The Great Artist--Michelangelo

The Great Artist--Michelangelo

About 500 years ago, the world presented us a master of art--Michelangelo!!! 

After about a month old, Michelangelo, together with his family, moved to Firenze Florence. When he was just 6 years old, his mother died, and their money went tight. Grown by years, Michelangelo approved his art talent, but his father thought this brought disgrace to the family. Though often beaten by his father, Michelangelo persivered.

The reason why Michelangelo acclaimed his genious is the mystical one is he came to the city of Florence--fhe right place at the right time. During 1490s, the city of Florence was full of artists, workshops dedicated to painting and sculpture.

Dispite the fact that he learnt the whole thing of painting and sculpture, like how to prepare, what meterials to use, from the first workshop in Firenze, Michelangelo insisted that it's the Nature that teached him--"I observed the plants when I want to paint plants; I studied the corps in the hospital when I want to depict human body!!!"

1490, 15 years old, Michelangelo left the workshop, and hired by the famous Midici Family. His first commission was a half-human-half-beast figure in greek mythology. The commissioner laughed and critisized:"You carved him as an old man with long beard,but gave him such shining marble teeth!!!" Not being used to criticism, but, still, Michelangelo knocked out four teeth.

Michelangelo wanted everyone see he was the best. So when he got his first rival--a fellow apprentice, he just fight him physically. That fight left him a disfigured nose which led to his pursuit of perfection.

On April 4th, 1492, the boss of Midici Family died. His son took over and offered Michelangelo a bizzar commission--"Hercules the snowman"!!! A pointless work!!! 

Started from 1494, a wave of love for nudes  pervaded in Florence. Michelangelo, a deep believer in religion, was confused and he chose to leave. He traveled around Italy seeking job but found none. 

When he felt safe to return, he did. He did a marble "Sleeping Cupid"--a great mystry. He was told that if it could be an antique one, it would worth of a large amount of money. So Michelangelo forged it and did his deception to make it old by applying it with wine, milk, and human and animal wastes, and burried it. When it's time to sell, he got an offer from a buyer who was the owner of a famous collection of articles. It's a shaky dealing. Michelangelo recieved only a little amount of money. His deception decieved himself. The buyer knew it was a fake one because, though it was made old, the design was new at that time. He, then, wanted it back and gave back the money for the reputation. The buyer didn't accused him, instead he rewarded him with a big commission--a big marble for the statue of the God of Wine. This statue was criticized by it's female belly. The buyer who had a classical view was shocked when seeing this sexual one. But Michelangelo was paid in full. Actually a very good pay. 

Michelangelo's view on drink was:"Never drink too much, otherwise one will lose himself in the end!!!"

In November, 1497, Michelangelo went to north Italy to find the marble to do the commission ordered by a french cardinal--the Pieta!!! 

Michelangelo was fond of marble becausd he thought that the marble has confliction between hard and nimble, cold and warm.

1499, in Rome, the Pieta was done. During the process of doing the sculpture, and as always, Michelangelo lived utterly as a poor man: ate sparingly, drank almost nothing; and scraped himself down from time to time. In his own words:"I live like Jesus!!! Wishing for a long life, one should resist carnal desire!!! To me, my wife is the art and my children are my works!!!" But, as a matter of fact, he earned a lot! He got approximately 30,000 ponds in today's money for each piece he produced!!!

He was only 25 when the Pieta--a piece of masterpiece conveying the transcendental grief was done!!! People then doubted him by calling the sculptor was a hunchbacked one! Michelangelo carved his name on it to acclaim himself.

Mainwhile, Florence was in turmoil at that time due to the new govenment was in power. Michelangelo returned to his father and family where his next great legecy was awaiting--the David!!!

For almost 40 years, a gaint piece of marble, 5 metres tall and 1 metre deep, waiting someone to make it great. Michelangelo's reputation was on the line. He was convinced that, with God's help, he could do it. 

When he was designing the great David, Michelangelo was accused as a murderer!!! "This disgusts me as the pit of my stomach!!! I was desecting a human body." "David is in prisoned in that marble, my work is to release him." "Sculpture requires both great force and delicecy of a surgeon!!!"

After two and a half year of working, the David was completed in 1504. David immortalized Michelangelo. The body of David, the figure of human beauty, is different from viewing in different angles. His oversized hands emphasizes the physical strenth, his oversized head emphasizes the intellegence. His eyes intenses his gaze. Of course, the wellknown anecdote of his nose: critics thought the nose was too big on the day of revealing David in the square, and Michelangelo just pretened to chip away a little and showered them with dust!!!

To move the David to the centre of the square is another big task facing Michelangelo. While Da vinci suggested that it could be set asid the square. This arrose Michelangelo's displeasure. They had confrontaions in the field of art, therefore. Michelangelo discontented Da vinci always did talking with those beardless boys, and laught at him for he failed to finish the bronz horse commkssioned by the Duke of Milan. Michelangelo also thought Da vinci took him as the "uneducated craftsman"!!! While, acturally, Michelangelo did win over Da vinci in banknotes: what Michelangelo had earned so far had acceded the total amount of the life saving of Da vinci.

The next challenge facing Michelangelo was the Sistine Chapel ceiling, a really big challenge like the Odyssey!!!

1505, Pope Julius II ordered Michelangelo to do sculptures for his tomb, but, later he cancelled it. Michelangelo had to stormed out of Vatican!!! Why? Because he used most of the money Pope paid in advance to buy a farm for himself. He was in trouble, but safely returned to Florence. Then, the government of Franze recieved a letter from the Pope which read as:"Such a man of genius Michelangelo is, he will be unharmed when he returns!" And the government of Florence pleaded Michelangelo to back.

The Pope of Rome asked him to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel--a size of a football pitch 20 metres off the ground. 

The Pope thought Michelangelo was inferior to Raphael and set this commission aiming to shame Michelangelo. Michelangelo was convinced that he was the sculpturer not the painter--"Painting is for females and mediocrities like Raphael!!!" To escape the wroth of his Holiness and face the fact that how ill-equipped he was, Michelangelo despaired the task ahead. It was almost 20 years ago when he was trained in fresco, and nothing from then. Fresco is the toughest of them all.

1508, it was Michelangelo's idea to build scaffles in a curving shape so that it braced the scaffles between the walls. The steps must strong and stiff. This show his talent in archetecture.

The technique of fresco Michelangelo used was: draw the outline on huge paper, then dot holes on the outlines and pounce the image on the ceiling; then apply the colour to fine layer of damp plaster which requires quick action only within a day. Such a huge task required at least 13 assistants to help. The choice of paint must be done carefully. Because some of the paint were easy to find, but some of them like ultra-marine blue was very expensive. Expensive as gold, because they were imported from remote Afganistane!!!

The Pope set his mind on the New Testment. But Michelangelo thought Pope's drawing was just the geographical circles with no drama and no dipiction of human form. So, he defied the Pope and made it Old Testment.

Michelangelo's models were all males. His female image are just like man with breasts. "The male outline of flesh is marble, symmetry, strenth, and grace, which expresses idea, thought, and emotion. Small minds may relate it to carnal thought; to me, it's God's clay in his own image!!!" 

Fresco painting is a work that races against the clock. You have to get everything right at first time every time. Michelangelo had to work day and night. But in the winter of 1508, his mistake of applying the plaster too wet brought the consequense of rotting image on the wall. He had to start all over again. There was another setback to him: every Chapel had to and has to offer Mass during which the painter had to and has to put down the brush and be silent. 

During his labourious work, Michelangelo wrote a poem which is the Odes To Agnoy:

 A goiter it seems I got from this backward craning
like the cats get there in Lombardy, or wherever
—bad water, they say, from lapping their fetid river.
My belly, tugged under my chin, 's all out of whack.
     Beard points like a finger at heaven. Near the back
of my neck, skull scrapes where a hunchback's lump would be.
I'm pigeon-breasted, a harpy! Face dribbled—see?—
like a Byzantine floor, mosaic. From all this straining
     my guts and my hambones tangle, pretty near.
Thank God I can swivel my butt about for ballast.
Feet are out of sight; they just scuffle around, erratic.
     Up front my hide's tight elastic; in the rear
it's slack and droopy, except where crimps have callused.
I'm bent like a bow, half-round, type Asiatic.
     Not odd that what's on my mind,
when expressed, comes out weird, jumbled. Don't berate;
no gun with its barrel screwy can shoot straight.
     Giovanni, come agitate
for my pride, my poor dead art! I don't belong!
Who's a painter? Me? No way! They've got me wrong.

Well the physical pain was not enough. Michelangelo had to cope with Pope's impatience of interruption.

After two years of hard work, Michelangelo was shocked and found the figures in the Flood are too small to see! Working too close to the ceiling led to his misjudgement of the scale!

Anyway, till then, the first half was done!!!

Soon, another delay came. It's about the money.

Michelangelo required the pay he was promised from the Pope, so he went to Bolonia where the Pope was in war. After negociation, he back to Rome, but found no money sent to him. Then, he went to Bolonia again to ask for the pay!!! After 8 months, the war was over. The Pope went back and ask to see the ceiling. Michelangelo always blocked him by saying:"I will finish it when I can!!!"

1511, the light at the end of the tunnel was seen. Michelangelo was completely exhuasted--nine main scenes covering over 500 square metres!!!

31st Oct. 1512, it's done!!! The Pope was pleased at firs, but, soon, he condemned the paintings were poor without gold! Michelangelo replied:"The people depicted in these pictures are poor too. They are sufferring ,struggling!!! And you know it, don't you???!!!" Well such answer was responsed by no-bonus from the Pope!!! 

Well, in fact, such a "trembling-in-wonder" with such quantity and quality shames any painter after Michelangelo!!!

Michelangelo was 37 when he finished the Sistine Chapel ceiling. He devoted himself to art and the holy spirits. One month after the finishing of the ceiling, the Pope was died. Michelangelo had to continue on his tomb 8 years later.

It's the year of 1513, Michelangelo worked on four or five sculptures at the same time. They were slaves and captives. But he never finished them. The only sculpture he finished for Pope's tomb was the Moses which was placed at the center in the tomb by the Pope's heir.

Beyond the shadow of doubt, the reason why Michelangelo lost the interest in the tomb was the commjssion offerred by the Medici Pope--to build a facade of a mausoleum. For three years, he was finding and chopping the finest marble blocks with high pay. But, in 1520, this commission was cancelled due to running out of money.

In 1527's autumn, Michelangelo betraied the Medici Pope because of his deep religious believe. When the Medici family regained the power, Michelangelo had to hide himself in a dungeon of a local church where you can still see the figures from the Sistine Chapel ceiling sketched by Michelangelo. Michelangelo returned when the Medici Pope pardened him by a commission of Medici mausolean. Michelangelo carved four figures of the night and day. The mausolean is in Venice, Italy.

During his later life, Michelangelo fell in love with a man with so much youth whose name was Thomas. He wrote love letters to that young man--"the love in pure beauty and in decence will never fade!!!"

13 years after the Sistine ceiling, Michelangelo was commkssioned to paint "the Last Judgement" on the wall. It's the scene of the end of the Day in the Apoclypse. The critics against the nudes. But Michelangelo was against all odds and persevered. He even depicted himself as the skinbag in the painting.

In his 70s, his health was deteriorating and fading. The Pope then ordered the last challenge to him, the highest paid painter in Rome, which is no less hard than building a new Rome. It's the Dome of St. Peter's Bassilica. Michelangelo designed the Dome supported by pillars in order, proportion, and style.

Now Michdlangelo was preparing his end. He ditoried the paintings and works he considered were not good. He carved a "Pieta" for himself. The one full of poignant!!! (From another docu, Michelangelo believed Juses and Mary are married. So he designed the tangled legs from each of them which is the symble of sexuality!!! But, the leg was chopped off by someone later.)

On February 18th, 1564, aged 82, Michelangelo left the world(as a millionaire who left nearly 8000 gold and vast lands to his nephew. ).  

"Life is such a short time on earth; Death is deadly to many, but new life to me!!!"

From the Dome to the Pieta, the great David to the magnificent Sistine ceiling, Michelangelo created a unique vision of heaven on earth!!!!!!