Michelangelo: The Creation of Adam

Biography

Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni (March 6, 1475 - February 18, 1564) was a Renaissance decorator, sculptor, poet and architect. He is famous for conceiving the fresco ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, one of the most stupendous works in all of Western art, as well as the Last Judgment over the altar, and "The Martyrdom of St. Peter" and "The Conversion of St. Paul" in the Vatican's Cappella Paolina; amidst his many sculptures are those of the Pieta and David, again, sublime masterpieces of their area, as well as the Virgin, Bacchus, Moses, Rachel, Leah, and members of the Medici family; he furthermore conceived the dome of St. Peter's Basilica. (Beck 01)

 

Michelangelo's Youth

Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni was born near Arezzo, in Caprese, Tuscany, and Italy. His dad, Lodovico, was the inhabitant magistrate in Caprese. However, Michelangelo was increased in Florence and later lived with a sculptor and his wife in the village of Settignano where his dad belongs to a marble quarry and a little farm. Michelangelo one time said to the biographer of artists Giorgio Vasari, "What good I have comes from the untainted air of your native Arezzo, and furthermore because I imbibed in chisels and hammers with my nurse's milk."

Against his father's desires, Michelangelo chose to be the apprentice of Domenico Ghirlandaio for three years starting in 1488. Impressed, Domenico recommended him to the leader of Florence, Lorenzo de' Medici. From 1490 to 1492, Michelangelo came to Lorenzo's school and was influenced by many prominent persons who changed and amplified his concepts on art and even his feelings about sexuality. It was during this time span that Michelangelo created two reliefs: Battle of the Centaurs and Madonna of the Steps. (Bull 66)

 

Michelangelo's Art

After the death of Lorenzo in 1492, Piero de' Medici (Lorenzo's oldest child and new head of the Medici family), denied to support Michelangelo's artwork. Also at that time, the concepts of Savonarola became popular in Florence. Under those two stresses, Michelangelo determined to depart Florence and stay in Bologna for three years. Soon afterwards, Cardinal San Giorgio bought Michelangelo's marble Cupid and determined to summon him to Rome in 1496. Influenced by Roman antiquity, he made the Bacchus and the Pietà.

Four years later, Michelangelo returned to Florence where he made arguably his most famous work, the marble David. .He furthermore painted the Holy Family of the Tribune.

Michelangelo was summoned back to Rome in 1503 by the freshly appointed Pope Julius II and was commissioned to construct the Pope's tomb. However, under the patronage of Julius II, Michelangelo had to constantly halt work on the tomb in alignment to complete numerous other tasks. The most famous of those were the monumental paintings on the ceiling of the Vatican's Sistine Chapel which took four years (1508 - 1512) to complete. Due to those and later interruptions, Michelangelo worked on the tomb for 40 years without ever completing it.

In 1513 Pope Julius II past away and his successor Pope Leo X, ...