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Painter, sculptor, architect and poet
Caprese 1475-Rome 1564
The complete artist, he expressed the ideas of the Renaissance, passing from "realism" to the "beautiful" as the quintessence and glorification of the capacity of man.
After completing his humanistic studies, he started work in Ghirlandaio's workshop in Florence while still only a youth (1488); his interest in ancient sculpture soon led him to frequent the garden at Saint Mark, where the Medici family had already put together a sizeable collection of classical statuary. His first attempts at sculpture were noticed by Lorenzo dei Medici, who took Michelangelo to live with his family in his house in Via Larga (now Via Cavour), where he was in close contact with the circle of political and cultural personalities (like Poliziano) that gravitated around the court. Michelangelo was to be a protégé of the Medici family for the rest of his life, even when he fought against them during the famous siege of Florence in 1530.
The Battle of the Centaurs and the Madonna of the Stairs (1490-92 Museum of Casa Buonarroti), where the transition between the 15th century and classicism can clearly be seen, date from this early period. He fled from Florence in 1494 to escape Charles VIII and went to Bologna where, after seeing the reliefs by Jacopo della Quercia, he sculpted a bas-relief for the Duomo of San Petronio.
He returned to Florence in 1495 and - in the same period in which Savonarola was preaching against luxury and pagan art - he created the Drunken Bacchus (Bargello). Then he went to Rome where he sculpted the famous Vatican Pietà. He came back to Florence between 1501 and 1505 and, at the suggestion of Leonardo, proceeded to carry out a series of masterpieces: the Doni Tondo (Uffizi), the Pitti Tondo (Bargello), the lost cartoon for the fresco of the Battle of Cascina and the marble statue of David (Galleria dell'Accademia), which was placed outside the entrance to Palazzo Vecchio as a symbol of the Second Republic as well as of the Renaissance ideals of free men and masters of fate.
On Michelangelo's return to Rome, Pope Julius II gave him a commission that was to weigh heavily on him for over forty years: the monumental tomb of the Pope, conceived as a typical classical mausoleum that united sculpture and painting. Michelangelo spent eight months in Carrara to choose the most suitable marble but by then the Pope was more interested in the project of St. Peter's Church, which had been entrusted to Bramante, so that Michelangelo, disappointed and jealous, left Rome and went for a short period to Florence and then Bologna, where he was later to make his peace with the Pontiff.
In 1508 the Pope gave him an extremely important task to carry out: the decoration of the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. The five hundred square metre area was decorated by this man in four years of very hard work and this Neoplatonic interpretation of the Book of Genesis fully expresses the artistic ideals of the Renaissance. Julius II died in 1513 which brought the problem of his tomb up again: the second commission led to the creation of the Moses and the two Slaves in the Louvre but again it all came to nothing.
In the years that followed he worked on the Basilica of San Lorenzo in Florence, again under Medici patronage, first on the design for the facade (1516, later interrupted) and then on the construction of the New Sacristy (1520-34) - opposite the Old Sacristy by Brunelleschi -, with the tombs of Giuliano Duke of Nemours and Lorenzo Duke of Urbino. Here the rules of composition and the sense of space of Humanism are placed in discussion and the dialectic relationship between the architectural elements already expresses the Mannerist doubts. Last of all, again at San Lorenzo, he worked on the project for the Laurentian Library (1524, but not completed until late in the century with the collaboration of Ammannati)), a real bridge between the high Renaissance and the Baroque style.
Between 1527 (the Sack of Rome) and 1530 (the siege of Florence), Michelangelo worked for the Florentine Republic directing the building of the fortifications but, with the fall of the city to Clement VII, he went back to work for the Medici family. He resumed his work for the tomb of Julius II and sculpted the four unfinished Captives Academy. Nor were these to decorate the tomb of the Pope, whose final version - much of it carried out by Michelangelo's assistants - was not complete until 1545 when it was placed in St. Pietro in Vincoli.
His father died in 1534 and Michelangelo left Florence forever. He then accepted a commission from Clement VII to fresco the wall behind the altar in the Sistine Chapel with the Last Judgement (1536-41). The final act of the life of man is shown here as a cosmic tragedy; classical iconography and perspective are completely upset and we find the intellectual and moral security that had given the Renaissance its solid basis disappearing alongside its formal ideals. In their place we find a suffering and desperate human race, terrified at the thought of being condemned: this vision was almost certainly formed among the Roman spiritual circles that the artist frequented with Vittoria Colonna and which were fighting for a reform of the Church.
Michelangelo spent the last twenty years of his life working in the field of architecture: he completed the construction of the Laurentian Library in Florence, designed Piazza del Campidoglio and, modifying the project of Bramante, built the Cupola of St. Peter's in Rome.
His last sculptures, carried out between 1547 and 1555, developed the subject of the Pietà: the Palestrina Pietà (Academy), the Pietà in the Duomo di Firenze (Museum of Opera del Duomo), the Pietà Rondanini (Milan, Castello Sforzesco).
Although when he died - after having been almost forced to be the artist of several Popes - his mortal remains were claimed by the city of Florence, they were eventually removed from Rome by his nephew in secret.
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发表于 2004-12-7 23:09
发表于 2004-12-8 09:43
米开朗基罗 (1475-1564年)
米开朗基罗·博纳罗蒂作为文艺复兴的巨匠，以他超越时空的宏伟大作，在生前和后世都造成了无与论比的巨大影响。他和达芬奇一样多才多艺，兼雕刻家、画家、建筑家和诗人于一身。他得天独厚活到89岁，度过了70余年的艺术生涯，他经历人生坎坷和世态炎凉，使他一生所留下的作品都带有戏剧般的效果、磅礴的气势和人类的悲壮。
米开朗基罗13岁就进了佛罗伦萨著名画家多梅尼科·吉兰达伊奥的工作室，在那里他最初接触了终生所从事的神圣事业，并以神奇的速度掌握了绘画技巧。后来他又进了佛罗伦萨统治者罗伦佐·美第奇开办的“自由美术学校”，由于他的超群才华倍受罗伦佐的重视和爱护，宫廷中大量的艺术品成了他学习、研究的对象，经常出入于宫中的人文主义诗人和学者也给了他极大影响。短短四年中，他在美第奇宫里获得了一个伟大艺术家所必须具备的一切条件，为他整个艺术创作打下了坚实基础。
在罗伦佐的府邸里，设有一个“柏拉图学院”，学者们聚在一起研究学问，他们在罗伦佐的支持下创立了一种新的思想体系——人文主义，他们的思想是要把世界归还给人，把人归还给他自己。把人的艺术、文学和科学，还有作为个体的独立的思想和感情归还给人，人绝不能像一个奴隶一样被捆绑在教条之上，在锁链中死亡腐朽。
米开朗基罗还经常去听宗教改革家、修道士萨伏纳罗拉揭露教会黑暗的演说，这位为了拯救人类命运而不怕宗教法庭审判的修道士给他的灵魂留下了不可磨灭的烙印。
罗伦佐·美第奇死后，米开朗基罗失去了保护人，佛罗伦萨陷于一片混乱，他深感故乡非久留之地，而赴威尼斯和波伦亚，后转道罗马寻找发展机会。罗马到处林立古代雕像，犹如走进巨大的古代艺术宝库。23岁的米开朗基罗受法国红衣主教委托，为圣彼得教堂制作 《哀悼基督》雕像。这件雕像的问世，使米开朗基罗名盖罗马，自多纳太罗之后又一颗雕刻巨星升起。26岁的米开朗基罗载誉回到故乡佛罗伦萨，便立即从事《大卫》云石雕像的制作，三年后完成，安放在韦吉奥宫正门前，作为佛罗伦萨守护神和民主政府的象征。
1505年应教皇朱理二世邀请，米开朗基罗赴罗马为教皇在圣彼得教堂内建造陵墓，雕刻家历经艰辛磨难为陵墓留下名雕《摩西》和奴隶等雕像，米开朗基罗的雕塑成就，使教皇的艺术总监勃拉曼特极为妒忌，他唆使教皇暂不修陵墓，强求雕刻家去画西斯廷教堂天顶壁画，米开朗基罗以超凡的智慧和毅力完成了世界上最大的壁画《创世纪》。
41岁的大师重又回到佛罗伦萨，出生美第奇家族的教皇利奥十世又强迫米开朗基罗为其祖宗圣罗伦佐陵墓制作雕像，著名的《日》 《夜》《晨》《暮》雕像就是安放在这座陵墓的石棺上。
已经61岁的雕刻家又被教皇召到罗马，在25年前完成的《创世纪》天顶画下的祭坛壁面上绘制《末日的审判》。米开朗基罗是人类天才、智慧和勇气的结晶，他的光荣与成就属于全人类。
花絮：关于壁画《创世纪》的创作，也有一段感人的故事。传说当时人们认为米开朗基罗作为一个雕塑家并不能胜任这项任务，而米开朗基罗为证明自己，把本该由几十人作为助手的工程一个人独自承担，只留一个研磨颜料的小工，由于这是画在天花板上，画家不得不仰起头作画，米开朗基罗以超人的毅力和才华，用极短时间完成这一浩瀚大作，令世人无不咋舌！此后数月间米开朗基罗若要阅读都不得不把书信高高扬起方能观看。