Characteristics Of Michelangelo's Influence On The Renaissance

Dalayna Marji

4/12/17

Literature

Mrs. Lessard

Michelangelo First Draft

Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni, although he had brilliant rival in his lifetime, had unparalleled influence on the Renaissance and drastically altered the course of art history due to his revolutionary styles. Michelangelo did not come from a family of artists, but rather had to pave the path of his career without the support of his family or childhood peers. He thought of himself as an independent artist, and indeed his works have unique characteristics. His work will forever influence the progression of art to all future generations to come.

Michelangelo’s early life was not the common life of artists of his day. In an age where painting was often family

Some of this inspiration clearly came from the old Roman and Greek art which filled Rome. One of his early Roman works was an exact copy of a lost piece called The Sleeping Cupid. Vasari recounts that Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco, one of Michelangelo’s associates, upon seeing the finishing product, gave him advice that he took to heart. “He said ‘If you were to bury it underground and then sent it to Rome treated in such a manner as to make it look old, I am certain that it would pass for an antique, and you would thus obtain much more for it that by selling it here’”(Vasari 170). Michelangelo took the advice and later year, he went to Cardinal Riario’s home to offer his letter of recommendation upon arriving in the city of Rome. Attempting to both impress and intimidate him, Riario lead Michelangelo on a tour of his personal art gallery. “If the cardinal meant to use the young Florentine cavalierly, his punishment was immediate and poetic, for amid the antiquities Michelangelo beheld a sleeping Cupid which he instantly claimed as his own work”(Sabatini 83). This piece was later discovered to truly be Michelangelo’s work, and was sold again as an original Michelangelo. “Indeed, having successfully passed off his work as a Roman marble helped add luster to the start of a glistening career, by showing Michelangelo had the technical skill and creative genius to match his forebears”(Charney 71). When in

In 1505, Pope Julius commissioned Michelangelo to paint the fresco of the Ceiling of the Sistine Chape. He started painting this piece in a way that had never been done before. The traditional format of a ceiling of such an extravagant church building such as the Pope’s Sistine Chapel was commonly only single, simpler figures. Michelangelo introduced dramatic and powerful scenes from prophet’s lives, and the nine stories Genesis. Half way through this monumental project, he took a brief break of leisure. Upon his return to work, “his style underwent a shift towards a more forceful grandeur and a richer emotional tension than any previous work. The images of Separation of Light and Darkness, and Ezekiel illustrate this greater freedom and mobility”(Gilbert 304). On the unveiling of this masterpiece, “thousands came to stand under the magnificent fresco to see the long awaited work of Michelangelo”(Vasari 193). They were not disappointed; the grand scale of it had such a tremendous effect on the crowd. They were in awe at the vivid colors, and bold, graceful figures. It was not only the talk of the town, but of the entire world for any of those who kept up with artworks in those times. Michelangelo’s work on the Sistine Chapel continue to awe visitors. Even his rivals admitted his work on the fresco was