Michelangelo Essay -- essays research papers

During the dates 1475-1564 there were many famous painters working all around the world. One of which was Michelangelo. He painted and sculpted many famous items that are still talked about today. Michelangelo led a very buisy life, as of which you will be reading about today. Michelangelo was born in 1475 in a small village of Caprese near Arezzo At the age of 13 michelangelo’s father Ludovico Buonarroti placed michelangelo in the workshop of the painter Domenico Ghirlandaio through connections with the ruling Medici family. About two years later michelangelo studied at the sculpture school in the Medici gardens. Shortly thereafter he was invited into the household of the Magnincent, Lorenzo de’Medici. Where he had an oppertunity to converse with younger Medici, which later became pope Leo X. As he was also introduced to humanists as Marsilio Ficino and the poet Politian, who were frequent visiters. By the age of 16 Michelangelo had produced two relief sculptures ,the battle of the Centaurs and the Madonna of the stairs, which showed that he had achieved a very personal style at a very early age. His patron Lorenzo died in 1492; two years later Michelangelo fled Florence,when the Medici were temporarily expelled. For a while he was settled in Bologna, where in 1494 and 1495 he sculpted several marble statuettes for the arca (shrine) di San Domenico. Michelangelo went to Rome, where he was able to examine many newly unearthed classical statues and ruins. He soon produced his first large sculpture the over life size Bacchus in 1496-1498. One of the few works of pagan rather than Christian subject made by the master, it rivaled ancient statuary, the highest mark of admiration in Renaissance Rome. At about the samr time period Michelangelo did the marble Pietà   in 1498. It was finished in 1500. It was one of the most famous works of art, the Pietà   was probubly finished before Michelangelo was 25 years old, and is the only piece of work he ever signed. In the piece the youthfull Mary is shown seated majestically, holding the dead Christ across her lap, it was a theme that was borrowed from northern European art. Instead of revealing extreme grief, Mary is restrained, and her expression is one of resignation. In this work, Michelangelo summerizes the sculptural innovations of his 15th-century predecessors such as Donatello, while ushering in the new monumentality... ...helangelo ultimately became responsible for the altar end of the building on the exterior and for the final form of its dome. The great Renaissance poet Ludovico Ariosto wrote succinctly of this famous artist: â€Å"Michael more than mortal, divine angel.† Indeed, Michelangelo was widely awarded the epithet â€Å"divine† because of his extraordinary accomplishments. Two generations of Italian painters and sculptures were impressed by his treatment of the human figure: Raphael, Annibale Carracci, Jacopo da pontormo, Rosso Fiorentino, Sebastiano del Piombo, and Titan. His dome for Saint Peter’s became the symbol of authority, as well as the model, for domes all over the Western world; the majorityof state capitol buildingsin the united states, as well as the Capitol building in Washington D.C., are dirived from it. Michelangelo died in 1564 and his body was placed in a fine monument in the church of Santa Croce. To conclude, Michelangelo led a long and very talented life. As a painter sculpture, poet and architect. He has many famous pieces of work still known and talked about today, all around the world. Many people knew him and loved him and those who didn’t know him personaly, knew of him.