Michelangelo was born on March 6, 1475 in the Tuscan town of Caprese north of Arezzo, the son of an impoverished Florentine nobleman, Lodovico Buonarroti, a city councilor. The father was not rich, and the income from his small property in the village was barely enough to support many children. In this regard, he was forced to give Michelangelo to a nurse, the wife of a Scarpelino from the same village, called Settignano. There, raised by the Topolino couple, the boy learned to knead clay and wield a chisel before he could read and write. In 1488, Michelangelo's father came to terms with his son's inclinations and placed him as an apprentice in the workshop. Thus began the flowering of genius.
Today we present to you a selection of the most interesting facts about the Italian sculptor, one of the greatest masters of the Renaissance - Michelangelo Buonarroti.
1) According to the American edition of The New York Times, although Michelangelo often complained about losses and was often spoken of as a poor man, in 1564, when he died, his fortune was equal to tens of millions of dollars in modern equivalent.
2) Distinctive feature Michelangelo's works are a nude human figure, executed in the smallest detail and striking in its naturalism. However, at the beginning of his career, the sculptor did not know the features of the human body so well. And he had to learn them. He did this in the monastery morgue, where he examined dead people and their entrails.
3) Many of his caustic judgments about the works of other artists have reached us. Here, for example, is how he responded to someone’s painting depicting grief over Christ: “ It's truly sad to look at her" Another creator, who painted a picture where the bull turned out best, received the following comment from Michelangelo about his work: “ Every artist paints himself well».
4) One of the greatest works is the vault of the Sistine Chapel, on which he worked for 4 years. The work consists of individual frescoes, which together represent a huge composition on the ceiling of the building. Michelangelo kept the whole picture as a whole and its individual parts in his head. There were no preliminary sketches, etc. During his work, he did not let anyone into the room, not even the Pope.
"Lamentation of Christ", Michelangelo Buonarotti. St. Peter's Basilica, Vatican.
5) When Michelangelo completed his first “Pieta” and it was exhibited in St. Peter’s Basilica (at that time Michelangelo was only 24 years old), the author heard rumors that people attributed this work to another sculptor - Cristoforo Solari. Then Michelangelo carved on the belt of the Virgin Mary: “This was done by the Florentine Michelangelo Buonarotti.” He later regretted this outburst of pride and never signed his sculptures again - this is the only one.
6) Michelangelo did not communicate with women until he was 60 years old. That is why his female sculptures resemble male bodies. Only in his seventies did he meet his first love and muse. She herself was then over forty, she was a widow and found solace in poetry.
7) The sculptor did not consider anyone his equal. Sometimes he yielded to those in power, on whom he depended, but in relations with them he showed his indomitable temper. According to a contemporary, he inspired fear even in the popes. Leo X said about Michelangelo: “ He's scary. You can't deal with him».
8) Michelangelo wrote poetry:
And even Phoebus can’t hug at once
With its ray the cold globe of the earth.
And we are even more afraid of the hour of the night,
Like a sacrament before which the mind fades.
The night flees from the light, as from leprosy,
And is protected by pitch darkness.
The crunch of a branch or the dry click of a trigger
It’s not to her liking - she’s so afraid of the evil eye.
Fools are free to prostrate themselves before her.
Envious like a widow queen
She doesn’t mind destroying fireflies either.
Although prejudices are strong,
From sunlight a shadow will be born
And at sunset it turns into night.
Tomb of Michelangelo Buonarroti in Santa Croce
9) Before his death, he burned many sketches, realizing that there were no technical means to implement them.
10) The famous statue of David was made by Michelangelo from a piece of white marble left over from another sculptor who unsuccessfully tried to work with this piece and then abandoned it.
David
11) In the winter of 1494, there was a very heavy snowfall in Florence. The ruler of the Florentine Republic, Piero di Medici, ordered Michelangelo to sculpt a snow statue. The artist completed the order, but, unfortunately, no information about what the snowman sculpted by Michelangelo looked like has been preserved.
12) Having ascended the papal throne, Julius II decided to build himself a magnificent tomb. The Pontiff gave Michelangelo unlimited freedom in creativity and money. He was carried away by the idea and personally went to the place where marble for the statues was mined - to Cararra. Returning to Rome almost a year later, having spent a lot of money on the delivery of marble, Michelangelo discovered that Julius II had already lost interest in the tomb project. And he is not going to pay the expenses! The angry sculptor immediately abandoned everything - the workshop, the blocks of marble, the orders - and left Rome without the pope's permission.
13) In the history of art there is the following incident. Michelangelo placed high demands on his works and judged them strictly. When asked what an ideal statue is, he replied: “Every statue should be designed in such a way that it could be rolled down a mountain without a single piece breaking off.”
The High Renaissance, or Cinquecento, which gave humanity such great masters as Donato Bramante, Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael Santi, Michelangelo Buonarroti, Giorgione, Titian, covers a relatively short period - from the end of the 15th to the end of the second decade of the 16th century.
Fundamental changes associated with the decisive events of world history and the successes of advanced scientific thought have endlessly expanded people's ideas about the world - not only about the earth, but also about the Cosmos. People's perceptions and human personality as if it had become larger; V artistic creativity this was reflected in the majestic scale of architectural structures, monuments, solemn fresco cycles and paintings, but also in their content and expressiveness of images.
Art High Renaissance characterized through concepts such as synthesis, summary. He is characterized by sophisticated maturity, concentration on the general and the main; figurative language became generalized and restrained. The art of the High Renaissance is a living and complex artistic process with dazzlingly bright ups and the subsequent crisis - the Late Renaissance.
In the second half of the 16th century. In Italy, the decline of the economy and trade was growing, Catholicism entered into a struggle with humanistic culture, culture was experiencing a deep crisis, disappointment in the ideas of the Renaissance. Under the influence of external circumstances, there was an understanding of the frailty of everything human, the limitations of its capabilities.
The flourishing of the High Renaissance and the transition to the Late Renaissance can be traced on one human life– life of Michelangelo Buonarroti.
Michelangelo
Michelangelo was a sculptor, architect, painter and poet, but most of all, a sculptor. He valued sculpture above all other arts and was in this respect an antagonist to Leonardo. Sculpting is carving by chipping and trimming stone; The sculptor, with his mind’s eye, sees the desired shape in a block of stone and “cuts” into it deep into the stone, cutting off what is not the shape. This is hard work - not to mention a lot of physical stress; it requires the sculptor to have an infallible hand: what has been broken off incorrectly cannot be put back again, and special vigilance of inner vision. This is how Michelangelo worked. As a preliminary stage, he made drawings and sketches from wax, roughly outlining the image, and then entered into single combat with a marble block. In the “release” of the image from the block of stone hiding it, Michelangelo saw the hidden poetry of the sculptor’s work.
Freed from the “shell”, his statues retain their stone nature; they are always distinguished by the solidity of their volume: Michelangelo Buonarroti famously said that a good statue is one that can be rolled down a mountain without a single part breaking off. Therefore, almost nowhere do his statues have arms that are freely retracted and separated from the body.
Other distinguishing feature Michelangelo’s statues – their titanic quality, which later transferred to human figures in painting. The mounds of their muscles are exaggerated, the neck is thickened, likened to a mighty trunk carrying the head, the roundness of the hips is heavy and massive, the blockiness of the figure is emphasized. These are titans, whom the hard stone has endowed with its properties.
Buonarroti is also characterized by an increase in feeling tragic contradiction, which is also noticeable in his sculpture. The movements of the “titans” are strong, passionate, but at the same time, as if constrained.
Michelangelo's favorite technique is coming from early classics contrapposto (“Discobolus” by Myron), reformed into the technique of serpentinato (from Latin serpentine): screwing the figure into a spring around itself through a sharp turn of the upper torso. But Michelangelo's contrapposto does not resemble the light, undulating movement of Greek statues; rather, it resembles a Gothic bend, if not for its powerful physicality.
Although the Italian Renaissance was a revival of antiquity, we will not find there a direct copy of antiquity. The new spoke to antiquity on equal terms, like master to master. The first impulse was admiring imitation, the final result was an unprecedented synthesis. Having begun as an attempt to revive antiquity, the Renaissance creates something completely different.
Mannerists will also use the serpentinata technique, snake turns of figures, but outside of Michelangelo’s humanistic pathos these turns are nothing more than pretentiousness.
Another ancient technique often used by Michelangelo is chiasmus, moving balance (“Doriphorus” by Polycletus), which received a new name: ponderatio – weighing, poise. It consists of a proportionate distribution of force tension along two intersecting diagonals of the figure. For example, the hand with the object corresponds to the opposite supporting leg, and the relaxed leg corresponds to the free hand.
Speaking about the development of High Renaissance sculpture, its most important achievement can be called the final emancipation of sculpture from architecture: the statue is no longer dependent on the architectural unit.
Pieta
"Pieta", St. Peter's Basilica, Vatican
One of the most famous works Michelangelo Buonarroti - sculptural composition “Pieta” (“Mourning of Christ”) (from the Italian pieta - mercy). It was completed in 1498–1501. for the chapel of St. Peter's Basilica in Rome and dates back to the first Roman period of Michelangelo's work.
The very plot of the image of Mary with the body of her dead Son in her arms came from the northern countries and was by that time widespread in Italy. It originates from the German iconographic tradition of Versperbilder (“image of the supper”), which existed in the form of small wooden church images. Mary's mourning of her Son is extremely important point for Catholicism. With her immeasurable suffering (for the suffering of a mother who sees the torment of her son is immeasurable), she is exalted and exalted. Therefore, Catholicism is characterized by the cult of the Mother of God, who acts as the Intercessor of people before God.
Maria is depicted by Michelangelo as a very young girl, too young for such an adult son. She seems to have no age at all, to be outside of time. This emphasizes the eternal significance of mourning and suffering. The mother’s grief is light and sublime, only in the gesture of her left hand does mental suffering seem to spill out.
The body of Christ lies lifeless in the arms of the Mother. This sculpture is not at all similar to others by Michelangelo. There is no titanicity, strength, or muscularity here: the body of Christ is depicted as thin, weak, almost muscleless, it does not have that stonyness and massiveness. The unfinished contrapposto movement is also not used; on the contrary, the composition is full of staticity, but this staticity is not one about which one can say that there is no life in it, no thought. It seems that Mary will sit like this forever, and her eternal “static” suffering is more impressive than any dynamics.
Michelangelo expressed the deeply human ideals of the High Renaissance, full of heroic pathos, as well as the tragic sense of the crisis of the humanistic worldview during the period Late Renaissance.
Comprehension
Buonarroti's conflicts with the popes, acting on the side of the besieged pope and king of Florence, the death and exile of friends and associates, failure with many architectural and sculptural ideas - all this undermined his worldview, faith in people and their capabilities, and contributed to an eschatological mood. Michelangelo felt the decline of a great era. Even in his worship human beauty great delight is associated with fear, with the consciousness of the end, which must inexorably follow the embodiment of the ideal.
In sculpture this was manifested in the technique of non finita - incompleteness. It manifests itself in the unfinished processing of the stone and serves the effect of the inexplicable plasticity of the figure, which has not completely emerged from the stone. This technique by Michelangelo can be interpreted in different ways, and it is unlikely that one of their explanations will become final; rather, all explanations are correct, since by their multiplicity they reflect the versatility of the use of the technique.
On the one hand, man in the sculpture of the late Michelangelo (and therefore the Late Renaissance) strives to break free from stone, from matter, to become complete; this means his desire to break out of the bonds of his corporeality, human imperfection, and sinfulness. We remember that this problem of the impossibility of leaving the framework established for man by nature was central to the crisis of the Renaissance.
On the other hand, the incompleteness of the sculpture is the author’s recognition of his inability to fully express his idea. Any completed work loses the original ideality of the plan, the idea, so it is better not to finish the creation, but only to outline the direction of the aspiration. This problem is not limited to the problem of creativity: transforming, it goes from Plato and Aristotle (from the world of ideas and the world of things, where matter “spoils” ideas), through the crisis of the Renaissance, through Schelling and the romantics to the symbolists and decadents of the late 19th century. The non finita technique gives the effect of a creative impulse, brief, not completed, but strong and expressive; if the viewer picks up this impulse, he will understand what the figure should become upon incarnation.
Michelangelo di Lodovico di Leonardo di Buonarroti Simoni (1475 - 1564) - great Italian sculptor, artist, architect, poet, thinker. One of the greatest masters of the Renaissance.
BIOGRAPHY OF MICHELANGELO
One of famous sculptors, artists, poets, painters and architects of all times - Michelangelo Buonarotti was born on 03/06/1475 in the city of Caprese, where he studied in primary school, and after graduation, in 1488, he began to study sculpture, being a student of Bertoldo in the workshop of the greatest painter of history - Domenico Ghirlandaio .
Lorenzo de' Medici was attracted by the boy's talent, so he accepted him into his home and financially helped Michelangelo develop. When Lorenzo died, Buonarotti went to Bologna, where he erected a marble angel with a candelabra, as well as a statue for the Church of St. Petronius. In 1494 he returned to Florence again. Started new period his work, in which he boldly exaggerated the forms of nature in order to express his ideas and better convey characters.
In 1503, Michelangelo was invited to Rome by Julius II to build tombstone, which Julius wanted to make for himself during his lifetime. The sculptor agreed and came. Two years later, Buonarotti felt that the pope’s attention to him was not enough and, offended, returned to Florence.
The artist was in Rome already in 1508, where he was again summoned by Julius II to continue the work he had begun, as well as to complete a new order - decorating the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican Palace with fresco painting. Julius II died a couple of months after completing the painting of the Sistine ceiling.
The fall of Florence, which threatened Michelangelo with the danger of death, caused a serious shock in his soul and also worsened his health. And being already unsociable and stern, he became even more unsociable and gloomier, plunging completely and completely into his ideological world, which could not but affect the nature of his work.
In 1532, he received an invitation from the “new” pope to Rome to complete the decoration of the Sistine Chapel, depicting “ Last Judgment" on the altar wall, and "The Fall of Lucifer" on the opposite. Only the first was performed by Buonarotti in 1534-1541 without assistants.
The last works of Michelangelo were the frescoes in the chapel of the Vatican Palace. Buonarotti a little later parted with sculpture, his favorite industry, in which he worked in his old age.
The artist was engaged in architecture, living out his last years. He was appointed in 1546 as the chief architect of Peter's Cathedral, because Michelangelo was not only talented, but also experienced in construction.
THE WORK OF MICELANGELO
Michelangelo's work belongs to the High Renaissance. Already in his youthful works, such as the reliefs “Madonna of the Stairs”, “Battle of the Centaurs” (both around 1490-1492), the main features of Michelangelo’s art emerge: monumentality, plastic power and dramatic images, reverence for the beauty of man. Fleeing the civil unrest resulting from Savonarola's reign, Michelangelo moved from Florence to Venice, then to Rome.
Madonna of the Stairs Battle of the Centaurs Bacchus
During his five years in Rome, he created the first of his famous works, including the sculptures Bacchus (1496-1497) and Pietà (1498-1501) in St. Peter's Basilica. In 1500, at the invitation of the citizens of Florence, Michelangelo returned to this city in triumph.
Soon he had at his disposal a four-meter-high marble block, which two sculptors had already rejected. For the next three years, he worked selflessly, almost without leaving his workshop. In 1504, a monumental statue of a naked David was presented to the public.
In 1505, the power-hungry Pope Julius II ordered Michelangelo to return to Rome, ordering a tomb for himself. The sculptor worked for a whole year on the giant bronze statue that was to crown the monument, so that almost immediately after finishing the work he could witness how his creation was melted down into cannons.
After the death of Julius II in 1513, his heirs insisted on completing another project for a tomb sculpture. This, including numerous alterations caused by the whims of customers, took 40 years of Michelangelo’s life. As a result, he was forced to abandon the implementation of his plan, which included the erection of a tomb as part of the internal architecture of St. Peter's Cathedral.
The colossal marble Moses and the statues known as "Slaves" remained forever impressive parts of an unfinished whole.
According to contemporaries, Michelangelo was a closed and self-absorbed person, subject to sudden outbursts of violence. IN privacy he was almost an ascetic, went to bed late and got up early. They said that he often slept without even taking off his shoes.
In 1547, he was appointed chief architect for the reconstruction of St. Peter's Basilica and designed the enormous dome, which remains one of the greatest masterpieces of architecture to this day.
Michelangelo was born into the family of the poorest Florentine nobleman, Lodovico Buonarotti. Due to a lack of funds, the infant child was given to another Topolino couple for support. It was they who taught the future genius to knead clay and work with a chisel before reading and writing. Michelangelo himself told his friend Giorgio Vasari:
“If there is anything good in my talent, it is because I was born in the rarefied air of your Aretina land, and both the chisels and the hammer with which I make my statues, I took from the statue of my nurse.”
Michelangelo created the famous statue of David from a piece of white marble that was left over from another sculptor. The valuable stone changed hands only because the previous owner was unable to do work on the piece and then abandoned it.
When Michelangelo completed his first Pietà and it was exhibited in St. Peter's Basilica, the author heard rumors that people attributed this work to another sculptor - Cristoforo Solari. Then Michelangelo carved on the belt of the Virgin Mary: “This was done by the Florentine Michelangelo Buonarotti.” He later regretted this outburst of pride and never signed his sculptures again.
The great master often complained about losses and was considered a poor man. All his life the master saved on literally everything. There was practically no furniture or jewelry in his house. However, after the death of the sculptor, it turned out that Michelangelo had collected a fortune. Researchers estimate that in modern terms his fortune was tens of millions of dollars.
In the Sistine Chapel, Michelangelo painted about a thousand square meters of the ceiling and the far walls of the chapel. It took the artist four years to paint the ceiling. During this time, the master’s health deteriorated greatly - while working, a huge amount of paint got into his lungs and eyes. Michelangelo worked without assistants, painted the ceiling for days, forgetting about sleep, and slept on scaffolding without taking off his boots for weeks. But it was undoubtedly worth the effort. Goethe wrote:
“Without seeing the Sistine Chapel, it is difficult to get a clear idea of what one person can do.”
In the winter of 1494, there was heavy snowfall in Florence. The ruler of the Florentine Republic, Piero de' Medici, who went down in history under the name Piero the Unlucky, summoned Michelangelo and ordered him to sculpt a snow statue. The work was completed, and contemporaries noted its beauty, but no information about what the snowman looked like or who he depicted was preserved.
Michelangelo depicted Moses with horns in his sculpture. Many art historians attribute this to misinterpretation of the Bible. The Book of Exodus says that when Moses came down from Mount Sinai with the tablets, the Israelites found it difficult to look at his face. At this point in the Bible, a word is used that can be translated from Hebrew as both “rays” and “horns.” However, from the context it can be clearly said that we are talking specifically about rays of light - that Moses’ face shone, and was not horned.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
- Somov A.I. Michelangelo Buonarroti // Encyclopedic Dictionary Brockhaus and Efron: In 86 volumes (82 volumes and 4 additional). - St. Petersburg. , 1890-1907.
- Karel Schultz, “Stone and Pain” (text of the novel in the library of Alexander Belousenko)
- Dazhina V.D. Michelangelo. Drawing in his work. - M.: Art, 1987. - 215 p.
- P. D. Barenboim, Secrets of the Medici Chapel, St. Petersburg, St. Petersburg State Unitary Enterprise Publishing House, 2006, ISBN 5-7621-0291-2
- Barenboim Peter, Shiyan Sergey, Michelangelo. Mysteries of the Medici Chapel, Slovo, M., 2006. ISBN 5-85050-825-2
- Michelangelo. Poetry. Letters. Judgments of contemporaries / comp. V.N.Grashchenkov. - M., 1983. - 176 p.
- Michelangelo. Life. Creativity / Comp. V. N. Grashchenkov; introductory article by V. N. Lazarev. - M.: Art, 1964.
- Rotenberg E.I. Michelangelo. - M.: Art, 1964. - 180 p.
- Michelangelo and his time / Ed. E. I. Rotenberg, N. M. Chegodaeva. - M.: Art, 1978. - 272 p. - 25,000 copies.
- Irving Stone, “Torments and Joys”, big-library.info/?act=read&book=26322
- Wallace, William E. Michelangelo: Skulptur, Malerei, Archtektur. - Köln: DuMont, 1999.(Monte von DuMont)
- Tolnay K. Michelangelo. - Princeton, 1943-1960.
- Gilles Néret Michelangelo. - Köln: Taschen, 1999. - 96 p. - (Basic Art).
- Romain Rolland, "Life of Michelangelo"
- Peter Barenboim, “Michelangelo Drawings - Key to the Medici Chapel Interpretation”, Moscow, Letny Sad, 2006, ISBN 5-98856-016-4
- Edith Balas, Michelangelo's Medici Chapel: a new Interpretation, Philadelphia, 1995
- James Beck, Antonio Paolucci, Bruno Santi, Michelangelo. The Medici Chapel", London, New York, 2000
- Władysław Kozicki, Michał Anioł, 1908. Wydawnictwo Gutenberg - Print, Warszawa
February 18, 2019
The great master of the Italian Renaissance, Michelagelo Buonarroti (1475 – 1564), considered himself primarily a sculptor, and not a painter, architect or poet. This is indicated by many surviving letters and documents, signed mainly as “Michelagniolo, scultore”. Today, about fifty of his works are known, belonging to the chisel of the talented sculptor. Most of which is located in Florence and Bologna, and Michelangelo's sculptures in Rome can be practically counted on the fingers of one hand.
Michelangelo Buonarroti. Daniele da Volterra, 1544
For my life genius artist developed large number projects, many of which remained unfinished or not fully implemented. Most a shining example This is his work on the tomb of Pope Julius II, located in the Basilica of San Pietro in Vincoli in Rome.
Three sculptures by Michelangelo for the Pope
Michelangelo spent 40 years working on his most ambitious project, the creation of a monumental mausoleum for Pope Julius II, commissioned by the pontiff during his lifetime. The original version, developed in 1505, provided for the installation of forty sculptures.
Michelangelo Project
Having gone to the quarries of Carrara in May 1505 to obtain material for sculptures, Michelangelo, returning to Rome eight months later, learned that his grandiose tomb project for the pope was no longer a priority. The architect Donato Bramante convinced Pope Julius II that it would be better to begin the reconstruction of the Basilica of Constantine and direct funds there. In addition, the planned new military campaign against Perugia and Bologna finally postponed the start of work indefinitely.
After the death of Pope Julius II, who reposed on February 21, 1513, at the urgent request of the heirs, the previous project was revised with some changes introduced into it, but its implementation was not carried out. Over the following years, numerous intrigues, lack of funding and accusations against Michelangelo of wasting allocated funds forced the master to radically reconsider his original plan several times. The final, sixth version of the tomb was approved only in August 1542.
Michelangelo. Tombstone of Pope Julius II
Of the seven marble sculptures decorating the tomb, only three belong to Michelangelo - the statues of the sisters Rachel and Leah, and the biblical one. On this occasion, the artist himself wrote that "This statue alone is enough to do honor to the tomb of Pope Julius II".
Moses. Michelangelo Buonarroti
If you look more closely at Moses' beard, then with a good enough imagination, under the lower lip, a little to the right, on Michelangelo's sculpture you can see a carved profile of the face of Pope Julius II.
According to Michelangelo, the sculptures of two female figures represent two ways of being - contemplative and creative. The contemplative life is allegorically represented by the biblical heroine Rachel, the second wife of Joakov, who prays for salvation.
Michelangelo's sculpture "Rachel"
Her elder sister Leah, depicted as a Roman matron, is an allegorical image of the creative life. Historians interpret the overall design of Michelangelo's work on the tomb as a kind of mediating position of Pope Julius II between established Catholicism and its further reform.
Michelangelo's sculpture "Leah"
The sculpture of Pope Julius II himself, reclining on a sarcophagus, is considered quite controversial. For a long time, the authorship was attributed to Tommaso Boscolo, but after a series of studies carried out during restoration work, many historians agree that at least a significant part of the sculpture belongs to the hand of Michelangelo.
Sculpture of Pope Julius II
The monumental work that can be seen today in the Basilica of San Pietro in Vincoli is very different from the artist's original plan. The master himself admitted that this project became a real tragedy of his life, as evidenced by the lines in one of the letters addressed to the anonymous recipient: “I lost all my youth, tied to this burial, which inadvertently destroyed everything in me, and I paid for it as a thief and a usurer.”
Christ della Minerva
The marble statue of Jesus Christ, known in Italy as the "Cristo della Minerva", actually has several names - "Carrying the Cross", "Resurrection of Christ", "Christ the Savior". The sculpture by Michelangelo was made in 1519 - 1520 and can currently be seen in the Basilica of Santa Maria sopra Minerva in Rome, to the left of the main altar.
Michelangelo's sculpture "The Resurrection of Christ"
In 1514, despite the fact that the master was bound by an exclusive contract with the heirs of Pope Julius II, he took on another order from Metello Vari. While working on the almost completed sculpture of Christ, Michelangelo discovers black veins in the white marble appearing right on the face.
Black veins on the face of Christ in Michelangelo's first sculpture
Refusing further work on the statue, he leaves Rome and goes to Florence, where he begins his second version of the figure of Christ. In March 1520, almost finished new option, Michelangelo leaves for Rome, leaving the finishing touches on the marble sculpture to his apprentice Pietro Urbano. However, it damages the work, which took about four years to complete. The situation was corrected by his more capable student Federico Frisi, and on December 27, 1521, the sculpture was placed in the Basilica of Santa Maria sopra Minerva in Rome.
Draped part of Michelangelo's sculpture in the Basilica of Santa Maria sopra Minerva
Initially, the figure depicting Christ was completely naked. Michelangelo's artistic design showed a body undamaged by lust, controlled by the will of the resurrected. He meant, thereby, victory over sin and death. Later, after the decision of the Council of Trent (Concilio di Trento), the genitals of the sculpture were draped with a loincloth made of gilded bronze.
This is interesting!
The fate of the first version of Michelangelo's sculpture is interesting. After Pietro Urbano damaged the second version of the statue, the master suggested that Metello Vari carve another, third figure from marble, but the customer refused. As financial compensation, in 1522 the artist gave Vari the unfinished first version of the sculpture, which he requested for a small garden in the courtyard of his Palacetto, near the Basilica of Santa Maria sopra Minerva. It remained there, according to the records of the botanist and naturalist Ulisse Aldovrandi, until 1556 and was sold on the antique market to the art connoisseur Marquis Vincenzo Giustiniani in 1607 for his collection of ancient statues.
The lost masterpiece was again recalled in 1973 by the Italian historian Alessandro Parronchi. He claimed that the statue was completed at the beginning of the 17th century by the French sculptor Nicolas Cordier, and made the assumption that the tombstone, which for some time adorned the family burial of the Giustiniani family, was the first version of the sculpture by Michelangelo.
Only in 2000, art critic and historian Irene Baldriga finally recognized the first version of the work in the statue, confirming the authorship of Michelangelo. Currently this sculpture is located in the sacristy of the church of San Vincenzo Mártir in Bassano Romano near Viterbo.
Sculpture by Michelangelo Pietà
One of the most famous and also the best sculptures of Michelangelo is the Pieta, kept in St. Peter's Basilica in the Vatican. The statue, made of Carrara marble, was made by a 24-year-old artist in just two years in 1498 – 1499, commissioned by the ambassador of the French king Charles VIII, Cardinal Jean de Bilheres. It was intended to be installed as a tombstone after his death.
The Pietà is the only signed sculpture by Michelangelo. On the shoulder strap lying on top of the Virgin’s robe, the master carved the following words: “Michelangelo Buonarroti was made by a Florentine.” He was prompted to draw this inscription by a dispute about authorship that he accidentally overheard, which was being waged near the sculpture by the Lombardians who came to Rome.
Michelangelo's signature
The sculpture depicting the body of Jesus after the crucifixion, lying on the lap of his mother the Virgin Mary, aroused not only admiration, but also criticism of his contemporaries. Michelangelo's interpretation, where Mary appears young and beautiful, rather than an elderly fifty-year-old woman with a 33-year-old son, was very different from previously created works by other artists. Nevertheless, the master’s plan symbolized the imperishable purity of the Mother of God, as evidenced by the words of Michelangelo himself, responding to the attacks of critics. They were recorded by Ascanio Condivi:
“Don’t you know that chastity, holiness and incorruptibility preserve youth much longer. So what can change the body of the Mother of God, who never experienced the slightest lustful desire?.
Pieta took its current location in 1749. Over the centuries, Michelangelo's sculpture has been damaged several times, but the most significant damage occurred on May 21, 1972. On this Sunday, Pentecost, a 34-year-old Australian of Hungarian origin, Laszlo Toth, shouted “I am Jesus Christ, risen from the dead,” and rushed at the statue.
Before he was captured and neutralized, the mentally ill man managed to hit her several times with a geological hammer, causing serious damage. The left arm of the figure of the Virgin Mary was broken off to the elbow, the nose and eyelids were practically destroyed, and in total more than fifty fragments were broken off from the sculpture under the blows of the hammer.
Spectators who found themselves unwitting witnesses to the vandalism began to collect chipped pieces of marble, taking them as souvenirs, and although many of them were subsequently returned, the nose of the statue was irretrievably lost. Restoration began almost immediately after a thorough examination of the damaged sculpture by Michelangelo. Thanks to the existing plaster cast made in 1944 by Francesco Mercadali, the restoration work was carried out as accurately as possible, without arbitrary changes in dimensions.
Since then, the Pieta has been kept behind protective bulletproof glass. Today it can be seen in the first chapel from the entrance in the right nave of St. Peter's Basilica.
When they say that Michelangelo is a genius, they not only express a judgment about his art, but also give him a historical assessment. Genius, in the minds of people of the sixteenth century, was a kind of supernatural force influencing human soul, in the romantic era this force would be called “inspiration.”
Divine inspiration requires solitude and reflection. In the history of art, Michelangelo is the first solitary artist, waging an almost continuous struggle with the world around him, in which he feels alien and unsettled.
On Monday, March 6, 1475, in the small town of Caprese, a male child was born to the podesta (city governor) Chiusi and Caprese. In the family books of the ancient Buonarroti family in Florence there is a detailed record of this event of the happy father, sealed with his signature - di Lodovico di Lionardo di Buonarroti Simoni.
The father sent his son to the Francesco da Urbino school in Florence. The boy had to learn to deflect and conjugate latin words from this first compiler of Latin grammar. The boy was extremely inquisitive by nature, but Latin depressed him. The teaching went from bad to worse. The distressed father attributed this to laziness and carelessness, not believing, of course, in his son’s calling. He dreamed about brilliant career, dreamed of seeing his son someday in senior civil positions.
But, in the end, the father came to terms with his son’s artistic inclinations and one day, taking up a pen, he wrote: “One thousand four hundred and eighty-eight, April 1st day, I, Lodovico, son of Lionardo di Buonarroti, place my son Michelangelo with Domenico and David Ghirlandaio for three years from this day on the following conditions: the said Michelangelo remains with his teachers these three years as a student for exercise in painting, and must, in addition, do everything that his masters order him; as a reward for his services, Domenico and David pay him the sum of 24 florins: six in the first year, eight in the second and ten in the third; only 86 livres.”
He did not stay in Ghirlandaio’s workshop for long, because he wanted to become a sculptor, and became an apprentice to Bertoldo, a follower of Donatello, who directed art school in the Medici Gardens in Piazza San Marco. Biographers say that he was engaged there in drawing from old engravings, as well as copying, achieving enormous success in this.
The young artist was immediately noticed by Lorenzo the Magnificent, who patronized him and introduced him to his Neoplatonic circle of philosophers and writers. Already in 1490, they began to talk about the exceptional talent of the still very young Michelangelo Buonarroti. In 1494, with the approach of the troops of Charles VIII, he left Florence, returning to it in 1495. At twenty-one, Michelangelo went to Rome, and then in 1501 returned to his hometown.
Unfortunately, there is little information about the early paintings Michelangelo. The only painting he completed and survived is the tondo “Holy Family.” There is no exact documentary information about the time of creation of this tondo (a tondo is an easel painting or sculpture that has a round shape).
The composition of the painting is dominated by the figure of the Madonna. She is young and beautiful, calm and majestic. Michelangelo did not consider it necessary to tell in more detail what caused its complex movement. But it is precisely this movement that binds the Madonna, Joseph and the Child into one whole. This is not an ordinary happy family. There is no trace of intimacy here. This is the majestic “holy family”.
IN In 1504, the Florentine Signoria commissioned two frescoes from the famous artists Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo to decorate the walls of the Great Council Hall in the Palazzo Vecchio. Leonardo made a cardboard depicting the “Battle of Anghiari”, and Michelangelo - “Battle of Cascina”.
Unlike Leonardo, Michelangelo wanted to depict in the picture not a battle, but bathing soldiers who, having heard the alarm, rush to get out of the water. The artist painted eighteen figures, all of them in motion.
In 1506, both cardboards were put on display. However, the frescoes were never painted. The “Battle of Cascina” cardboard, valued by contemporaries more than all other works by Michelangelo, perished: it was cut into pieces and distributed among different hands until its last pieces disappeared without a trace. Vasari, who saw some of its parts, says that “it was more a divine than a human creation,” and the sculptor Benvenuto Cellini, who had the opportunity to study both cardboards - Michelangelo and Leonardo, testifies that they were “a school for the whole world.”
Vasari notes that in his cardboard Michelangelo used different equipment, trying to show off his perfect mastery of the drawing: “There were many more figures, united in groups and sketched in different manners: the contours of some were outlined with charcoal, others were drawn with strokes, others were filled with shading and the colors were put on them with chalk, as he (that is Michelangelo) wanted to show all his skill in this matter.”
In 1505, Pope Julius II summons Michelangelo. He decided to create a worthy tomb for himself during his lifetime. For more than thirty years, countless complications associated with this tomb constituted the tragedy of Michelangelo's life. The project was repeatedly changed and completely reworked until the completely exhausted artist, busy in his declining years with other orders, agreed to a smaller version of the tomb installed in the church of San Pietro in Vincoli.
Michelangelo reluctantly agreed to the commission given to him by Julius II in 1508 to paint the vault of the Sistine Chapel. According to the original plan, only the twelve apostles and the most ordinary ornamental decorations were depicted on the ceiling in the corresponding lunettes.
“But having already begun work,” wrote Michelangelo, “I saw that it would look poor, and I told the pope that with only the apostles it would be poor. Dad asked: why? I answered: because they themselves were poor people. Then he agreed and told me to do as I know..."
V.I. Surikov wrote to P.P. Chistyakov: “Prophets, Sibyls, Evangelists and scenes of St. the writings flowed out so completely, not jammed anywhere, and the proportions of the paintings to the entire mass of the ceiling were maintained incomparably.”
“Initially, Michelangelo wanted to paint the vault with small compositions, almost decoratively, but then abandoned this idea. He creates his own painted architecture on the vault: powerful pillars seem to support the cornice and arches, “thrown” across the space of the chapel. All the spaces between these pillars and arches are occupied by images of human figures. This “architecture” depicted by Michelangelo organizes the painting and separates one composition from another.
A person entering the chapel immediately sees the entire cycle of paintings: even before starting to look at individual figures and scenes, he gets the first general idea about the frescoes and how the master sets out the history of the world...
The entire history of the world, extremely tragically and personally read, appears before us in the paintings of the Sistine Chapel. In these grandiose frescoes, Michelangelo seems to be creating a world similar to his great soul - a gigantic, complex world, full of deep feelings and experiences” (I. Tuchkov).
Those who saw both before and now the “Sistine Plafond” were and will be shocked. There is a lot of evidence of this, one of them is from Bernard Bernson, the greatest modern art critic: “Michelangelo... created such an image of a man who can subjugate the earth, and, who knows, maybe more than the earth.” “Like a truly great work of art, this painting is infinitely broad and diverse in its ideological concept, so that people of the most varied mindsets... experience a blessed awe when contemplating it... On this ceiling, it’s as if the gigantic waves of human life, of our entire destiny, are rolling wave after wave... "(L. Lyubimov).
The creation of this painting was painful and difficult for the artist. Michelangelo has to build the scaffolding himself, working while lying on his back. Condivi says that while painting the Sistine Chapel, “Michelangelo so accustomed his eyes to look upward at the vault that later, when the work was completed and he began to hold his head straight, he saw almost nothing; when he had to read letters and papers, he had to hold them high above his head. Little by little he again began to get used to reading while looking down in front of him.”
Michelangelo himself conveys his condition on the scaffolding:
Breasts like harpies; skull to spite me
Climbed to the hump; and his beard stood on end;
And mud flows from the brush onto the face,
Dressing me in brocade, like a coffin...
The election of Leo X from the Medici family as pope in 1513 contributed to the renewal of the artist’s connection with his hometown. In 1516, the new pope commissioned him to develop a design for the façade of the church. San Lorenzo, built by Brunelleschi. This became the first architectural commission. Michelangelo spends a long time in the quarries, selecting marble for the upcoming work. He begins work on the chapel, but in 1520 Pope Leo X annuls the contract for the construction of the façade of San Lorenzo. The artist's four years of work were destroyed with the stroke of a pen.
In 1524, Michelangelo began construction of the Laurenziana Library. The fall of the Florentine Republic marked the most troubling period in Michelangelo's life. Despite his strong republican convictions, Michelangelo could not stand the anxiety of the upcoming events: he fled to Ferrara and Venice (1529) and wanted to take refuge in France. Florence declared him a rebel and deserter, but then forgave him and invited him to return. Hiding and experiencing enormous torment, he witnessed the fall of his native city and only later timidly turned to the pope, who in 1534 commissioned him to complete the painting of the Sistine Chapel.
The artist forever leaves Florence, which became the capital of the Duchy of Tuscany, and moves to Rome. A year later, Pope Paul III appointed him “painter, sculptor and architect of the Vatican,” and in 1536 Michelangelo began painting the altar wall of the Sistine Chapel. He creates his own famous work- painting “The Last Judgment”. He worked on this fresco for six years, completely alone.
“The theme of judgment over the world was close to old Michelangelo. On earth he saw grief and injustice; and now, in this work of his, he pronounces judgment on humanity.
In the center of the composition, the saints surround the young and formidable Christ. They crowd around his throne, presenting evidence of the torment they experienced. They demand, they demand, not ask, a fair trial. In fear, Mary clings to her son, and Christ, rising from the throne, seems to push away the people who are advancing on him. No, this is not a kind and forgiving god, this is, in the words of Michelangelo himself, “the blade of judgment and the weight of wrath.” Obeying his gesture, the dead rise from the bowels of the earth to stand trial. With iron inevitability they rise upward, some of them enter heaven, and some are cast into hell. Maddened with horror, sinners fall. And Charon is waiting for them below to transport them into the arms of Minos. Beginning at the bottom left, the round dance of human bodies, having completed a circle, closes at the bottom right on the threshold of hell.
“The Last Judgment” is conceived as grandly as possible, as the last moment before the Universe disappears into chaos, like the dream of the gods before its sunset...” (Bernson).
Paul III visited the chapel every now and then. One day he went there with Biagio da Cesena, his master of ceremonies.
- How do you like these figures? - Dad asked him.
“I apologize to your Holiness, but these naked bodies seem to me simply blasphemous and unsuitable for a holy temple.”
Dad said nothing. But when the visitors left, Michelangelo, seething with indignation, took a brush and painted the devil Minos, giving him a portrait resemblance to the papal master of ceremonies. Having heard about this, Biagio ran to dad with a complaint. To which he replied: “Biagio, my dear, if Michelangelo had placed you in purgatory, I would have made every effort to rescue you from there, but since he placed you in hell, my intervention is useless, I no longer have power there.”
And Minos, with the feisty face of a master of ceremonies, remains in the picture to this day.
During the Catholic reaction, Michelangelo's fresco with its abundance of beautiful and strong naked bodies seemed somewhat blasphemous, especially considering its placement behind the altar. A little time will pass, and Pope Paul IV will order the nudity of individual characters to be recorded with drapery. The draperies were made by the artist's friend Daniele da Volterra. Perhaps by this he saved the great fresco from destruction by figures of the Catholic reaction.
After finishing The Last Judgment, Michelangelo reached the pinnacle of fame among his contemporaries. He forgot to bare his head in front of dad, and dad, in his opinion in my own words, didn't notice this. Popes and kings sat him next to them.
From 1542 to 1550 Michelangelo creates his last paintings- two frescoes of the Paolina Chapel in the Vatican. As E. Rotenberg writes: “Both frescoes are multi-figure compositions with the central character depicted at the decisive moment of his life, surrounded by witnesses to this event. Much here looks unusual for Michelangelo. Although the frescoes themselves are quite large (the dimensions of each are 6.2 x 6.61 meters), they are no longer endowed with that super-ordinary scale that was previously an integral property of Michelangelo’s images. The concentration of action is very uniquely combined with the dispersion of the characters, who form separate episodes and isolated motives within the compositions. But this dispersion is contrasted with a single emotional tone, expressed very tangibly and constituting, in fact, the basis of the impact of these works on the viewer - a tone of oppressive, constraining tragedy, inextricably linked with their ideological concept.”
In recent years, Michelangelo has been drafting the central plan of the Church of San Giovanni dei Fiorentini, sketching the plan for the Sforza Chapel in the Church of Santa Maria Maggiore, building Porta Pia, and giving a promising monumental appearance to the Capitol Square.
In life, Michelangelo did not know tender affection and participation, and this, in turn, was reflected in his character. “Art is jealous,” he says, “and demands the whole person.” “I have a wife to whom everything belongs, and my children are my works.” The woman who would understand Michelangelo must have had great intelligence and innate tact.
He met such a woman - Vittoria Colonna, the granddaughter of the Duke of Urbana and the widow of the famous commander Marquis of Pescaro, but it was too late: he was then already sixty years old. Vittoria was interested in science, philosophy, and religious issues, and was a famous poetess of the Renaissance.
Until her death, 10 years old, they constantly communicated and exchanged poems. Her death was a great loss for Michelangelo.
The friendship of Vittoria Colonna softened the heavy losses for him - first the loss of his father, then his brothers, of whom only Lionard remained, with whom Michelangelo maintained a cordial connection until his death. In all his actions and words, always homogeneous, consistent, clear, Michelangelo is seen as a strict thinker and a man of honor and justice, as in his works.
Dying, Michelangelo left a short will, as in life, he did not like verbosity. “I give my soul to God, my body to the earth, my property to my relatives,” he dictated to his friends.
Michelangelo died on February 18, 1564. His body was buried in the Church of Santa Croce in Florence.
