Early Years Of Michelangelo's Development example essay topic

Renaissance artists expressed their ideas through various approaches and unique styles. To a certain degree, great works can be analyzed and depicted to reveal attitudes that its creators held toward life's character. Michelangelo Buonarroti, creator of masterpieces such as David and the frescoes of the Sistine Chapel ceiling, is a great figure of the Renaissance worth studying. His character and influences in his life contribute to the changing moods depicted in his artwork and writings. "He worked during three quarters of a century of tremendous change in European Society, and as an artist was supremely responsive to the hopes, fears, and values of his culture, which he both exemplified and defied" (George Bull, Michelangelo: A Biography [New York, 1995] front flap).

Throughout the course of Michelangelo's life as an artist, the evident changes observed in his works between his novice and aging years reflected the transformation that took place in his mind. Michelangelo's "three fathers" played major roles in the guidance of his artistic achievements as well as personal developments. First, Lorenzo de' Medici gave Michelangelo a challenging setting in his adolescence. Second, his biological father was very close to him and affected him especially after Lorenzo's death. Third, Pope Julius II became his greatest patron.

He commissioned Michelangelo with pay to work on projects such as the frescoes of the Sistine Chapel and his own tomb. "They affected Michelangelo in distinctive ways, but all three were crucial for the fulfillment of Michelangelo's mission as it unfolded during those eventful years" (James Beck, Three Worlds of Michelangelo [New York, 1999] xvi). Like every other, Michelangelo was born in equality to every human being. He was born on March 6, 1475 in Cap rese, Tuscany and had always considered himself a "son of Florence" (web [Online / Internet, 18 October, 2000] Early Life 1). His birth mother, Francesca Neri, died young of sickness when he was only 6 years old (Howard Hibbard, Michelangelo: Second Edition [New York, 1974] 15). During his years in grammar school, his father was outraged at his idea to become an artist.

"Michelangelo's childhood had been grim and lacking in affection, and he was always to retain a taciturn disposition". He was known for having a quick temper and keeping to himself (Early Life 2). Against his father's will, he later began to study sculpture in the Medici gardens. He was invited to Lorenzo de' Medici's court where he was influenced by humanists such as Mar silo Fic ino and poet Angelo Poliziano (Early Life 2). During his years at the Garden of San Marco, he studied the human body through corpses that often attacked his health.

By sixteen years of age, he had already created sculptures Battle of the Centaurs and The Madonna of the Stairs, revealing his early development of personal style. Reminiscing his first two works, Michelangelo's personal diary read: "Already at sixteen, my mind was a battlefield: my love of pagan beauty, the male nude, at war with my religious faith. A polarity of themes and forms... one spiritual, the other earthly, I've kept these carvings on the walls of my studio to this very day style" (Early Life 3). The early years of Michelangelo's development ended with the death of Lorenzo the Magnificent died in 1492.

Michelangelo then went to Rome to examine ancient arts in Rome, as he had been captivated by antique sculpture since the time of his novice years and felt impelled to pursue its mastery (Hibbard 38). His first large-scale sculpture, Bacchus, which was carved between 1496 and 1498, reflected familiar ancient proportions in a naturalistic nude body given over to the pleasures of wine. "Although several figures of Bacchus survive from antiquity, none is so evocative of the god's mysterious, even androgynous antique character: as Condivi says, it is in the spirit of the ancient writers" (Hibbard 41). His pagan work was greatly admired by Renaissance Rome.

In the Piet'a that was placed in Saint Peter's Basilica, Mary is holding the dead Christ on her lap. Her expression is held upright in restraint and resignation, not in anguish style (Early Life 4). Many believe that it reflected some values that were affected by Savonarola's recent preachings at the time. When asked why, in the Piet'a, Mary appears so young as opposed to her 33 year old son, Jesus, Michelangelo replied, in accordance to Savonarola's beliefs: "In Paradise, that's where" (Beck 114). Frate Girolamo Savonarola was a fiery preacher who had a great impact on the people of Florence during his lifetime. Some do not believe in any significant influence of his preachings on Michelangelo, while others argue that it caused a turning point in Michelangelo's religious views and thoughts (Beck 106).

The animosity between Lorenzo the Magnificent and Savonarola distressed Michelangelo, as he respected them both (Beck 113). Michelangelo was never a direct follower, but read his books throughout life and told Condivi that he could still hear the ringing of the frate's voice in his ears (Plumb, John H., The Italian Renaissance [Boston, 1961] 195). Many believe that other major works of Michelangelo also reflected Savonarola's influence upon him, such as the Sistine Chapel (Beck 113). After returning to Florence in 1501, Michelangelo created what was to be the finest work of his early style- David (Early Life 5). The statue represented a mixture of the various influences on Michelangelo's style (Bull 49). It portrayed his exceptional talent in "infusing formal beauty with powerful expressiveness and meaning" (Early Life 6).

David reflected his passion for using the disturbingly sensuous male nude to express both the sculptor's own feelings and the supposed emotions of the subject: Michelangelo's will to confront the world and triumph through his art, and David's spirit of courage and fortitude against great odds (Bull 50). In Michelangelo's diary concerning this work, he writes: "A civic hero, he was warning... whoever governed Florence should govern justly and defend it bravely. Eyes watchful... the neck of a bull... hands of a killer... the body, a reservoir of energy. He stands poised to strike" (Internet, Early Life 6). In April 1508, Pope Julius II summoned Michelangelo back to Rome to undertake a new painting job on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel (Mid Years 1). "The project was physically and emotionally torturous for Michelangelo".

Michelangelo recounts the four year experience in a poem: "On my face the paint's congealing... Like a skinned martyr I abut on air... Bow-like, I strain toward the skies... Defend my labor's cause, good Giovanni, from all strictures: I live in hell and paint its pictures" (Mid Years 3). Although, Michelangelo had experienced much suffering up until that point, it did not show significantly in his art until he worked under the commission of San Lorenzo to decorate the Medici Tombs.

Working from 1519 to 1534, he abandoned the architecture of all the Florentine tombs and expressed the early signs of the despair of his soul through the statues which he named Dawn, Dusk, Day, and Night. He used these to symbolize the suffering of mankind. He says, "It is because they are crying that they are alive; their suffering gives them all their beauty" (Mid Years 5). In a famous verse regarding his work, Michelangelo refers to the despair of his soul: "It is my pleasure to sleep and even more to be stone: As long as shame and dishonor may last, My sole desire if to see and to feel no more.

Speak softly, I beg you, do not awaken me" (Mid Years 5). The four Florentine Slaves also described Michelangelo's work around that time. They were carved from deeper blocks that allowed more exploration of movement in depth and were less dependent on silhouette. These techniques revealed an emphasized focus on internal modeling (Hibbard 172).

Michelangelo seemed to be further engrossed in the challenge of developing a certain idea. Perhaps too he eventually did fall in love with the mere process of revealing, of gradually uncovering his figures, and he may slowly have begun to feel the attraction of the potential and unrealized- of Becoming as opposed to Being. But in 1520, when he was beginning to work these Prisoners, he would not have dreamed that the half-begun blocks were in any sense finished (Hibbard 175). When Michelangelo was commissioned by Pope Clement VII in Rome to create a painting depicting The Last Judgment, he was not afraid of other's criticisms. When Biagio da Cesena degraded his work and criticized the nudity in it, Michelangelo painted Biagio himself into the painting.

Biagio was in Hell, "shown with a great serpent curled around his legs, among a heap of devils" (Final Days 1). As a pious Catholic rooted from his family, Michelangelo was spiritually tormented with the question of salvation versus the weight of his sins (Bull 330). Michelangelo had painted The Last Judgment, intending to strike terror into those who looked upon it. His powerful illustration of the events in that day testified his belief in the significance of faith and the powerful fate of divine will. This reflected basic thoughts of the Catholic Reformation (Bull 295). The project was completed in 1541 as the largest fresco of the Renaissance (Final Days 1).

A more sensitive influence on Michelangelo was his relationship with Vittoria Colonna. "Between Michelangelo and Vittoria Colonna a deep friendship developed... out of which were to emerge some of Michelangelo's finest lyric poems, overflowing with admiration and devotion" (Final Days 2). Between 1538 and 1547, Michelangelo wrote poems for Colonna carrying the attitude of Platonism, or the attainment of bliss through admiration of a superior woman. More passionate poems that he wrote reflected the style of his contemporaries, referring to the unattainable desire for a "cruel and beautiful" woman (Final Days 3). For Michelangelo, "Vittoria Colonna symbolized tyranny of the senses. His long struggle with physical passion was almost over, and as with many other great sensualists, its place had been taken by an obsession with death" (Hibbard 255).

As Michelangelo neared his final days, he became more and more engulfed in the idea of death. The body must perish. As the soul would be judged, he suffered increasingly with consciousness of sin. He shows in the expressions of art the struggle between the body's craving for material satisfactions and the soul's warning of the spiritual world (Plumb 205). "His despondency seeped into his painting and erupted in his unconstrained poetry in grim and grotesque images and words, whose self-mockery and humour proved a kind of secular saving grace" (Bull 330). "The mood becomes graver; the confidence in physical beauty diminishes, and is at last rejected with a kind of horror" (Plumb 205).

Some of Michelangelo's later works include the Crucified Christ and Madonna. They were examples of his old-age style. They showed signs of shaky fragileness in his aging. Panofsky has said, "The dualism between the Christian and the classical was solved. But it was solution by way of surrender" (Hibbard 287). Michelangelo was working on rough fragments of the figure of Christ in the Ronda nini Piet'a six days before his death.

Commentators have tried to define a medieval tendency in Michelangelo's work and thought during later years (Hibbard 288). Certainly his attitude toward art had changed drastically- no longer was he the God-like creator of divine forms. But this is the result of old-age debility, and although it is strangely moving, its interest is chiefly autobiographical. Unlike Michelangelo's other unfinished works, this is hardly even a potential work of art. It is a record of the old man's solitary need to express something more in stone, his beloved enemy.

More and more isolated-in 1556 he wrote 'all my friends are dead'- beleaguered at St. Peter's, almost unable to write or draw, he was still obsessed with his original passion to create from stone. The Gothic, formless, anti-physicality of this wreck is unbearably pathetic (Hibbard 288-9). Utter despair befalls Michelangelo in his dying days. He concludes his desolation and anguish saying: "This is the state where art has led me, after granting my glory. Poor, old, beaten, I will be reduced to nothing, if death does not come swiftly to my rescue. Pains have quartered me, torn me, broken me and death is the only inn awaiting me" (Final Days 6).

Michelangelo Buonarroti is considered an individual without parallel, playing the roles of painter sculptor, architect, and poet simultaneously. Even in his own lifetime, he was regarded as "divine". He was famous and respected for his versatility in the Renaissance period (Beck x ). The great figures of the Renaissance portray extraordinary versatility. Michelangelo was determinedly focused on sculpture, but did well when he conceded to paint the frescoes of the Sistine Chapel for Pope Julius II. He also excelled equally in architecture and could express profoundly in poetry when he was in the mood (Plumb 48).

There are two essential ingredients that are brought out in unity in his artwork: passion for anatomy and consciousness of sin (Plumb 196). "But fundamentally there is an unvarying aim: to use the human body as an instrument with which to reveal the ascent of the human soul" (Plumb 205). Michelangelo lived a life of unique experiences among great men of the Renaissance. He underwent an immense transformation during his lifetime, contributing different moods and styles to the development of his creations.

Bibliography

Beck, James. Three Worlds of Michelangelo. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1999.
Bull, George. Michelangelo: A Biography. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1995.
Hibbard, Howard. Michelangelo: Second Edition. New York: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1974.
Michelangelo Buonarroti- Biography". Online. Internet. 18 October, 2000.
Available: http: // . Michelangelo. com / buon /bio. html. Plumb, John H. The Italian Renaissance. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1961.