Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni, best known as Michelangelo, was an outstanding Italian sculptor, painter, architect and poet of the High Renaissance, who gained prominence for his impact on the development of Western art. Besides, Michelangelo was described as the greatest artist of his age and even as the greatest artist of all time.
Background
Michelangelo was born on March 6, 1475, in Caprese, Republic of Florence (present-day Caprese Michelangelo, Tuscany, Italy), a village, where his father, Ludovico di Leonardo Buonarroti Simoni, was briefly serving as a Florentine government agent. The family, of higher rank, than most, from which artists came in Florence, had been bankers, but Michelangelo's grandfather had failed, and his father, too genteel for trade, lived on the income from his land and a few official appointments. Michelangelo's mother, Francesca di Neri del Miniato di Siena, died, when he was six.
Education
During Michelangelo's early years, namely during the time of his mother's prolonged illness and after her death in 1481, the boy lived with a nanny and her husband, a stonecutter, in the town of Settignano, where his father owned a marble quarry and a small farm.
As a young boy, Michelangelo was sent to Florence to study grammar under the Humanist Francesco da Urbino. However, he showed no interest in his schooling, preferring to copy paintings from churches and seek the company of other painters.
After grammar school, Michelangelo was apprenticed, at the age of thirteen, to Domenico Ghirlandaio, the most fashionable painter in Florence. The apprenticeship was broken off within a year, and Michelangelo was given access to the collection of ancient Roman sculpture, owned by Lorenzo de' Medici, duke of Florence. Between 1490 and 1492, he attended the Humanist Academy the Medici had founded along Neo-Platonic lines. There, his work and outlook were influenced by many of the most prominent philosophers and writers of the day, including Marsilio Ficino, Pico della Mirandola and Poliziano. It's also worth noting, that Michelangelo dined with the Medici family and was looked after by the retired sculptor, who was in charge of the collection of ancient Roman sculpture he was given access to. This arrangement was quite unprecedented at the time.
It's also worth noting, that during his time at the Humanist Academy, Michelangelo created such works, as "Madonna of the Steps" and "Battle of the Centaurs".
Career
A side effect of Michelangelo's fame in his lifetime was that his career was more fully documented, than that of any artist of the time or earlier. He was taken under the wing of the ruler of Florence, Lorenzo de' Medici, known as the Magnificent. Lorenzo surrounded himself with poets and intellectuals, and Michelangelo was included. After Lorenzo died in 1492, the Medici fell from power and Michelangelo fled the city. In Bologna, in 1494, he obtained a small, but distinguished commission to carve the three saints, needed to complete the elaborate tomb of Saint Dominic in the church of Saint Domenico.
On returning home, Michelangelo found Florence dominated by the famous ascetic monk Savonarola. Michelangelo was in contact with the junior branch of the Medici family and he carved a "Cupid", which he took to Rome to sell, palming it off as an ancient work.
In Rome, Michelangelo next executed a "Bacchus" for the garden of ancient sculpture of a banker. This, Michelangelo's earliest surviving large-scale work, showed the God teetering, either drunk or dancing. In 1498, through the same banker, came Michelangelo's first important commission - the "Pietà" (now in St. Peter's). The term "pietà" refers to a type of image, in which Mary supports the dead Christ across her knees; Michelangelo's version is the most famous one today.
On his return to Florence in 1501, Michelangelo was recognized as the most talented sculptor of central Italy, but his work was still in the early Renaissance tradition, as was the marble "David", commissioned in 1501 for Florence Cathedral, but when finished, in 1504, more suitably installed in front of the Palazzo Vecchio. Before he finished the "David", Michelangelo's style had begun to change, as indicated by his drawing of a very different bronze "David" and by other works, particularly the "Battle of Cascina".
The new Council Hall of the Palazzo Vecchio was to have patriotic murals, that would also show the special skills of Florence's leading artists - Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo. Michelangelo's "Battle of Cascina" was commissioned in 1504; several sketches and a copy of the cartoon exist. The central scene shows a group of muscular nudes, soldiers, climbing from a river, where they had been swimming, to answer a military alarm.
Of the "12 Apostles" Michelangelo was to execute for Florence Cathedral, he began only the St. Matthew; this was the first monumental sculpture, suggesting a Leonardesque agitation. "Tomb of Julius II", the project of the Apostles, was put aside, when Pope Julius II called Michelangelo to Rome, in 1505, to design his tomb, which was to include about 40 life-size statues. This project occupied Michelangelo off and on for the next 40 years.
In 1506, a dispute over funds for the tomb led Michelangelo, who had spent almost a year at the quarries in Carrara, to flee to Florence. Reconciliation between Julius II and Michelangelo took place in Bologna, which the Pope had just conquered, and Michelangelo modeled a colossal bronze statue of Julius for St. Petronio in Bologna, which he completed in 1508.
In 1508, Julius commissioned Michelangelo to decorate the ceiling of the chief Vatican chapel, the Sistine. This work was relatively modest at first, and Michelangelo felt he was being pushed aside by rival claimants on funds. But he soon was able to alter the traditional format of ceiling painting; his introduction of dramatic scenes was so successful, that it set the standard for the future.
The chief figural elements of the program are the twelve male and female prophets and the nine stories from Genesis. Michelangelo began painting at the end of the story, with the three Noah scenes and the adjacent prophets and sibyls and, in four years, worked through the three Adam stories to the three Creation stories at the other end of the ceiling. Michelangelo paused for some months halfway along and when he returned to the ceiling, he made the prophets more monumental.
After the pause, Michelangelo began the second half of the ceiling with a newly acquired subtlety of expression as in the "Creation of Adam". The images become freer and more mobile in the last parts painted, such as the "Separation of Light and Darkness", but the mood remains introspective. As soon as the ceiling was completed in 1512, Michelangelo returned to the tomb of Julius and carved for it the "Moses" and two "Slaves", using the same types he employed for the prophets and their attendants, painted in the Sistine ceiling.
Julius' death in 1513 halted the work on his tomb. From now on, the successive popes determined Michelangelo's activity, as they were all anxious to have work by the recognized greatest maker of monuments for themselves, their families and the Church. Pope Leo X, son of Lorenzo de' Medici, proposed a marble facade for the family parish church of S. Lorenzo in Florence to be decorated with statues by Michelangelo, but his project was canceled after four years of quarrying and designing Medici Chapel, an annex to S. Lorenzo, the most nearly complete large sculptural project of Michelangelo's career. In 1520, Michelangelo was commissioned to execute a tomb chapel for two young Medici dukes.
Political absolutism was growing at the time, and Michelangelo's statues were often used as precedents in formulating new types of royal portraiture. A similar style is seen in the sinuous "Victory", overcoming a tough old warrior. This statue, Michelangelo's last serious contribution to the tomb of Julius, also embodied the artist's interest in Neoplatonism, a philosophy, that urged man to rise above his body into the spiritual plane.
It is also known, that Michelangelo wrote poetry. Most of his 300 surviving poems were written in the 1530's and 1540's and fall into two groups. The earlier poems were on the theme of Neoplatonic love and are full of logical contradictions and conceits, often very intricate. They belong to an international trend, best known in the work of Luis de Góngora and John Donne and make an interesting parallel to mannerist architecture. The later poems are Christian; their mood was penitent and they were written in a simple, direct style. These match a phase of Michelangelo's plastic art, that slightly precedes them.
In 1534, Michelangelo left Florence for the last time, settling in Rome. The next ten years were mainly given over to painting for Pope Paul III, who was best known for convening the Council of Trent and thus organizing the Catholic Reformation. The first project Michelangelo executed for Paul III was the huge "Last Judgment" (1536-1541) on the end wall of the Sistine Chapel. The flow of movement in the "Last Judgment" was greater, than in the medieval tradition, with the two streams of figures, tending to shear against each other, but it was slower, compared to Michelangelo's own earlier work.
Michelangelo's frescoes in the Pauline Chapel in the Vatican (1541-1545) were similar to the "Last Judgment", but here he added a remarkable technical novelty by exploring perspective movement and coloristic subtlety as major expressive components. He may have turned to these typically painterly concerns because the Pauline frescoes were the first ones he executed on a normal scale and eye level. The only sculptures of these years, the "Rachel" and the "Leah", executed so that a small amended version of the tomb of Julius could at last be erected, were so neat and unemphatic, that they were often disregarded or not accepted as Michelangelo's work.
Michelangelo devoted himself almost entirely to architecture and poetry after 1545. For Paul III, he planned the rebuilding of the Capitol area, the Piazza del Campidoglio, a pioneering scheme of city planning, that gave monumental articulation to an area, traditionally used for civic ceremonies. Paul III appointed Michelangelo to take over the direction of the work at St. Peter's after Sangallo died. Here, Michelangelo had less respect for his predecessor's plan, returning instead to the concepts, that the first architect, Donato Bramante, had proposed in 1506. The enormous church was to be an equal-armed cross in plan, concentrated on a huge central space beneath the dome, surrounded by a series of secondary spaces and their containing structures.
By the time Michelangelo died, a considerable part of St. Peter's had been built in the form, in which everyone knows it, and the drum of the dome was finished up to the springing. The essentially three-dimensional concept of St. Peter's, inherently architectonic and original, gave way in Michelangelo's last years to a gleaming, almost dematerialized approach to the wall, suggested in the plans for the unexecuted church of S. Giovanni dei Fiorentini and a city gate, the Porta Pia.
Michelangelo's sculpture after 1545 was limited to two "Pietàs", that he executed for himself. His late architectural style had a parallel in his last sculpture, the "Rondanini Pietà" in Milan, which was cut away to an almost abstract set of curves.
Michelangelo has been described as one of the greatest artists of all time. Despite making few forays beyond the arts, his artistic versatility was of such a high order, that he is often considered a contender for the title of the archetypal Renaissance man.
A number of Michelangelo's works of painting, sculpture and architecture rank among the most famous in existence. Among his most notable works are the sculptures "David", "Pietà" and "Moses". Despite holding a low opinion of painting, he also created two of the most influential frescoes in the history of Western art - the scenes from Genesis on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in Rome and "The Last Judgment" on its altar wall.
Moreover, Michelangelo was the first Western artist, whose biography was published, while he was alive. In fact, two biographies were published during his lifetime.
Michelangelo was a devout Catholic, whose faith deepened at the end of his life.
Views
Michelangelo's works are remarkable for the simple, solid forms and squarish proportions of the figures, which add intensity to their violent interaction. His greatness lay partly in his ability to absorb Leonardo's innovations and yet not reduce the heavy solidity and impressive dignity of his earlier work. This fusion of throbbing life with colossal grandeur henceforth was the special quality of Michelangelo's art.
Quotations:
"If people knew how hard I had to work to gain my mastery, it would not seem so wonderful at all."
"The greater danger for most of us lies not in setting our aim too high and falling short; but in setting our aim too low and achieving our mark."
"If you knew how much work went into it, you wouldn't call it genius."
"Genius is eternal patience."
"I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free."
"A man paints with his brains and not with his hands."
"Beauty is the purgation of superfluities."
"Death and love are the two wings, that bear the good man to heaven."
Personality
His biographer said Michelangelo was indifferent to food and drink, eating "more out of necessity, than of pleasure", and that he "often slept in his clothes and boots." He was abstemious in his personal life and once told his apprentice, Ascanio Condivi: "However rich I may have been, I have always lived like a poor man."
Michelangelo had a contentious personality and quick temper, which led to fractious relationships, often with his superiors. This not only got Michelangelo into trouble, it created a pervasive dissatisfaction for the painter, who constantly strived for perfection, but was unable to compromise. He sometimes fell into spells of melancholy, which were recorded in many of his literary works.
Also, it is impossible to know for sure, but according to his poetry, Michelangelo was homosexual.
Physical Characteristics:
When Michelangelo was seventeen, Pietro Torrigiano struck him on the nose, causing the disfigurement, that is conspicuous in the portraits of Michelangelo.
Quotes from others about the person
"His nature was so rough and uncouth, that his domestic habits were incredibly squalid and deprived posterity of any pupils, who might have followed him." - Paolo Giovio
"Do we not say, that the judicious discovering of a most lovely Statua in a piece of Marble, hath sublimated the wit of Buonarruotti far above the vulgar wits of other men? And yet this work is onely the imitation of a meer aptitude and disposition of exteriour and superficial members of an immoveable man; but what is it in comparison of a man, made by nature, composed of as many exteriour and interiour members, of so many muscles, tendons, nerves, bones, which serve to so many and sundry motions? But what shall we say of the senses, and of the powers of the soul and lastly, of the understanding? May we not say and that with reason, that the structure of a Statue falls far short of the formation of a living man, yea more of a contemptible worm?" - Galileo Galilei
Interests
Neoplatonism
Philosophers & Thinkers
Marsilio Ficino, Pico della Mirandola, Plato
Writers
Poliziano
Artists
Bertoldo di Giovanni
Connections
Although he never married, Michelangelo was devoted to a pious and noble widow, named Vittoria Colonna, the subject and recipient of many of his more, than 300 poems and sonnets. Their friendship remained a great solace to Michelangelo until Colonna's death in 1547.
Also, according to some sources of information, in 1532, Michelangelo developed an attachment to a young nobleman, Tommaso dei Cavalieri.
Father:
Ludovico di Leonardo Buonarroti Simoni
Initially, Ludovico held a government post in Caprese (present-day Caprese Michelangelo). At the time of Michelangelo's birth, he was the town's judicial administrator and local administrator of Chiusi della Verna.
Mother:
Francesca di Neri del Miniato di Siena
grandnephew:
Michelangelo Buonarroti the Younger
Michelangelo Buonarroti the Younger was a Florentine poet, librettist and man of letters, known as "the Younger" to distinguish him from his granduncle, Michelangelo.
Michelangelo
This work remains a classic of the literature on Michelangelo. It continues to be the only volume, that contains illustrations of all the master's work, excluding his drawings.
1953
The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti
This work represents a fascinating biography of Michelangelo, the Italian Renaissance sculptor, painter, architect, poet and engineer, who exerted an unparalleled influence on the development of Western art.
1893
Michelangelo
With her thoroughly researched, lively narrative and superbly detailed illustrations, Diane Stanley has captured the life of the artist Michelangelo, who towered above the late Renaissance and whose brilliance in architecture, painting and sculpture amazes and moves people to this day.
2000
Michelangelo
This book provides an entertaining and humorous introduction to the famous artist, Michelangelo.
1991
Michelangelo: A Life in Six Masterpieces
This is the life of one of the most revolutionary artists in history, told through the story of six of his greatest masterpieces.
2014
The Life of Michelangelo
This work, written by Ascanio Condivi, is an impassioned and intimate portrait of Michelangelo, which gives an unparalleled picture of the master's life, work and personality. This compelling narrative of genius and its struggles in the treacherous world of Papal politics and Italian wars remains one of the most fascinating and influential texts in art history.
1976
Michelangelo and the Pope's Ceiling
"Michelangelo and the Pope's Ceiling" recounts the four extraordinary years Michelangelo spent, laboring over the vast ceiling, while the power politics and personal rivalries, that abounded in Rome, swirled around him.
Michelangelo: His Epic Life
In this work, Martin Gayford describes what it felt like to be Michelangelo Buonarroti and how he transformed forever people's notion of what an artist could be.
2013
The Michelangelo Code
Art critic Waldemar Januszczak is on the quest to explain exactly what the Sistine Chapel's ceiling is actually trying to say.
