eThe Life of Michelangelo
Art Appreciation
Instructor: Jennifer Phelps
June 30, 2013

Outline
I.

Introduction

A. Michelangelo’s the interesting things about his life.
1. At the age of thirteen he went to a Florentine painter’s workshop that exposed him to the technique of fresco.
2. After being recommended by his instructor Ghirlandaio he moved into the Palace of
Florentine ruler Lorenzo the magnificent.
3. Michelangelo study classical sculpture in the Medic gardens
II.

Michelangelo first painting was the “Torment of Saint Anthony.

1. Michelangelo moved from the workshop and moved to the school for sculptures which was setup by Lorenzo.
2. His first work in stone was the Madonna of the Stairs and the Battle of the Centaurs.
3. The Madonna of the Stairs shows and astonishing mastery of marble techniques for a boy not even seventeen at the time.
4. The Battle of the Centaurs was done a year later and demonstrated a great amount of growth. 5. This was the first time that Michelangelo used the plasticity of the human body to express conflict in a dramatic compelling term. In its pulse and thrust in the way that he attached the marble this was a preview of his great works to come.
III.

The masterpiece of Michelangelo’s youth is the Pieta.

1. The piece is located in St. Peters in Rome.
2. The sculpture is of the Virgin Mary and Christ.

3. Until the 15th century the theme of the pietra belonged almost exclusively to the artists of northern Europe.
4. The northern Europe made the gruesome figures of Jesus and Mary, were mainly in wood, seemed to shock worshipers into the awareness of Christ’s sacrifice.
5. Michelangelo had taken this difficult subject and stripped it of it horrors and bent it into
Marble.
6. He did not emphasize the Virgins grief but her acceptance of fate.
IV. Two years after the Pieta he then created the Madonna and Child.
V.The next creation was the statue of David this was a chunk of pure white unflawed Carrara marble. 1. It had lain in the cathedral courtyard for 35 years Michelangelo was the one that got the piece to marble to do the statue of David.
VII. The painting of the Sistine Chapel and the Last Judgment and turned them into a transcendent masterpieces.
1 .The Sistine Chapel was built in 1473 the chapel was designed for two contradictory functions in mind one for worship and defense.
VIII. Conclusion

Michelangelo was a famous artist he was not just a great artist. He has left imperishable works of painting, sculptures, architecture and poetry. Michelangelo was preoccupied with the beauty of the human form and he was tormented by the awareness of the body’s corruption and decay. As he matured his worked pushed close to the limit of expression. The works that he created showed inner conflict, an unresolved struggle. In his writing of poetry there was a lot of despair. The poetry was sad and showed a lot of anguish. Throughout the paper it will tell about his growing up and the many triumphs of his life.
Michelangelo was born March 6, 1475 in Caprese near Arezzo, Tuscany. He parents were Lovovico di Leonardo di Simoni and Francesca di Neri del Miniato di Siena. His father’s family for several generations was small scale bankers in Florence. When Michelangelo was born his father was a judicial administrator of the small town of Caprese and local administrator of Chiusi. He was taken to Florence to live after he was born. His mother had a prolonged illness that eventually caused her death. Once his mother had passed away he was sent to live with a stonecutter and his wife in Settignano where his father owned a marble quarry and a small farm. Michelangelo was sent to study grammar with the humanist Francesco da Urbino in
Florence as a young child. He did not have interest in school. He had interest in copying paintings from churches and to have the company of painters. Michelangelo was an apprenticed in painting with Domenici Ghirlandaio and in sculpture with Bertoldo di Giocanni. His father persuaded Ghirlandaio to pay the 14-year old artist which was unusual at that time (Coughlan,
1996, p12-13).
In 1489 the Florence ruler Lorenzo de’ Medici had asked Ghirlandaio for his best two student’s. He sent Michelangelo and Francesco. Michelangelo and Francesco attended from
1490to 1492 Lorenzo’s school where there were several prominent people helped him modify his

ideas of art. He met many literary personalities. Michelangelo during this time finished both of this paintings Madonna of the Steps (1490-1492) and the Battle of the Centaurs (1491-1492).
These were commissioned by Lorenzo de Medici and the themes were suggested by Poliziano.
On April 8, 1492 Lorenzo’s death changed things for Michelangelo. He went back to live with his father. Santa Maria del Santo Spirito allowed him to study anatomy of corpses in the churches hospital. He created a wooden crucifix as a gift to the church. The son of Lorenzo commissioned a snow statue for him that he completed in 1494. Michelangelo left Florence and he went to Venice and Bologna. He was commissioned to finish the carving the last of small figures of the tomb and shrine of St. Dominic in the church of the same name. He returned to
Florence after Charles VIII was defeated and Florence was no longer in danger of being sacked by the French. In November of 1497 the French ambassador of the Holy See commissioned one of his famous works, the Pieta. The piece was finished in August of the following year. He was working on this sculpture. He still did his daily routine of drawing each day.
When Michelangelo lived in Rome he lived near the church of Santa Maria di Loretto.
According to many he fell in love with Cittoria Colonna, marquise of Pescara and poet. His house was demolished in 1874 and the elements were saved by the new proprietors were destroyed in 1930. He thought that nature as an enemy that he had to overcome. Michelangelo t loved the male beauty. This attracted him both aesthetically and emotionally. These feelings caused him great anguish and he expressed the struggle. Information in the books about
Michelangelo he was also a great Italian lyric poet of the 16th century. The greatest written expression of love was given to Tommaso dei Cavalieri was 23 years old at the time that
Michelangelo met him at the age of 57. He dedicated over three hundred sonnets and madrigals this was the largest poems composed by him.

His masterpiece of his youth was the Pieta is today located at St. Peter’s in Rome. Mary with her outreached had shows her sorrow with this gesture. The Christ even though he was dead the veins distended the pulse of life. The Virgin was a big as life and he did not do the sculpture based on her grief it was about her acceptance of fate. He used his knowledge of the anatomy and did not want to make the human disappear. He did the piece in marble. The marble gave the warmth of the living flesh. The greatest of the details of the sculpture and the details made this sculpture beautiful. The Madonna and Child were done after completing of
Pieta. He wanted a new and deeper meaning when he created this sculpture. The use of the draperies around her face and how she is sitting so straight on a pile of stones. It shows that she knows what is going to happen to her son. Michelangelo placed the child between Mary’s legs.
The child looks like he is a playful child but when you look at it closely a seriousness that betrays his role. The virgins left knee was raised higher than the right and the child right foot was down looking light he was stepping down to the world.
Spring of 1501 Michelangelo returned to Florence. His friends had sent him letters letting him know about a large piece of marble. In mid-august he learned that it had won the piece of marble that he called the giant. Michelangelo put so of his others commissions aside so that he could begin his sculpture of David. David was Michelangelo’s own first really characteristic, unmistakably personalized work: the one in which his technical prowess, his esthetic comprehension, his native imagination and daring, and his philosophies of art and of life and even of politics coalesced in a statement of his mature genius (Coughlan, 1996 p86).
Michelangelo opportunity to show his love for Florence was his sculpture of David. He had created the sculpture in his shed and it took forty men and fourteen rollers to get the sculpture of
David to it resting place. On September 8, 1504 the sculpture was unveiled. Michelangelo was

already famous he became more he was incontestably the greatest sculptor in Italy. The city fathers as an extra they built a dwelling and workshop. He was to occupy without charge at his own property. The arrangement gave him the honor, privacy and financial security (Coughlan,
1996, p93).
Michelangelo was 33 when he was commissioned to do the Sistine Chapel and the Last
Judgment. He turned them into transcending masterpieces. He worked on a scaffold high above the floor his head pointing to the heavens. After he finished the Sistine Chapel he would have to read letters from his family with them over his head. This was because he spent all the time looking up to the heavens to paint. The ceiling was 5,800 square feet that he had put more than
300 figures in the painting and the original only had 12. During his painting of the Sistine
Chapel his father and his favorite brother died. He was in his fifties when his father and brother died. The Last Judgment was done in the cathedral at Orvieto according to the books this was an intensively alive with the naked forms. The painting shoed the damned being driven into hell by muscular demons, the pure and saved were rising up to the heavens. Michelangelo later styles the stress was no longer on physical beauty. His angles did not need wings they went through the air on their own power. This painting was unveiled on Christmas Day 1541. The Judgment had a strong Christian element.
Michelangelo was a very interesting artist to research. His ideas and works were different from other artists of his time. He was able to painting and sculptor and was also a well known poet. He was also a well know architect. His masterpieces are still around for today society to look at and admire. Even though his childhood and his life seemed quite lonely, his

works were beautiful. He loved to sculpt the human body he was able to study the body at the church hospital morgue. This made his sculpture of the body so real and beautiful.
Michelangelo was dissatisfied with himself and he was considered to be arrogant. He loved male beauty it was reflected in his works. My favorite piece was the painting of the Sistine Chapel.

References
Coughlan, Robert. (1966). the World of Michelangelo www.kimbellart.org http://www.dnsrsearch.com/index.php?origURL=http%3A//www.arrtchive.com/artchive/ftpoc/m ichelangelo_ext.html&r= http://www.biographyonline.net/artists/michelangelo.html