(1475-1564)
RENAISSANCE ARTIST
"Italian sculptor, painter, architect
and poet. He was one of the founders
of the High Renaissance and, in his later years, one of the principal exponents
of Mannerism. Born at Caprese, the son of the local magistrate, his family
returned to Florence soon after his birth. Michelangelo's desire to become
an artist was initially opposed by his father, as to be a practising artist
was then considered beneath the station of a member of the gentry. He was,
however, eventually apprenticed in 1488 for a three-year term to Domenico
Ghirlandaio. Later in life Michelangelo tried to suppress this apprenticeship,
implying that he was largely self-taught, undoubtedly because he did not
want to present himself as a product of the workshop system which carried
with it the stigma of painting and sculpture being taught as crafts rather
than Liberal Arts. Nevertheless, it was in Ghirlandaio's workshop that
Michelangelo would have learnt the rudiments of the technique of fresco
painting. Before the end of his apprenticeship, however, he transferred
to the school set up by Lorenzo the Magnificent in the gardens of the Palazzo
Medici. Here he would have had access to the Medici collection of antiques,
as well as a certain amount of tuition from the resident master, Bertoldo
di Giovanni. His work here included two marble reliefs, a Madonna of the
Steps (Casa Buonarroti, Florence), carved in rilievo schiacciato and showing
the influence of Donatello (Bertoldo's master)
and a Battle of the Centaurs (Casa Buonarroti, Florence), based on Bertoldo's
bronze Battle of the Horsemen, which itself appears to be based on an antique
prototype. Either at this time, or when he was in the Ghirlandaio workshop,
Michelangelo also studied from and drew copies of the frescos of Giotto
and
Masaccio.
"With the death
of Lorenzo in 1492, the school broke up and Michelangelo was given permission
to study anatomy at the hospital attached to Sto Spirito. In gratitude
to the prior for allowing him this privilege he carved a wooden Crucifix
(the one now in the Casa Buonarroti is considered by some scholars to be
the work in question). In October 1494, Michelangelo transferred to Bologna
and was awarded the cornmission for three marble figures to complete the
tomb of St. Dominic in S. Domenico Maggiore, begun by the recently deceased
Niccoló dell' Arca. By June 1496 he was in Rome and here established
his reputation with two marble statues, the drunken Bacchus (c 1496-7;
Florence, Bargello) for a private patron and the
Pietá for St. Peter's (1498-9). The latter is generally considered
to be the masterpiece of his early years, deeply poignant, exquisitely
beautiful and more highly finished than his later works were to be. In
creating a harmonious pyramidal group from the problematic combination
of the figure of a full-grown man lying dead across the lap of his mother,
Michelangelo solved a formal problem that had hitherto baffled artists.
He returned to Florence a famous sculptor and was awarded the commission
for the colossal figure of David to stand
in the Piazza della Signoria, flanking the entrance to the Palazzo Vecchio
(1501-4, original now in the Accademia). Soon after this he was cornmissioned
to paint a battle scene for the new Council Chamber of the Palazzo. On
one wall he commenced the painting of the Battle of Cascina, while on the
opposite wall his principal rival, Leonardo,
was commissioned to paint the Battle of Anghiari. Although neither painting
was ever finished, copies of a fragment of Michelangelo's full-size cartoon,
showing a group of nude soldiers reacting variously to the battle alarm
that has interrupted their bathing, soon began to circulate (e.g. Earl
of Leicester Collection, Holkharn Hall, Norfolk). These nudes, posed in
a variety of turning and animated poses, established the Mannerist conception
of the male nude as the principal vehicle for the expression of human emotions.