Michelangelo: Life, Patronage, and the Creation of Adam

The High Renaissance Context

Michelangelo was one of the most influential artists of the Renaissance and of art history as a whole. Painter, sculptor, poet, and architect, Michelangelo dominated the art scene for almost the entire sixteenth century. Born in 1475, he lived to nearly ninety years of age, during which time he left an unparalleled body of work to the world.

In Michelangelo's time, the High Renaissance had reached its peak in Italy. This was the era of artistic geniuses such as Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael in Rome, and Titian in Venice. Of all these figures, Leonardo especially embodied the full spirit of the Renaissance: he was exceptionally skilled in more than one discipline and excelled as a painter, inventor, architect, and scientist. Perhaps of all his contemporaries, Michelangelo is closest to Leonardo through the sheer multitude of his aptitudes.

The High Renaissance and its painters introduced a new trend in painting. Naïve, stylized human figures began to be portrayed in their full physical strength, celebrating both bodily and implied spiritual beauty. In order to achieve a keener reproduction of the human form, painters began to study human anatomy in detail — Leonardo being the first to do so systematically. A careful study of the muscles that compose the human body led to more realistic and convincing representation.

Another characteristic of the High Renaissance was the depiction of large scenes — enormous paintings with mythological or biblical subjects. Consider the work of Raphael in the Chambers of the Vatican Palace, and especially the scene of the Fire in the Borgo. The viewer's attention is drawn to the vast mass of people in the composition: many characters, each with a life of their own, each expressing a human ideal.

This productive period for painting and art in general was largely driven by the many commissions these painters received from the popes of the age and the princes of the Italian states. The papal institution was wealthy, and the popes of the time were keen art lovers who encouraged both art and artists. The same was true of the princely families: consider the Medicis in Florence, the Doges in Venice, or the Visconti family in Milan — all were deeply interested in art, which they typically regarded as a means of expressing their power. All these factors contributed to an extraordinary flourishing of art in sixteenth-century Italy, a period that proved to be one of the richest in all of art history.

Artist's Biography and Early Training

Michelangelo was born on the 6th of March 1475 (1474 according to Giorgio Vasari) in the small village of Caprese, outside Florence. He was the son of Lodovico Buonarroti, who served at that time as podestà for Chiusi and Caprese. He spent his childhood in Florence, however, where his father returned and where Michelangelo attended grammar school under the guidance of Francesco da Urbino. As Vasari recounts, early aptitudes manifested quickly in Michelangelo, who had little interest in school but spent most of his time drawing — and being scolded by his father for it.

It was during this period that Michelangelo became friends with one Francesco Granacci, a young apprentice in the studio of Domenico del Ghirlandaio. Noticing Michelangelo's intense interest in painting and drawing, Granacci regularly took him to Ghirlandaio's studio, where Michelangelo came into contact with the work of one then considered among the foremost painters of the Italian Renaissance. Michelangelo's father Lodovico eventually decided to bring his son to Ghirlandaio's studio and place him as an apprentice with the master. Michelangelo was fourteen years old, and Ghirlandaio would become his first teacher in art and painting.

Vasari tells us that Michelangelo's great qualities became immediately apparent. While this is easy to believe, one should note that Vasari was later a close friend of Michelangelo and his account may be somewhat subjective. Even so, Vasari's Lives of the Painters, Sculptors and Architects offers a valuable record of the period, even if not always fully accurate. He recalls that one day, while Ghirlandaio was painting one of the chapels in Santa Maria Novella in Florence, Michelangelo began drawing precise sketches of the chairs and the scaffolding. On returning and seeing the drawing, Ghirlandaio reportedly said: "This one knows more than me." Moreover, Ghirlandaio was perceptive enough to detect in Michelangelo's drawings the sensibility of a sculptor: his sketches revealed an inclination toward sculpture, and Ghirlandaio recognized immediately that fresco painting was not yet for him.

It is well known, for example, that Ghirlandaio was a master of fresco painting; however, Michelangelo's first attempts at painting the Sistine Chapel proved disastrous, mainly due to improper handling of moisture and pigment. Having little interest in learning fresco technique at that time, Michelangelo began to frequent the studio of Bertoldo, a Florentine sculptor believed to have been a pupil of Donatello. Bertoldo became Michelangelo's first sculpture teacher. In the meantime, Michelangelo visited the churches of Florence, where he discovered two painters who would exert an enormous influence on his later work: the first was Giotto, and the second was Masaccio. The latter left a deeper impression on Michelangelo, probably because Masaccio's return to the idea of the nude and of the human body resonated with Michelangelo's own conviction that painting served primarily as a support for sculpture.

Patronage, Commissions, and Major Works

It was in Bertoldo's gardens that Michelangelo's work was first noticed by Lorenzo de' Medici — also known as Lorenzo the Magnificent — celebrated for his love of splendor and the fine arts. Lorenzo became Michelangelo's first patron: Michelangelo was invited to live in the Medici Palace alongside Lorenzo and his family, where he became a close friend of Lorenzo's son Piero. He spent four years in the Medici palaces until Lorenzo's death in 1492. His first sculptures also date from this period, including a marble relief of the Battle of the Centaurs. After Lorenzo's death, he carved another marble Hercules, which eventually found its way to the court of Francis I of France.

After spending time in Venice and Bologna, Michelangelo's reputation began to spread across the Papal States, and he worked in Rome from 1496 to 1501. From this period dates the magnificent Pietà, now in St. Peter's Basilica in Rome. Returning to Florence in 1501, Michelangelo created another of his masterpieces, David, and painted the scene of the Battle of Cascina for the Uffizi. His unique vision — that of a sculptor who also paints — is evident throughout these works.

In 1504, he was summoned to Rome by Pope Julius II, who wished to build a grand funerary monument for himself. Of this never-completed sculptural complex, only a few pieces were realized: the statue of Moses, now in the church of San Pietro in Vincoli in Rome, and the statues of six slaves, today held in the Louvre and the Galleria dell'Accademia in Florence. In 1508, he was commissioned to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel — an imposing undertaking for which Raphael had also been considered. The paintings of the ceiling remain among the greatest achievements in the history of art. A profound student of human anatomy, Michelangelo succeeded in giving life to the bodies he portrayed, and the ceiling can truly be considered a triumph of physical beauty.

Between 1520 and 1534, Michelangelo worked again in Florence, where he realized a grandiose funerary ensemble for the Medici family, including four allegorical sculptures: Dawn, Dusk, Day, and Night. The last great painting Michelangelo produced was for one of the walls of the Sistine Chapel, commissioned by Pope Paul III. The Last Judgment presents an allegorical vision of the world inspired by Dante's Divine Comedy, and Michelangelo's characteristic treatment of the human figure is fully evident here as well. His final sculptures were the Pietà Rondanini (today in Milan) and the Palestrina Pietà, believed to have been intended for his own tomb but left unfinished at his death in Rome in 1564. Painter and sculptor, but also a successful poet and architect, Michelangelo truly embodies the spirit of the Renaissance, combining all the qualities of a cultural genius.

Bibliography

Vasari, Giorgio. The Life of Painters, Sculptors and Architects. Bucharest, 1968.

Brion, Marcel. Michel-Ange. Paris, 1995.

La Pittura Italiana. Mondadori, Rome, 1997.

La Città Eterna. Roma. Lozzi Roma, 1996.

Enciclopedia Generale. DeAgostini, 1997.