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Michelangelo: 1475-1564

March 6, 2017 By Wendy Campbell

Born on March 6, 1475, in Caprese, Italy, Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni was a Renaissance sculptor, painter, draftsman, architect, and poet. Michelangelo was thought of as the greatest living artist in his lifetime, and is considered to be one of the greatest artists of all time.

In 1488, at the age of 13, Michelangelo apprenticed with Domenico Ghirlandaio, Florence’s best fresco painter. Following that, he studied with sculptor Bertoldo di Giovanni in the Medici gardens in Florence. During this time, he was surrounded by prominent people including Lorenzo de’ Medici (known as “Lorenzo the Magnificent”), who introduced him to poets, artists, and scholars in his inner circle.

Early on, Michelangelo strove for artistic perfection in his depictions of the human body. He studied anatomy with great interest and at one point even gained permission from the prior of the church of Santo Spirito to study cadavers in the church’s hospital. It was at this time that Michelangelo began a life-long practice of preparatory drawing and sketching for his works of art and architecture.

After Medici’s death in 1492, Michelangelo left Florence, traveled to Bologna and eventually to Rome, where he continued to sculpt and study classical works. In 1498-99, the French Ambassador in the Holy See commissioned Michelangelo to sculpt the “Pietà” for Saint Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican.

In 1501, Michelangelo returned to Florence where he began work on his famous marble statue “David”. This work established Michelangelo’s prominence as a sculptor of incredible technical skill and innovation.

In 1503, Pope Julius II commissioned Michelangelo to create his papal tomb which features the famous statue of Moses. The artist worked on the tomb for 40 years, stopping often to work on other commissions including the painting of more than 300 figures on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel from 1508-12.

From 1534 to 1541, Michelangelo produced an enormous fresco “The Last Judgment” in the Sistine Chapel. “A depiction of the second coming of Christ and the apocalypse, the work was controversial even before its unveiling because of the depictions of nude saints in the papal chapel, which were considered obscene and sacrilegious.”

From about 1516, Michelangelo began to focus his attention more on architecture. In 1534, he designed plans for the Medici Tombs and the Laurentian Library attached to the church of San Lorenzo. In 1536, he designed the Piazza del Campidoglio, and in 1546 he was appointed architect of Saint Peter’s Basilica and designed its dome. From 1561-65, Michelangelo’s final plans were for the Porta Pia, a gate in the Aurelian Walls of Rome.

More than any other artist, “Michelangelo elevated the status of the artist above the level of craftsman. His deeply felt religious convictions were manifested in his art. For him, the body was the soul’s prison. By using movement, monumental forms, and gesture to express spiritual urges, he opened up new artistic vistas in the direction of Mannerism and the Baroque.”

Michelangelo was known to be a complicated man. “Arrogant with others and constantly dissatisfied with himself, he nonetheless authored tender poetry. In spite of his legendary impatience and indifference to food and drink, he committed himself to tasks that required years of sustained attention, creating some of the most beautiful human figures ever imagined.”

“He constantly cried poverty, even declaring to his apprentice Ascanio Condivi: ‘However rich I may have been, I have always lived like a poor man’, yet he amassed a considerable fortune that kept his family comfortable for centuries. And though he enjoyed the reputation of being a solitary genius and continually withdrew himself from the company of others, he also directed dozens of assistants, quarrymen, and stonemasons to carry out his work.”

Michelangelo’s final work in marble, the “Rondanini Pietà,” was left unfinished. He died in Rome on February 18, 1564 at the age of 88.



The Creation of Man-Sistine Chapel-Michelangelo- 1508-12

The-Torment-of-Saint-Anthony---Michelangelo-1487--88



Sources: The Getty Museum, Wikipedia, Michelangelo.syr.edu

Filed Under: Architecture, ART, Art History, Drawing, Painting, Sculpture Tagged With: Italian Art, Italian Renaissance, Michelangelo, Renaissance Art

Raphael: 1483-1520

April 6, 2016 By Wendy Campbell

Born in Urbino, Italy on April 6 (or March 28) 1483, Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino aka Raphael was an Italian painter and architect of the High Renaissance. Though his career was short,  Raphael produced works of “extraordinary refinement” that would have a great influence on European painting. Along with Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo, Raphael was a member of the trinity of the great masters of the Renaissance.

Raphael first trained with his father Giovanni Santi, who was a court painter. After his father’s death in 1494, he traveled extensively and worked with several masters including the dominant Umbrian painter Pietro Perugino. From about 1500, Raphael became an independent master  and worked throughout central Italy where he became known as a portraitist and painter of Madonnas.

In 1508, Raphael moved to Rome to work on Pope Julius II’s papal apartments. “Raphael’s frescoes there and the  Stanza d’Eliodoro and dell’Incendio, along with Michelangelo’s work in the nearby Sistine Chapel, represent the finest examples of High Renaissance art. “

Raphael’s commissions increased in Rome and he was dependent on teams of assistants to assist in the completion of his projects. He was a superior draftsmen and used drawings extensively  to refine his poses and compositions, apparently to a greater extent than most other painters.

After the achitect Donato Bramante’s death in 1514, Raphael was named architect of  St Peter’s Basilica. Most of his work there was altered or demolished after his death and the acceptance of Michelangelo’s design, but a few drawings have survived. Raphael designed several other buildings, and for a short time was the most important architect in Rome, working for a small circle around the Papacy.

The Vatican projects took most of Raphael’s  time. “Among Raphael’s most famous works are the frescos that are painted on the walls of Julius II’s own rooms in the Vatican Palace, known as the Stanze. The paintings in the Stanza della Segnatura and the Stanza d’Eliodoro were created by Raphael himself, whilst the Stanza dell’Incendio was designed by Raphael and painted by his assistants.”

Another important papal commission was the “Raphael Cartoons”, a series of 10 cartoons, of which seven survive, for tapestries with scenes of the lives of Saint Paul and Saint Peter, for the Sistine Chapel. The cartoons were sent to Brussels to be woven in the workshop of Pier van Aelst. It is possible that Raphael saw the finished series before his death which were most likely completed in 1520.

At the age of 37, Raphael died on his birthday, April 6, 1520, after a short illness. He was buried in the Pantheon.   His two main assistants, Giulio Romano and Gianfrancesco Penni, inherited his studio and completed the outstanding contracts.

“Raphael was highly admired by his contemporaries, although his influence on artistic style in his own century was less than that of Michelangelo. Mannerism, beginning at the time of his death, and later the Baroque, took art “in a direction totally opposed” to Raphael’s qualities with Raphael’s death, classic art – the High Renaissance – subsided.”

Self-Portrait-Raphael-1506
The-Transfiguration-Raphael-1518-1520
The-Three-Graces-Raphael-1504-05
The-Parnassus-Raphael-1509-1511
The-Battle-at-Pons-Milvius-Raphael-1520-24
Self-Portrait-Raphael-1499
School-of-Athens-Raphael-1509
Psyche Received on Olympus-Raphael-1517
Portrait-of-Pope-Leo-X-and-Two-Cardinals-Raphael-1519-19
Portrait of a Woman-Raphael-1507
Madonna-della-Seggiola-Raphael-1514
Madonna-and-Child-Enthroned-with-Saints-Raphael-1504-05
Lady-with-a-Unicorn-Raphael-1505
La-Fornarina-Raphael-1518
Kneeling-Nude-Woman-Raphael-1518
Holy-Family-with-St.-Joseph-Raphael-1506
Holy-Family-below-the-Oak-Raphael-1518
Healing-of-the-Lame-Man-Raphael-1515
Gregory-IX-Approving-the-Decretals---Raphael-1511
Double-Portrait-Raphael-1518
Diotalevi-Madonna-Raphael-1503
Crucifixion-Raphael-1502-03
Christ-Supported-by-Two-Angels-Raphael-1490
Christ Falls on the Way to Calvary-Raphael-1517
Ceiling-Stanza di Eliodoro-Raphael-1512
Ceiling-Stanza della Segnatura-Raphael-1509-1511
Cardinal Tommaso Inghirami-Raphael-1515-16
Bridgewater-Madonna-Raphael-1511
Head of a Muse - Raphael

 

Sources: J. Paul Getty Museum, National Gallery London, Athenaeum (images), Wikipedia

Filed Under: Architecture, ART, Art History, Drawing, Painting Tagged With: Italian Art, Italian Renaissance, Raphael, St. Peter's Basilica

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