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Europe 1300 - 1800
Course: Europe 1300 - 1800 > Unit 4
Lesson 4: Michelangelo- Michelangelo: Sculptor, Painter, Architect and Poet
- Who was Michelangelo?
- Michelangelo and his early drawings
- Pietà (marble sculpture)
- Michelangelo's David and the Florentine Republic
- Unfinished business—Michelangelo and the Pope
- Moses (marble sculpture)
- Moses (marble sculpture)
- Carving marble with traditional tools
- Slaves (marble sculptures)
- Ceiling of the Sistine Chapel
- Ceiling of the Sistine Chapel
- Studies for the Battle of Cascina and the Creation of Adam
- Studies for the Libyan Sibyl and a small Sketch for a Seated Figure (verso)
- Studies for the Libyan Sibyl (recto); Studies for the Libyan Sibyl and a small Sketch for a Seated Figure (verso)
- Ceiling of the Sistine Chapel
- Last Judgment, Sistine Chapel
- Last Judgment (altar wall, Sistine Chapel)
- Studies for the Last Judgment and a late crucifixion drawing
- Michelangelo, Medici Chapel (New Sacristy)
- Laurentian Library
- Replicating Michelangelo
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Michelangelo: Sculptor, Painter, Architect and Poet
Michelangelo was known as “il divino,” (in English, “the divine one”) and it is easy for us to see why. So much of what he created seems to us to be super-human.
When Michelangelo was in his late twenties, he sculpted the 17-foot tall David. This colossus seemed to his contemporaries to rival or even surpass ancient Greek and Roman sculpture. David— and his later sculptures such as Moses and the Slaves— demonstrated Michelangelo’s astounding ability to make marble seem like living flesh and blood. So much so, it is difficult to imagine that these were created with a hammer and chisel.
In painting, if we look at the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in Rome, with its elegant nudes and powerful seated figures, and the now-iconic image of the Creation of Adam, Michelangelo set a new standard for painting the human figure, one in which the body was not just an actor in a narrative, but emotionally and spiritually expressive on its own.
And then there is his architecture, where Michelangelo reordered ancient forms in an entirely new and dramatic ways. It is no wonder then too, that Vasari, who knew Michelangelo, would write about how Michelangelo excelled in all three arts: painting, sculpture and architecture:
"the great Ruler of Heaven looked down and...resolved...to send to earth a genius universal in each art...He further endowed him with true moral philosophy and a sweet poetic spirit, so that the world should marvel at the singular eminence of his life and works and all his actions, seeming rather divine than earthy."
Michelangelo was also a poet. In the poem below, Michelangelo gives us a sense of the co-existence in his art of a love of both the human (particularly male) body and God.
Sculpture, the first of arts, delights a taste
Still strong and sound: each act, each limb, each bone
Are given life and, lo, man's body is raised,
Breathing alive, in wax or clay or stone.
But oh, if time's inclement rage should waste,
Or maim, the statue that man builds alone,
Its beauty still remains, and can be traced Back to the source that claims it as its own.
Essay by Dr. Beth Harris and Dr. Steven Zucker
Additional resources
Want to join the conversation?
Like others of the time, were Michelangelo's sculptures originally painted as well? Or, if he was fortunate enough to be able to find and use Greek/Roman models as a basis, would he have simply sculpted them sans color?(11 votes)
Only ancient Greeks painted their sculptures, which had all faded by the renaissance. So, no, Michelangelo never painted his sculptures.(12 votes)
Michelangelo specifically stated to love the art of the male body. Do we have any insight into what his sexual orientation may have been, aside from religious norms of his age?(3 votes)
Michelangelo had two passions: one was men, and the other was God. He was an intensely religious person and that became more prominent in his later life. He lived through a period of religious reform and knew a lot of church reformers in this era of a return to piety and orthodoxy. The problem was that he felt these officially taboo desires for various men; Tommaso de' Cavalieri was the most important, but there were several others we know by name, like Febo di Poggio, who also received a poem addressed to him.
Michelangelo was always torn between the desire for passionate union with another human being, preferably male, and the belief that such desire could lead to sin.
https://www.metmuseum.org/blogs/now-at-the-met/2018/james-saslow-interview-michelangelo-poetry(3 votes)
What are his dates? When was he born and when did he die? You need to include some basic information for all the artists mentioned.(0 votes)
This is essay differs from the usual articles. Usually, Wikipedia, Britannica, etc. give a certain species of information - a summary of the artist's life, with all the mundane details. This page seems more focused on analysis of Michelangelo's feats and the reason for their importance.(8 votes)
Can you provide citation information on this article? I am a student at Southern New Hampshire University and would like to reference it in a research paper.
Thank you(2 votes)- Cite this page as: Dr. Beth Harris and Dr. Steven Zucker, "Michelangelo: Sculptor, painter, architect, and poet," in Smarthistory, August 9, 2015, accessed October 4, 2017, https://smarthistory.org/michelangelo-sculptor-painter-architect-and-poet/.(3 votes)
- what material is used to create michelango's david?(1 vote)
- If you mean, "from what was it made?" the answer is "marble." If you mean, "what was the material of the tools used to make it?" the answer is various chisels, rasps and polishing compounds made of metals and abrasives that are harder than marble.(3 votes)
how do you describe the transformation of Michelangelo from sculptor to painter (an evaluation from reality to abstraction)?(2 votes)- what is contrapposto(1 vote)
- I can't find a source for the poem at the end, would love it if someone could share one, please and thanks.(1 vote)
- Click on the words at the bottom of the article, "Michelangelo's Poetry on Poetry Avenue", and everything will appear.(1 vote)
