MICHELANGELO
AND HIS INFLUENCE THROUGH HIS ARTWORK
Ryan Hough
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TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER I DAVID
CHAPTER II MOSES
CHAPTER III PIETA
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CHAPTER IV ST. PROCLUS
CHAPTER V
MADONNA MEDICI
CHAPTER VI ST.PETRONIUS
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CHAPTER I DAVID
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Created between 1501 and 1504. It is a 14.0 ft marble statue depicting the Biblical hero David, fighting the giant Goliath. Capturing the height of the moment, David is shown grabbing the first rock of three that would in turn kill Goliath. Rather than portray David after the battle, he is seen prior to it appearing tense and at the apex of his concentration. Depicted in the idealized male form, Michelangelo was able to capture many components of the Baroque period. The sculpture promotes you to view it’s entirely and spiral around it.
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CHAPTER III MOSES
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Commissioned by the late Pope Julius II for his Tomb in 1505 but was not completed until 1545, he died in 1513. The initial design by Michelangelo was massive and called for over 40 statues. The statue of Moses would have been placed on a tier about 3.74 meters high (12 ft 3 in), opposite a figure of St. Paul. In the final design, the statue of Moses sits in the center of the bottom tier. Vasari, a contemporary artist and biographer of Michelangelo said “The sculpture is depicted as a thing of beauty, viewed as something from god. Moses may now be called the friend of God more than ever, since God has permitted his body to be prepared for the resurrection before the others by the hand of Michelangelo.�
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CHAPTER IV PIETA
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Made between 1498-1500. The scene of the Pieta shows the Virgin Mary holding the dead body of Christ after his crucifixion, death, and removal from the cross, but before he was placed in the tomb. This was well liked because multi figure sculptures were rare. The figures are a bit out of proportion, owing to the difficulty of depicting a fully-grown man cradled full-length in a woman’s lap. Much of Mary’s body is concealed by her monumental drapery, and the relationship of the figures appears quite natural.
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Here is perfect sweetness in the expression of the head, harmony in the joints and attachments of the arms, legs, and trunk, and the pulses and veins so wrought, that in truth Wonder herself must marvel that the hand of a craftsman should have been able to execute so divinely and so perfectly, in so short a time, a work so admirable; and it is certainly a miracle that a stone without any shape at the beginning should ever have been reduced to such perfection as Nature is scarcely able to create in the flesh. Such were Michelangelo’s love and zeal together in this work, that he left his name a thing that he never did again in any other work written across a girdle that encircles the bosom of Our Lady. And the reason was that one day Michelangelo, entering the place where it was set up, found there a great number of strangers from Lombardy, who were praising it highly, and one of them asked one of the others who had done it, and he answered, “Our Gobbo from Milan.” Michelangelo stood silent, but thought it something strange that his labors should be attributed to another; and one night he shut himself in there, and, having brought a little light and his chisels, carved his name upon it.
Vasari’s Lives of the Artists
CHAPTER V ST PROCULUS
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Michelangelo was not even 20 years old when he received a commission to produce three statues for the Basilica San Domenico in Bologna, Italy, one of which was of the saint; Proculus. The figure evoked by Michelangelo to interpret the role of the soldier and martyr is a fashionable, contemporary youth, whose sole military attribute is the weapon, perhaps a lance, now missing, that he once held in his right hand: the figure wears a shirt and tunic tied tightly at the waist, stockings and soft boots, and a carefully cut cloak, hanging from one of his shoulders, not so much out of elegant carelessness, but as if ready to respond in the event of a sudden alarm.
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CHAPTER VI ST PETRONIUS
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Sculpted between 1494 and 1495, the statue of St Petronius was made completely out of marble. The statue’s height is 64 cm and accompanies a base at the bottom. The statue encompasses a lot of deep carvings that help reveal a lot of detail and shadowing. St Petronius, the patron saint of Bologna, holds a simple model of the town in his hands. The deep carving create the locks of his beard, the eye sockets are rather deep, the arches of the eyebrows throw a strong shadow. Despite a clear standing motif, the shadows thrown by the garments give such an effect of life that it appears as if the saint is about to stride off.
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CHAPTER VII MADONNA MEDICI
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Michelangelo did the marble sculpture of Medici Madonna between 1521 and 1534 and sits at about 226cm. This piece was designed as a decoration for the Old Sacristy (Sagrestia Vecchia) at the church of San Lorenzo, Florence.
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WORKS CITED Beck, James H., et al. Michelangelo: the Medici Chapel. Thames and Hudson, 1994. “Michelangelo’s Pieta.” ItalianRenaissance.org, www.italianrenaissance.org/michelangelos-pieta/. Paolucci, Antonio, and Aurelio Amendola. David: Michelangelo. Royal Academy of Arts, 2006. Seymour, Charles. Michelangelo’s David: a Search for Identity. Charles Seymour, Jr. Pa., 1967.
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