparatory drawings for his compositions, using boys or men as models. This highly finished nude is a study for the central figure of his celebrated Battle of Cascina, which he only ever completed in 'cartoon' (the working drawing for the mural). Michelangelo chose to show an incident just before the battle, when the Florentine soldiers had stripped to bathe, only to be startled into action by a cry of alarm.
The two principle fields of his output were fresco painting and sculpting in marble, but for both he relied on preliminary drawings to work out the positioning and articulation of figures and details of anatomy. His drawings show that he thought naturally in three dimensions, as a sculptor would. Light and shade are used emphatically, giving depth to a composition as if it were a relief and suggesting different textures.
Michelangelo drawing of David
In his sculptures, he liked to create a contrast between the highly polished surface of the skin and the roughness of the hair and parts of the marble, which he chose to leave chipped and unfinished.
A master of anatomy
Throughout Michelangelo's long career, the heroic male nude was the dominant subject of his painting and sculpture: he thought of his figures as imitating the works of God. Like Leonardo, Michelangelo was a consummate master of anatomy and wrote 'who is so barbarous as not to understand that the foot of a man is nobler than his shoe, and his skin nobler than that of the sheep with which he is clothed?
Similarly, in his paintings Michelangelo sculpts with his brush, throwing figures into sharp relief by modelling with light and shade. Colour is used simply to fill in the strong outlines.
The Dony Tondo
This Holy Family group shows the hard, sculptural quality of Michelangelo's painting style. The tondo, or circular form, was popular in Florence for depictions of the Madonna and child.
'I affirm that painting is the better the more it tends towards relief, and relief is the worse the more it tends towards painting' Michelangelo wrote in a letter, and this attitude is well illustrated by the Doni Tondo, done for his friend, the merchant Angelo Doni. It is a 'tempera' painting, executed using egg as a medium for the mixing of the paints. The colours are hard and bright and the forms are all sharply in focus.
The Doni Tondo demonstrates how much more interested Michelangelo was in the linear rhythms of a composition and the contrapposto, or twisting poses, of his figures than in the expressive use of colour. He clearly took know sensuous delight in the pigment itself, and he had no time for Leonardo da Vinci's misty sfumato technique, although he admired Leonardo's complex grouping of figures.
The same is true of the Sistine Ceiling frescose, where the figures look like palely tinted sculptures and the colours of the backgrounds and the drapery are made to harmonize with the tones of the flesh.
Michelangelo learned the process of painting in fresco during his apprenticeship in Ghirlandaio's workshop. At least two layers of plaster - a mixture of slaked lime and sand in water - were applied to the wall or ceiling, and on this the final layer of plaster, or intonaco, was laid in sections, according to how much the artist could paint in one day.
The work was completed in sections like this because the painting was done while the plaster was still wet, so that the water-based colours would penetrate deeper. This method, known as buon fresco, meant that the surface of the fresco had less tendency to scale and flake, and the colours were clearer than if the alternative method of fresco secco - painting on dry plaster - was followed.
Buon fresco was thought to be a more difficult and more noble method than fresco secco by the Italian Renaissance painters because the artist had to paint broadly, quickly and decisively. That suited Michelangelo, who liked to work at great speed and on a grandiose scale.
Contrapposto
The word contrapposto originally described a pose in which a figure's weight is born mainly on one leg, giving a sense of muscular tension and relaxation. Later it was applied to the kind of twisting poses at which Michelangelo so obviously excelled.
Michelangelo always thought of himself as a sculptor, although he certainly did not despise painting. He described sculpting as 'the art of taking away material'. By chipping away the marble, working from the front of the block backwards, he believed that he was liberating an existing image from it's imprisoning block. This 'image' was the concept, or concetto, that was already in the artist's mind, and to Michelangelo the work was complete when the concetto had been fully realized.
Michelangelo's architecture was also based on sculptural qualities. In his early commissions, such as the San Lorenzo façade and the Medici tomb chapel, sculpture forms an integral part of the architectural design.
Tomb of Giuliano de' Medici
Even purely architectural commissions, such as the magnificent dome of St Peter's, reveal a sculptor's attitude towards volume, mass and play of light and shade.
He disrupted the harmony and stability of early Renaissance designs, and just as he was not afraid to distort human anatomy for the purpose of conveying emotion, so he used architectural elements in an expressive and unorthodox way.
The Making of a Masterpiece
On 10 May 1508 Michelangelo signed the contract for the decoration of the Sistine Ceiling - a momentous task which was to pose one of the greatest human, as well as artistic challenges. The work had been commissioned by Pope Julius II, whose uncle, Sixtus IV, had authorized the building of the Sistine in the Vatican. On the walls were 15th-century frescos showing scenes from the life of Moses and Christ, while the ceiling was a traditional star-spangled blue. Julius, however, who was bent on the whole-scale 'restoration' of Christian Rome, wanted something grander and more 'progressive'.
By July, the scaffolding was in place and the cardinals, who had complained of the noise and rubble, were able to conduct their services in piece. A few weeks later, five young assistants arrived in Rome, but on finding the door of the chapel bolted, they took the hint and returned to Florence. In the end, Michelangelo painted the ceiling almost entirely alone, triumphing over months of tremendous physical discomfort.
The completed ceiling was unveiled on 31 October 1512. 'When the work was thrown open', reported Giorgio Vasari, 'the whole world came running to see what Michelangelo had done; and certainly it was such as to make everyone speechless with astonishment.'
The Grandiose scheme
According to Michelangelo, the pope let him devise his own scheme for the ceiling, although he clearly had theological advice. Pagan Sibyls and Hebrew Prophets who foresaw the Christian era interspersed with lunettes and spandrels of the Ancestors of Christ. The four corner spandrels show Old Testament heroes, while the nine scenes on the vault illustrate the story of Noah and the Creation.
Sisteen Chapel Ceiling (detail)
Christian parallels
The prophet Jonah is given pride of place over the altar because he prefigures the Resurrection of Christ: just as he emerged from the belly of a fish, so Christ emerged from the tomb. Michelangelo was particularly pleased with the figure's dramatically fore-shortened pose.
A feat of endurance
Michelangelo painted the ceiling standing (not lying down) on the scaffolding, reaching overhead with his brush. In a comic verse to his friend, Giovani da Pistoia, he complained that he was 'bending like a Syrian bow'. According to Vasari, his sight was so badly impaired that he couldn't read or look at a drawing 'save with his head turned backwards', for months afterwards.The last line of the poem is worth quoting:
'I'm not in a good place, and I'm no painter.'
The Fall of Man
In this panel, Michelangelo combined the two scenes of the Temptation and Expulsion from Paradise. The power and grandeur of the figures of Adam and Eve reveal his debt to the painter Masaccio.
Red chalk studies
This sheet of drawings for the Libyan Sibyl (see below) shows that Michelangelo used a male rather than a female model - a normal practice in those times. The model is drawn in an elegant, highly artificial pose.
Fresco Cartoons
Before Michelangelo began painting on the ceiling surface, 'cartoons' would be fixed to the layer of freshly-laid plaster. These were designs drawn to full size on large pieces of paper that had been squared up from the preliminary sketches. The outlines of the cartoon designs were then traced, using an iron stylus which left an incised line in the soft plaster for the painter to follow. It is still possible to see these stylus marks in the head of Adam (above).
Before and after cleaning
In the 1980s, restoration work began on the Sistine Ceiling frescoes. Centuries of grime was removed to reveal the original state of Michelangelo's paintings. This lunette with the image of Matthan, one of the Ancestors of Christ, showed that the artist's colours were much crisper and brighter than was often supposed.
Classical inspiration
Many of the figures on the ceiling, particularly the muscular 'ignudi', are ideal reconstructions of the famous Belvedere Torso. This marble sculpture, signed by Apollonius, was one of the jewels of Julius II's collection. Michelangelo described it as 'the work of a man who knew more than nature'.
Picture Exhibition
Having trained as a painter and a sculptor, Michelangelo left Florence and travelled to the holy city of Rome. There, he sculpted a pietà - an image which was more popular in Northern Europe than in Italy, showing the Virgin with the dead Christ lying across her knees. The delicacy and technical brilliance of the work made his reputation, and on his return to Florence he was entrusted with a major commission - the famous David.
Pietà
Michelangelo carved the exquisite St Peter's Pietà for a French cardinal in Rome. His contemporaries were immediately impressed by the exceptional beauty of the work - in which every fold of drapery was finely sculpted and polished. A few complained, however, about the comparatively youthful appearance of the Virgin.
The grace and elegance of the Pietà and the heroic grandeur of David are combined in the Sistine Ceiling frescoes, which demonstrate the full scope of Michelangelo's genius. Over 20 years later, he returned to the Sistine Chapel to paint the terrifying Last Judgement. In this austere masterpiece the gentle linear rhythms of the Pietà have completely disappeared, to give way to a fuller, more expressive style.
David
Michelangelo returned to Florence to undertake one of his most important official commissions. On his arrival, he was given an enormous block of marble, which had been lying abandoned in the cathedral office of works. Some 40 years earlier, another sculptor had begun to carve a figure from it, but had bungled the job. Now the City of Florence wanted Michelangelo to produce a monumental figure of David, which would symbolize the Republican virtues of courage and fortitude. The block was tall, very shallow and considerably flawed. Nevertheless, Michelangelo boldly surmounted these obstacles, sculpting the figure in incredible anatomical detail. He chose to show David just before the battle with Goliath. The young biblical hero stands with his sling over his shoulder, frozen in a pose of tense anticipation and defiance.
The Last Judgement
The Gigantic fresco of The Last Judgement was commissioned by Pope Paul III to adorn the altar wall of the Sistine Chapel. Michelangelo decided to paint it alone, without the help of assistants. He even refused the aid of physicians after he had suffered a heavy fall from the scaffolding. The magnificent scheme was largely inspired by the words of the Latin hymn, Dies Irae, and by Dante's Inferno, which Michelangelo knew by heart. As soon as the fresco was unveiled, controversy raged about the nudity of the figures, which was considered unsuitable, not to say obscene, in its religious context. Eventually, it was decided to give all the figures loin-cloths or drapery, and the task was undertaken soon after Michelangelo's death by a small group of artists, contemptuously nicknamed 'the breeches-makers'.
Top Third
Middle Third
Bottom Third
The Sistine Ceiling
Detail: The Delphic Sibyl
As part of the Sistine ceiling decoration, Michelangelo painted five pagan Sibyls - ancient Seers who prophesied the coming of Christ. The Delphic Sibyl was the first to be completed: a lovely sculptural figure seated on an architectural throne.
The Sistine Ceiling
Detail: The Libyan Sibyl
The Libyan Sibyl was painted two years after the Delphic Sibyl and shows the extent to which Michelangelo's confidence had grown. The figure, twisted into an elaborate pose, is so large that Michelangelo had to lower the platform for her feet.
Detail from The Last Judgement:
Christ the Judge
In the centre of the fresco, Michelangelo depicted the athletic figure of Christ, surrounded by an aura of light.
St Bartholomew sits on a cloud at his feet, holding a flayed skin on which the artist has painted a tragic self-portrait.
The Sistine Ceiling
The Creation of Adam
On the vault of the Sistine Ceiling, Michelangelo painted nine scenes from Genesis, of which the most famous is The Creation of Adam. Here, the listless body of Adam is about to be animated by the spirit of God at the gentle touch of their fingertips. This potent image may have been suggested by the Latin hymn Veni Creator Spiritus, in which God restores strength and courage to the weakened flesh with a touch of his finger.
1475-1564
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