Why michelangelo is important

Did Michelangelo write a poem about hating painting? How did they put the Statue of Liberty together? Previous Article Who said psychology is the study of human Behaviour and human relationship? Next Article Can you fall in love with someone you met online?

Back To Top. Live TV. This Day In History. History Vault. Recommended for you. Mona Lisa. Did Columbus Start a Zombie Plague? Renaissance Art Known as the Renaissance, the period immediately following the Middle Ages in Europe saw a great revival of interest in the classical learning and values of ancient Greece and Rome.

Leonardo da Vinci Leonardo da Vinci was a painter, architect, inventor, and student of all things scientific. The Medici Family The Medici family, also known as the House of Medici, first attained wealth and political power in Florence in the 13th century through its success in commerce and banking. Italian Renaissance Toward the end of the 14th century A.

Machiavelli According to Machiavelli, the ends always justify the means—no matter how cruel, calculating or immoral those means might be.

Although Michelangelo expressed his genius in many forms, he would always consider himself a sculptor first.

With such an upbringing, does it really come as any surprise that Michelangelo grew to be one of the most talented artists of his time? With so many gifted individuals to guide him, Michelangelo had the privilege of being taught multiple disciplines, making him a master of the arts.

Michelangelo was first and foremost, a sculpture. Majority of his early works were sculptures, skilled at this medium since a young age. He was gifted in the human anatomy, using light and dark to give his sculptures a natural presence. He commissioned a sculpture of the Virgin Mary holding her dead son in her arms, which has become known as the Pieta.

Michelangelo was only 25 years old at the time and finished this piece in less than one year. Michelangelo was not the first to try to attempt this piece, with two prior artists who gave up before his attempt. Behind the trio is a hooded figure, which is said to be either Joseph of Arimathea or Nicodemus, both of whom were in attendance of the entombment of Christ, which would follow this event. Joseph would end up giving his tomb for Christ and Nicodemus would speak with Christ about the possibility of obtaining eternal life.

Not only is it life like and intense with realism, it was also sculpted so that a person could walk around to observe and absorb each of the three narratives from different perspectives. The remarkable three-dimensionality allows the group to interact within each of the work's meanings.

The work is also a perfect example of Michelangelo's temperament and perfectionism. The process of making it was arduous. Vasari relates that the artist complained about the quality of the marble. Some suggest he had a problem with the way Christ's left leg originally draped over Nicodemus, worrying that some might interpret it in a sexual way, causing him to remove it.

Perhaps Michelangelo was so particular with the piece because he was intending it for his own future tomb. In , Michelangelo attempted to destroy the piece causing further speculation about its meaning. There is a suggestion that the attempted destruction of the piece was because Nicodemus, by reference to his conversation with Christ about the need to be born again to find everlasting life, is associated with Martin Luther's Reformation. Michelangelo was known to be a secret sympathizer, which was dangerous even for someone as influential as he was.

Perhaps a coincidence, but his Lutheran sympathies are given as one of the reasons why Pope Paul IV cancelled Michelangelo's pension in One of Michelangelo's biographers Giorgio Vasari also mentions that the face of Nicodemus is a self-portrait of Michelangelo, which may allude to his crisis of faith.

Although Michelangelo worked on this sculpture over a number of years he was unable to complete it and gave the unfinished piece to Francesco Bandini, a wealthy merchant, who commissioned Tiberio Calcagni, a friend of Michelangelo's, to finish it and repair the damage all except for replacing Christ's left leg.

The depiction of Christ has changed from his earlier St. His mother Mary is standing in this piece, an unusual rendition, as she struggles to hold up the body of her son while immersed in grief. What's interesting about this work is that Michelangelo abandoned his usual perfection at carving the body even though he worked on it intermittently for over 12 years. It was a departure that so late in his prolific career signified the enduring genius of an artist whose confidence would allow him to try new things even when his fame would have allowed him to easily rest upon his laurels.

The detached arm, the subtle sketched features of the face, and the way the figures almost blend into each other provide a more abstracted quality than was his norm, and all precursors of a minimalism that was yet to come in sculpture. The renowned sculptor Henry Moore later said of this piece, "This is the kind of quality you get in the work of old men who are really great. They can simplify, they can leave out It has since excited many modern artists. Content compiled and written by Zaid S Sethi.

Edited and revised, with Summary and Accomplishments added by Kimberly Nichols. The Art Story. High Renaissance. Only God creates. The rest of us just copy. Summary of Michelangelo Michelangelo is one of art history's earliest true "characters.

Read full biography. Read artistic legacy. Influences on Artist. Leonardo da Vinci. Domenico Ghirlandaio. Lorenzo Ghiberti. Bertoldo di Giovanni. Cardinal Riario of San Giorgio. Pope Julius II. Lorenzo di Medici. Early Renaissance. Peter Paul Rubens. Auguste Rodin. Henry Moore.