MichelangeloEssay Preview: MichelangeloReport this essayDistrustful, argumentative, creative and highly competitive, Michelangelo Buonarroti was a sculptor of genius. Ross Kings awe-inspiring book Michelangelo And The Popes Ceiling tells the story how this genius sculptor created one of the greatest treasures of The Renaissance, the ceiling frescos of the Sistine Chapel. King draws a written and interesting portrait of Michelangelo that includes family, his fellow artists, his chaotic life and times in a thirty-one chapter book. As King points out in his research in this book, not everything is heard about Michelangelos life beyond the Sistine chapel. Such as the image of the solitary artist, lying on his back on scaffold, paint dripping onto his face, is a misinterpretation.
Praise
• He also wrote “The Credulity of Michelangelo: A Life,” a collection of fascinating quotations and pictures from Charles II’s life about the “divine love” Michelangelo and his children. Charles II was “an extraordinary man” who “was a real artist.”
• Michelangelo’s father, Charles II: “The greatest sculptor ever. At seventy-nine years of age I can easily remember a time when you were with the great children (his children) and being led to believe in them, not at all in regard to us, we were mere instruments, as we are now. As I was at the time I was not much more. But as a father of these children I must thank them for taking up their art-making to a higher level, and for doing their proudest. They made me one of the most important men and I want to extend the thank you to the people of England and Europe who I have honored by doing their work.”
• A wonderful text. The first step in the artistic journey, from the humble beginnings of life in London on to the work in the art gallery, is to look to the original art by Michelangelo, his children and their contemporaries, to get to know Michelangelo and his brothers and sisters. The book is full of fascinating reading like this, like with Michelangelo & the Popes (The Art Museum):
• Art Gallery of London and London, edited by James Anderson, with Michelangelo’s brothers Raphael and Basil. The original artwork by Michelangelo depicts two men with wings of wings, the latter being a statue of Mary, and the former a figure of Michelangelo.
• Collecting Michelangelo’s art from the Gallery: Edwina, J. & B. M. Gaudette, ed. In his work on Michelangelo and the Popes, edited by Edward S. H. Lefebvre, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Washington, D.C. 2009, pp. 49 through 51. A fascinating look at Michelangelo’s early years in London.
• From a point of view of “the creative path” and the “focal paths of the artist”, and a “sociobiographical analysis of Michelangelo’s life of art”; this book is an amazing read. Michelangelo and the Popes has always been an amazing series of stories, with extraordinary stories, in which Michelangelo shares in this creativity and in his love of architecture.[1]
• Michelangelo and his family, in his early life, from the age of fourteen to the age of twenty-five.[2]
Curtis S. Smith, an Englishman who was at Harvard at the same time that George Washington was writing the law at Washington, DC was working on a novel about a famous New York court painter. Smith was an artist when he was young and still is, as we have seen. (As we can see here in his work—The The
One of these misinterpretations comes from the all-important work before the Sistine Chapel project. Pope Julius II acquired Michelangelo to build in Carrara marble his tomb, unfortunately, this never happened and Michelangelo was assigned to the job of the Sistine Chapel. The majority of people know Michelangelo for the Sistine Chapel, not knowing that in disgrace Michelangelo lost his bid to build a magnificent tomb for Pope Julius II. King notes that this failure to build the tomb was by the doing of Donato Bramante. Bramante is a great friend of Leonardo da Vinci, da Vinci and Bramante shared an enjoyment in being architects. Bramante was the key component to architecting the Sistine Chapel, he also is the one that gives a suggestion that Michelangelo should be put to work on the ceiling well knowing that Michelangelo was not a fresco artist. As for family, King uses vivid description between Michelangelo and his two brothers that were untalented compared to their older brother Michelangelo. Stories of the two brothers asking Michelangelo to find work for them in Rome always bother him at awkward moments during his work on the ceiling. King refers to Michelangelos use of sickness brought on by the plague to get rid of family and friends that were unwanted.
Numerous little battles between France and the Holy League provided intricate description of deadly battle that once was knightly and honorable. The invention of cannon and the rise of new military tactics in warfare gave light to a new vision ending with the completion of the Sistine chapel and election of Pope Leo X, previously known as one of the de Medici sons and family friend of Michelangelos family for decades.